Welcome to The Jerkstore

A reminder....

I am not here. I can be found here.

Countdown

In the early 1980's and before, if you had leftovers or a to go box from a local eatery you would heat them up in the oven or on the stove top. Then, everyone purchased and now owns a microwave for the most part. No one thinks twice about eating fried spaghetti any more. This is a shame.

Inside your house you could put your life on hold and not worry about what was going on in the world for a few minutes. Putting your feet up and unplugging from the world outside became a thing of the past with television in the 1950's and the internet in the 1990's. So what else could you do to get away?

You could leave the house and get out in the world, but then everyone started carrying cell phones so you were never too far away from someone reaching you no matter where you were. Now we share our pictures, thoughts and social status on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace (seriously, who still uses MySpace?) and whatever else you can think of.

I feel like I'm done. I've toyed around with the idea of leaving Facebook behind like I did my other social networking page several years ago. But how absurd is this? Writing about how I'm thinking about not having an online page about myself anymore? What the hell is going on?

If I added up all the time I spend on the stupid computer and Facebook, I'm sure at the end of the day/week/month/year I could be accomplishing something. Even if it is something small. I think I'm over it.

Here is a video portraying how I'd like to run away...

Blah Blah Blog

Limbo seems to be a word I am all too familiar with. It has either been moving to Kansas City and transitioning away from life in Sioux Falls or working a nine to five in the hopes that some day I will be able to do something for a living that I actually enjoy. Because, let's be honest, it is difficult to get up every day and be excited about working a job on the phone. I have no one but to blame but myself, as I have been easily talked out of working at a retail store location for the company that employs me.

This fall as I enter the season of my senior year, I hope to make a transition academically. Well, not so much the academic side of being a student, but what I do with my "free" time while there. My profession of choice when I exit college is to find a job as an assistant sports information director or maybe sans assistant. The guys that run the SID office at my school have agreed to take me under their wing. I'm feeling pretty good about the idea of getting back to more writing. Something that was severely lacking last year as sports editor for the campus newspaper.

My core classes for school have pretty much concluded. Now it is all a matter of wading through electives and a few other requirements. So it continues. Waiting for the next big thing to happen. I'm just hoping that this jumping from lily pad to lily pad does not continue to the point of me just waiting to transition to death eventually. I'm positive this is just the outcry of someone who is tiring of juggling 15 credit hours of school along with a 40 hour a week job that consists of telling people how much I understand their shortcomings.

I stayed up tonight partaking in an activity I used to really enjoy. Reading about World War II on the Internet. With the advent of Wikipedia, it has watered down the thoughts and opinions of everyone from former U.S. military vets to Holocaust deniers who post their thoughts on Angelfire constructed websites, but it still works. Tonight I focused on the bombing of Dresden and asked myself, "was an attack of this magnitude necessary? Did the Allies use sound strategical logic bombing a cultural center rather than focusing on the factories on the outskirts of town?" All this pondering, while still maintaining my status as everyone's favorite commenting asshole on Facebook.

I know why I stay up late at night. I know why I chose to stay in the job that I am in while I am preparing for something else. A quick note, I would have an interest in staying when I'm done with school if I am presented with an opportunity that doesn't make me feel like I only needed a middle school education to perform my tasks. I digress...

I seem to be afraid of what the next day will bring. I force myself to stay awake because I know something is around the corner that is making me anxious. I don't know what that is, but it seems like it's out there. Maybe it's because I've worked a succession of jobs that do not engage me mentally and intellectually. Maybe I'm so adjusted to the ho-hum mundane worker bee mentality that I'm getting nervous about the prospect of becoming the equivalent of Moses emerging out of the desert after 40 years.

Anyway. Time to actually face down my bed and the prospect of waking up again to watch the USA play Slovenia!

Certainty

Music. It is a common theme on this blog. I've been working on a music project for awhile, and I am in the midst of completing the final leg. At it's inception back in 2004, when I would break up with my last girlfriend before meeting my wife (again), it was intended to chronicle the songs surrounding the relationships I had from high school up until that point. Very typical of someone at that age I suppose.

