Pete Nickeas

A brief respite from politics.

There are times when it’s best to shut your mouth. Bite your tongue and observe.

And I’ve long known the importance of that principle because you can’t always push people. I learned it when I was young … you can talk a tall order but it’s not a good way to be. You can’t just confront everyone you disagree with.

Likewise, if you’re going to twist somebody’s arm, you have to realize that there comes a time when it breaks. And sometimes that “break” means you get in a shouting match, or it means you’re cut out of the circle, or it means you win.

But either way, you get into murky waters when you start poking people and pushing people.

So that I’ve done is, I’ve come to believe that there’s some people you just can’t talk to. And you push, and you test your boundaries, but when you approach that breaking point … you either gotta go or stop. Right?

Part of this is observing how people interact with others too. Just evaluate people, you know?

And at that point, why bother? When you know what’s up with somebody, when you know how that person carries responsibility and how that person treat’s people, it’s not even worth a fight or a push or a poke. When that happens I work to accept things for what they are and then work within that framework.

And that last step is the bitch of it, seriously. Getting to the point where … you know. You just know. There’s a moment of clarity where it hits you and you have to step away, stop pushing, stop moving on someone. Because you know where their breaking point is.

But once you know! Perfect. You’ve got a read on somebody. And working with them, or against them, becomes so much easier.

For real.

This is one of those times.

Damn am I tired.

I’ve been moving shit out, with the help of friends. Got three truck loads hauled to storage plus some stuff moved up to another buddy’s apartment, where I’ll be crashing for the next couple weeks.

But! We’ve also been working 12 hour plus days. So the only time I can move out is after dark.

Just updating everyone … I feel really bad about not writing here. I’ve been neglecting my journal too. Speaking of which, I’ve kicked around the idea of transcribing random journal updates … just a date, and the corresponding entry. And I’m not sure yet I want to give people that much access. That, and I do use profanity. So we’ll see. Often the journal is used as a means of letting off some steam, or sorting through emotions and figuring out a good course of action.

We’ll see. Off to work!

I’ve been at work for about an hour and I’ve got way too much going on right now.

- I was walking down 5th street this morning towards home (and also yesterday at one point) and there’s the nasty formaldehyde smell (or other embalming chemical) coming from the Ellinger-Kunz & Park Funeral Home & Cremation Service building. It’s very distinct, extremely disgusting smell.

- It’s going to rain all day. I didn’t move yesterday because of threatening rain and I didn’t want to risk getting all of my stuff wet. It’s going to be in storage for awhile and I don’t feel the need to pre-soak my furniture on the ride over. So now we’re gonna try and get all of it out in increments this week I guess, whenever time permits.

- I feel like I should be more psyched up for this week but I’m not. I’m actually kinda bummed right now and I don’t feel well. I’m more interested in following the capital plan money than the prospect of an income tax hike or any other budget scenario.

- I talked to a guy about a job a couple weeks ago, and he seemed pretty cool. And I talked to another guy about a job last week (same company) and he also sounded like a good guy. So here’s to hope.

- I’m moving out of the first apartment I had with Erin. We moved in on our one-year anniversary last year. It’s sad. I’m going to miss Springfield. Learned a lot here. Last night I was walking a friend’s dog (the two of them tripped out to California for a couple days) and I was thinking, no way I pictured myself being cool enough with anyone I meet in Springfield to house-sit for them for three days. I mean, it didn’t even enter my mind that I’d meet people here that I’d be cool with. Just kinda figured I’d come, work for a year, and jet. Which is what’s happening anyway. But I’ve met some really, really cool people here too.

In what I think is a strange bit of irony … Seeing my brothers become marines and getting my master’s degree have illustrated to me exactly what I abhor about academia.

So for reference … I’m proud of my brothers. At the time of enlistment, i didn’t think enlisting was wise. Not because they’re going to see combat (they’re soldiers, that’s what they do) but because I thought Mike has both the athletic skill and the discipline to get him through college and Jack is a really, really smart kid. (They’re not blessed with both physical prowess and sheer brilliance, like their old brother *chuckle chuckle chuckle*)

But Mike’s doing top-flight marine shit. He’s in a scout sniper platoon, and that is super-difficult to do. And Jack, I was worried how he would adjust to the Marine culture, because Mike’s all about that shit, for real. His life is the Marines. He’s made for this.

Jack, it seems, kept his head down and did what he was told throughout boot camp. He didn’t want to go to college (I can’t blame him) so he’ll do a four year tour and come out with life experience and a skill … just like the commercials tell you.

Anyway, their two graduation ceremonies to me were what graduation ceremonies should be. The ceremony itself only lasted an hour but there was an abundance of optional activities for parents who were geeked to see their kids become killers.

So the parents got to see their kids doing what they were trained to do. That’s the part of the ceremony that’s for them. And it was optional. Again … the ceremony (senior drill instructors … DISMISS YOUR PLATOON) took just under an hour.

