How To Everything 3

 Have you ever lost your keys? Everyone has. Does it happen to you often? Did it happen to you today? Do you know where your keys are right now? This has happened to me since as far back as I can remember; since as far back as I've had keys.

I still misplace my keys from time to time. It's something I need to work on constantly. I'm not a naturally organized person. In fact, I'm a downright disaster. The only reason it doesn't happen to me every day is simple: I put a place aside for my keys, wallet, etc. 

In other words, I created a system.

I have created systems for all of the routine things in my life. There's no way to add excitement to the routine things, but there is no need to add frustration. In the businesses we run, we implement systems for ourselves and our teams. We find that problems we encounter can often be directly attributed to a lack of systems or failure to follow the system.

In the cases when a problem occurs because there is no system, we create a system to avoid a repeat of the situation. We're a young company and we are growing every day. Rather than let the growing pains derail us, we learn from the experiences and get better while moving forward.

These systems make us more efficient, which makes us more profitable, which makes it possible for us to invest in other businesses or hire more people. When you look at it this way, being organized and systematizing many aspects of your life and business feels like a moral obligation as well as common sense.

Adolfo Jimenez is an entrepreneur, author, poet, and blogger. He lives in Hollywood, Florida. He has published ten books, which you can find here. Adolfo is the co-owner of The Cafeteria Company, a commissary outsourcing firm. He also co-owns Soup -n- Sam, Le Velo Macaron, and Starlight Catering.

The New Cool

Spend a little time on social media and it's hard to see how cynicism has become the new cool. I will admit that I am something of a cynic. I was first told this when I was about nineteen years old. I dated a woman in her late twenties (I was mature for my age.) She was intelligent and sophisticated and had a couple of college degrees. I did my best to keep up but when you lack education, as I did at the time, you try to follow along as best you can. (I am still much less educated than I would like to be, but them's the breaks!)

When she called me a cynic, I wasn't a hundred percent sure of what it meant. I know now, and I guess I could say I am a part-time cynic. I spend a lot of time around politics, I read some news on occasion, and I have a Facebook account. How could I not be?

But there is a side of me that wants there to be meaning to everything. There's a part of me that looks for meaning and even tries to create meaning in the most ordinary of things.

But it's so easy to be a cynic. It's practically forced upon us. We're told to hurry, to move along. We're convinced we don't have time to be kind and thoughtful even as we sit on the couch and binge-watch every episode of "Friends" for the third time. Humor, real humor, has been replaced with sarcasm. Good deeds are viewed, you guessed it, cynically.

I think I'll try to become a little less cynical. I'll do my best to see things in a more open and accepting way. I'll try to prove that old girlfriend wrong. Not that's she'll notice. We haven't talked in decades and she'd probably on season whatever of the latest must-see rerun. Oops! There I go again!

Adolfo Jimenez is an author, poet, and blogger. He lives in Hollywood, Florida. He has published ten books, which you can find here.

The Gray Hours

 The greatest con ever perpetrated against humanity, is convincing people that time is not precious. I am nearly fifty years old. Statistically, I have lived more than half the years I will get to live. I find myself in the interesting spot of anticipating my regrets. I am proactively thinking of things to put in the bucket list so I don't end up regretting things I didn't do.

I have always been an early riser. I also get by on relatively little sleep. I learned long ago to put this to my advantage though I need to remind myself of this every now and then. I need to remind myself that just because the day starts early for me, doesn't mean I get more time. I get 24 hours like everyone else. Wasting the extra hours I don't spend sleeping makes no sense. Might as well sleep.

I am in my new office, at my new desk in my house. I am in the gray early morning with a window to my left that faces east. The sun is up somewhere out there but it's still warming up so there is more shadow than light in this little room. Everyone else in my house is asleep. Even the dogs want nothing to do with the day. I'm glad for it. This is the part of time that belongs to me.

So, use your time wisely. Even when there is nothing that needs doing, don't waste your life doing nothing.

Adolfo Jimenez is an author, poet, and blogger. He lives in Hollywood, Florida. He has published ten books, which you can find here.