One song struck me in particular tonight and it has to do with my wife. Our relationship goes back quite a ways. More than 10 years now as a matter of fact. We have only been "together" for half of that time, but the parts where we tried and failed are what I'm tackling with this final piece, among other themes.

This is pretty quick, but it resonated pretty deep tonight. In September of 2000, I was on hiatus with my on again, off again girlfriend at the time. Stephanie, was on with her on/off again. But I didn't care. I was in Omaha and I was going down to the town where we met, Maryville, Missouri. I didn't know what I was doing, I just did it. I had just confessed my feelings for her from the previous year when we met after all. I had to see her. I had to do something.

I skipped out on my cousin's wedding reception and set off for the campus of Northwest Missouri State with no plan. I didn't have a place to stay. I had not a clue what Stephanie and I were going to do. We ended up going to Kansas City. I did the typical dinner and a movie, which for the night was Olive Garden and "What Lies Beneath." It all ended innocently enough with me dropping her back off at her dorm, and me grabbing a spot on my friends couch who still went to school there.

But what made me even post this tonight was digging up the Bob Marley song "Waiting In Vain," which musically and lyrically is very germane to this part of the story of my wife and I.

I distinctly remember driving the back highway to get to Maryville in my white Volkswagen Golf, listening to this song with the admin building and the high rises on the horizon with the sun setting behind my car, thinking "I am certain this will never work out." Thus proving that certainty is never certain.

Riot!

So under my new plan I would be posting this only under my political blog. I'm writing with people from school but I figured I would include it on this blog too. It needs more attention.

Over the weekend, as most of you Kansas City news watchers or readers will know, there was a disturbance at the Country Club Plaza in Midtown. As most residents know this is an upscale, outdoor shopping center with nice restaurants and bars sprinkled in. Saturday night as many as 900 minors between the ages of 11 and 17, reportedly descended upon the three block district and proceed to harass, assault and vandalize person and property.

These are the facts from the perspective of the local media reporting on the story. The other major component of the story being reported by the press and television is the response by the police. Officers were dispatched to the area to break up large packs of kids and teens with pepper spray or mace. Most of which were just walking around in groups. Granted they were slowing traffic to a standstill, which is more than the normal pain it is to drive there, but mass amounts of pepper spray?

Two things disturb me about the activities of the kids and the actions of the police. First, we’ll address the issue of why were 900 or more kids at the Plaza past 10 p.m. on a Saturday night. There is widespread speculation as to how and why the event was organized. I’ve heard reports from kids being upset about schools being closed to having nothing better to do. I really believe more of the latter, and I’m alright with that fact, I can identify with being a teenage loitering nuisance because I was one at a particular point in my life.

What I take an issue with is the amount of reported vandalism, assault and sexual harassment as most people would, not their right to gather in mass groups in any particular area of town. My most obvious question is “where are the parents?” At group of 50 or so kids I can understand. But nearly 1000? This shows more of societal and fundamental flaw within the ranks of the parents whose children were participating in the late night gathering. I’ve read in the Kansas City Star some city council members are talking about developing more programs for kids to be involved with. I’m certain this could help, however parents becoming more involved with the lives of their children would remedy situations like this further and should be the basis of preventing issues like this from happening. Yet not mention is made of it. It seems to me that calling out parents for doing a subpar job of raising their children is taboo.

What’s more, is that if I were involved in some of the reported beatings and vandalism and my parents caught wind of it, specifically my father, would have had some physical things to say to me. Where are the fear based consequences for kids acting out like this in the home? Better yet, are the people who would carry out the punishment available?

Let’s be honest here, and this is an issue the Star and local television news will avoid, but most of these kids were African-American minorities. Kansas City isn’t the most race friendly towns I’ve ever been in. Suffice it to say it may be one of the worst in the Midwest. All you have to do is look at a census map and focus the demographic on race. You wouldn’t exactly call this place a melting pot. So why isn’t this being addressed in the paper or on T.V.? You can be assured it has the potential to spark further conflict. Whatever the case may be, no one wants to touch this one with a ten foot pole and most will just hope it gets swept under the rug.