An Earned Advantage

I'm sitting at my dining room table reading an article. My wife is leaning on the kitchen counter with a cup of coffee in her hands. It's Saturday. We have the day off. There is a man crawling around our attic installing a new central air conditioner.

I share my thoughts on the article with my wife and she tells me I am a smart cookie. I'm not sure I agree. I have an advantage over many people, though. I know how to read. I earned that advantage. It's not like being born tall and good-looking. I don't have those unearned advantages. My parents made sure I can read. That I enjoy reading and devote significant time to it, may be something I earned, or may be something I was born with.

Because I am a man who will look for any advantage he can get, I tell my wife that the only real proof of my intelligence is that I married her. She smiles, walks over and kisses me. I steal her coffee. What do you know about that? I am smart!

I never finished high school. I got my GED at 24 and took some classes at the community college. No degree. But I read every day. I read books, magazines, newspapers, anything I can get my hands on. This has been my advantage. I learned what I wanted to learn, what I felt would be useful; not what a college administrator wanted me to learn. I'm better for it. And... no debt!

If you're taking the time to read this, you may share that same earned advantage. In which case, good for you, and thanks for stopping by!

Adolfo Jimenez is an author, poet, and blogger. He lives in Hollywood, Florida. He has published ten books, which you can find here.

A Contactless Future

 The COVID-19 plandemic and its fallout should have become a distant memory by now, but the government would never let such a useful “crisis” go to waste. They made the mistake of giving us an inch, we took a mile, and now the Delta Variant has been unleashed upon the populace.

As I sit here in the early morning gloom of a rainy South Florida summer day, I am browsing articles, investment opportunities, and the like. I keep finding how Contactless features have been incorporated into everything from groceries to real estate transactions. Even as the pandemic fails, the main symptom, which is the fear of coming into close proximity to other people, keeps getting its lease on life extended.

Add this to cancel culture, critical race theory, political correctness, and the general vitriol we are living with here in Don and Joe’s Great American Experiment, and it’s getting harder to feel optimistic about America’s future.

I am a touchy-feely guy, though I save that mostly for my loved ones. I don’t want to never shake a stranger’s hand. I don’t want to be afraid to hand something, anything, to another human being. I am not an island and I don’t want to be. 

Give me contact or give me death!

Adolfo Jimenez is an author, poet, and blogger. He lives in Hollywood, Florida. He has published ten books, which you can find here.

2 Flights in 22 Years

 The first time I traveled on business, and possibly the first time I flew by myself, was in 1999. I was twenty-eight years old. Now, as I am somewhere above the Rocky Mountains with my wife and daughters, I have to reflect on how much has changed. I remember that first business trip. I flew American from Miami to Dallas on a mostly empty plane. I had a row of seats to myself. I was given a meal. I was even offered seconds. Ditto the return flight. Now, this plane is packed, barely room for a thought. The first leg was Miami to Dallas and now we’re on our way to Bozeman, Montana for a vacation. Our third consecutive year of flying out here and spending a week at a ranch in West Yellowstone. We’ll ride horses, make smores, go whitewater rafting and eat a surprisingly good slice of pizza.

I am, as I write this, sick to my stomach. I had a 7-11 breakfast in Dallas and cookies and a Coke on the flight. We’re three hours or so behind schedule because Texans seem to be afraid of rain. I live in South Florida. Rain is something that’s just… there.

This is not just a fat guy whining because he didn’t get a meal on the flight. I feel bad for the crew. I hope they brown-bagged it today. It’s just that as I evaluate my current situation 26,000 feet above the earth, I can’t help feeling sad. We’ve lost so much.

I remember being on flights, next to complete strangers, and striking up conversations that lasted from wheels up to touchdown. Now, in-flight entertainment, cellphones and tablets have done away with conversations besides that awkward look that says, “Excuse me, I have to go pee. Get up and let me pass.”

It’s not different from all aspects of life, really. Think back to the last time you were in a doctor’s office. Were there magazines to read? Did you chit chat with others who were waiting? Or, did you just stare at your phone? The more connected we are, the more disconnected we are.This is not an original thought and I don’t mean to try passing it off as one. It just seems worth discussing.

There is a certain irony in the disconnected connection we experience now. We’re able to instantly access news, updates, stock quotes, hotel prices, a ride to the airport or pictures of people far away, some we may know, others we may not know. We gawk at celebrities and gush over kittens while ignoring people with whom we are literally rubbing elbows. I don’t know if it’s right or wrong, but it’s weird. 

Adolfo Jimenez is an author, poet, and blogger. He lives in Hollywood, Florida. He has published ten books, which you can find here.

The Nomadic Imperative

Often you will hear someone tell you they want to live a nice quiet life. We have been convinced that all we really want is some variation of what we see on TV. A spouse, a kid or two, maybe a dog or a cat, perhaps a witty guinea pig or a bird. We want a car and we want two weeks vacation every year plus weekends off. Except the guinea pig and the bird. They're relatively new. And I'm allergic to cats so I have two dogs.

This has been my life for nearly thirty years and I can tell you I was sold a lie.

This is not to say I haven't been happy. I have been. I am happy. But, I am also restless. I feel like I am cheating myself. I feel like I am giving up on my dreams. I remind myself that I am young enough to still go out and do the things I want to do. Then my back hurts, and I remember I am not as young as I imagine myself to be. Young at heart, old just about everywhere else.

Is this what Thoreau meant when he talked about men living lives of quiet desperation? Is this why I work to fill the void? I don't really know. I don't think anyone could know. I do know it sucks and while the intensity of these feelings increases and decreases, they never quite go away.

I've lived in the same area most of my life. I am, as I write this, 30 minutes from where I grew up, went to school, learned to drive, and lost my virginity. I long to move, but I have responsibilities. I want to walk, to seize the road, but I can't. It would be irresponsible, and I can't do that.

Ernest Hemingway said that to live in one land is captivity. Well, shit. He was right. Not that everyone who lives a stable, successful middle-class existence is unhappy. I can see people choosing this life. I can see its appeal. Maybe it's because I have no choice that I feel the urge to move on.

I feel the urge, but I will fight the urge. I ain't going nowhere. For now. But if I do decide to go, you'll read it here first.

The views expressed by the author are his alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of anyone anywhere.

Adolfo Jimenez is the chair of the elections committee of the Libertarian Party of Broward County. He is an author, poet, and blogger. He lives in Hollywood, Florida. He has published eight books, which you can find here.

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Losing Linnie

We lost a pet this morning. Our guinea pig Linnie died some time during the night. Linnie was a unique little furball. Black with some brown smudges here and their and her hair was all cowlicks so she was always a mess. Another thing about Linnie: She was a boy.

When we got her, about two years ago, we were told she (he) was a girl. About a year later, we confirmed he (she) was a boy. We found this out when we got her (him) a boyfriend. His name is Milton. It turns out Milton and Linnie are not gay. They didn't get along too well at first as they each tried to establish dominance. They worked it out and settled into a bromance that sadly ended this morning.

Linnie became short for Linnard.

My wife and daughters handled Linnie all the time. Linnie loved to be carried by them. Such was his macho heterosexuality that I could never carry him. I am also allergic to animal hair so I didn't try too hard, but I did love feeding the boys carrots and grapey-grapes. They were never shy about yelling for food whenever they heard or saw you go near the kitchen. They were furry little fatties, and they are part of the family.

Now, it's up to Milton to squeak for carrots and grapes. It's up to him to be held and loved. I'm sure he misses his friend.

What is it about an animal that makes them so special? They are with us  for a relatively short time and then they're gone but the mark they leave on our heart is like a permanent scar left by a sudden flash of an event.

We buried Linnie in the yard next to our dog Baxter, who died last year after being with us for over twelve years. I miss that guy, too. There's a new dog now. His name is Max. We rescued him quite accidentally on Thanksgiving. Baxter left huge shoes to fill, but I think Max will hold his own.

I'm going to go lay in bed and cry for a while. Hug those you love. All time is borrowed.

Adolfo Jimenez is an author, poet, and blogger. He lives in Hollywood, Florida. He has published eight books, which you can find here.

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