The second problem I have is the actions of the Kansas City Police Department. I have talked to people I go to school with who were down on the Plaza that night and say people who were just walking around were maced or pepper sprayed by officers with little to no warning. Incidents were people were beaten or harassed I’m sure had reached the officers in and around the area, however the reaction was not surprisingly over the limit of just keeping the peace and dispersing the group.

In situations where large throngs of people can quickly escalate and spiral out of control, a firm and even-handed approach may pour water on the fire. The KCPD seems to have had other plans in mind. And now, with the prospect of white people from the suburbs looking to other places in town to take their business, fearful business owners will most likely call on the police to step up security in the area to make people feel safe. However, if things do start to come to a boil, will regular people who just want a nice evening out be left out of the crossfire? Based on the confusion from Saturday night I would be inclined to say no.

For the next six weeks the area will be teeming with officers, plain clothes officers and mounted police. The ranks of Kansas Cities finest will be protecting mostly white shoppers in an oasis of Kansas City social and economic segregation. But you have to stop and ask yourself, where is the concern for the violence in the areas located directly to the east of the Plaza? Star writer Tony Rizzo released a three-part story last spring entitled “Murder Factory” that nailed the zip code of 64130 as the highest homicide producing area in all of Missouri. More killers locked up in Missouri prisons and penitentiaries hail from this part of town, which is narrowly divides it from the Plaza by Bruce R. Watkins Drive.

Most likely, the issue will die down because most kids will be discouraged by the heightened police presence in the area. Some may return, however my prediction is you have seen the apex of this “movement.” The problem is not gone, as most people will probably assess the contrary as they gradually come out of their hiding places and back down into Midtown. The thing to keep in mind is where will something like this happen next? The Power and Light district where the owners of the operations have already targeted minorities based on a dress code? Or, God forbid, somewhere in Johnson county?

The disenfranchised made their presence felt, or kids acted up with nothing better to do. You’ll have to decide which is the truth. Although coming to any conclusion may take you to a place regarding the community and city in which you live that you would not dare to bring up at a Sunday barbecue.

Obligatory

Life, and this is far from groundbreaking, works in funny ways. I'm a competitive person, although it doesn't show most of the time. Let's take where I work just as an example. The reason I work where I do is so I can focus on school and get a paycheck in the process. That was the plan anyway, and now I'm #2 in our site out of roughly 600 people and #20 nationally in our company out of approximately 6000 people. It adds stress, but I could win a free trip.

I had no outlet for my competitive nature after high school really. Since I have been in school I seem to compete against myself for my grades and others I guess you could say. I've made the dean's list every semester since I have been at Park. When I went back and was accepted in the fall of 2007, I started a separate blog to keep track of the experiences. I should have kept it.

This blog was the driving force in bringing me back to something I have had a passion for since I was in high school, and probably before that. Writing, and more specifically journalism, is something I feel a great deal of attachment to. I've worked very hard at it since returning to school in January of 2008. I've endured trials, tests and rewards. My wife and I bought our first house. We adopted a dog. I lost a job. I got another one. I lost that one and got my current one. We bought a Great Dane. Through those ups and downs, it is nice to begin to see some of the payoff.

Tonight I attended an awards ceremony for Missouri colleges. Our paper won sweepstakes, which is an easy way of saying all the points compiled for our efforts in about 30 categories were added up and were higher than any other school in our division. I won a few individual awards, but this sweeps award was pretty sweet. It's still sinking in what we accomplished. The sum of our parts equals the top paper in the state of Missouri among colleges our size. I'll let you in on a little secret, in the big boy division, the University of Missouri which is thought of as a premier journalism school, did not win. That's not to say it's not a quality institution for our profession, because it is, but this shows that you don't have to go to one of those schools to get a quality education and practical experience for journalism.

Next year myself and another of my colleagues will become co-editors of this paper. I only hope we can contribute on a higher level to bring home this award again next year, because right now it's pretty cool to be where we are at. Who knew several years ago when I was only dreaming of living in this town that I would not only be successful in my personal live, but finally moving in the direction of success in a profession I should have tried to get into in the first place.