For Jack, they graduated like 440 Marines or something. Very uniform, very scripted, very disciplined.

And in my mind, academia lacks that discipline.

Compare that to the UIS Graduation ceremony. Everybody’s name was read, and everybody had to shout out three esteemed colleagues.

And compare the dress between the two ceremonies. Everybody has a different robe. Military dress is clean, tight, crisp. But everyone on the stage has a goofy hat, clashing colors, robes that make everyone look extremely obese … that’s not a good look.

It can’t be for practical purposes that the dress is so obnoxious. The marines, for example, can see different ranks by what they wear. Green belts are drill instructors, I think, and the black belt were the senior drill instructors. Something like that. But nobody in school is ever taught about the tradition of different robes. It’s not meant to signify chain of command or superiority and if it is, it’s not taught, which means that show of authority would fall on ignorant subordinates.

I mean, parents are there to see their kids, right? They’re proud already. Their kids have master’s degrees.

If more people in college were taught to go hard, work 12 hour days and perfect their craft … you wouldn’t have so many undisciplined slackers floating around all parts of the private and public sector. How often throughout a child’s life and schooling are their ego’s inflated - like they’re too good to work labor, too good to work fast food, too good to work more than 40 hours a week.

What’s the aversion to work? You don’t like to do it, so what? Suck it up.

This graduation, and others too I’m sure, was actually a big suckfest. Everybody has stained faces from burying their noses up their esteemed colleagues’ esteemed asses. It’s an unnecessary time-suck that reinforces a culture where mediocrity is acceptable.

I prefer a life where you devote yourself to whatever it is you do … Go hard, with the idea being, you’ll either be better than everyone else because you’ve spent more time doing it or at the very worse, you’ll know more than everyone even if you can’t implement your knowledge.

The sincerest of apologies are in order for the dust that’s begun to settle on this blog.

But let me tell you, it’s been one hell of a week.

It started Sunday night, staking out the leaders and seeing a capital plan being fleshed out.

The state Senate passed a construction plan Wednesday and the House passed it Thursday. The boss has been sick, though, so we’ve been on our own basically. We turned out eight stories between the two of us yesterday, half of them legislative and the other half about projects in our coverage areas.

In between that, I’ve been looking at donations, road projects, reform legislation, train maps, and other fun infrastructure things.

Needless to say, I’ve been feeling torn about how I feel about this whole thing all week. The hours suck but I love the job. Days like yesterday - when we were turning stories important to our coverage areas for numerous reasons - are perfect.

Other days, not so much.

Either way … it’s the end of the week, lawmakers canceled all of their planned weekend sessions, so that means nobody’s here til Tuesday. WE may be here this weekend but I dunno. See what the boss says I suppose.

And on that note … it’s 86 and sunny.

PEACE!

And right now I’m feeling pretty hateful.

First of all, I’m starting to feel like a bitch.

I mean, I run around all day following someone hoping they give me the opportunity to hear something substantive come from their mouth. Then, if they say something newsworthy, it makes my day.

I mean, shouldn’t they be saying those things anyway?

I’ve known for a long while that the budget and construction plans get negotiated behind closed doors. But I’ve never actually had the feeling of being blocked out of those negotiations because I’ve never had to try and cover them.

So the state’s going to spend $26 billion on roads and schools and the legislative leaders won’t say what, if anything, they disagree on. They won’t say when they’re going to do it. They won’t say why we need it.

But what they will do is foist the components of the plan on their members and expect a vote. They’ll fall in line. It’s a carefully choreographed presentation and everybody has a role to play. Including us.

And don’t give me the company line of “well that’s just the way it is.” I can see that. Save your breath.

Woo hoo!

I don’t feel like I have a master’s degree but it’s probably for a variety of reasons … mostly because there’s another month or so of work coming up.

What would be super-dope is, if the lawmakers get done a couple days early. Apparently, people that matter at the capitol have kids or grand kids graduating college or high school on the Saturday or Sunday before or on the budget deadline. There was a lot of “either ors” there but you get the point. They could bang out a budget on the 29th and leave everyone with the weekend … the weekend, we wouldn’t have off anyway but at least the budget would be done and maybe we could come in at 9 on Monday instead of the normal 7:30 or 8.

Anyway, out tonight to celebrate with some friends.

In February of 2007, Erin and I traveled to Springfield (my first time) to see Obama announce he was running for President.

We weren’t dating yet at the time, and invited other people to go, but it ended up being just us. Which at the time was weird, because we weren’t even really good friends like that.

Turned out to be a really cool day (literally) and what was weird was, because this was a 3 plus hour trip to and from Springfield in a single day, there was occasional silence in the truck on the way down. Wasn’t awkward silence though, which was dope. Because I mean, if I could just sit with her and it wasn’t weird to not be talking, that’s cool right? IT IS!

And we didn’t end up dating for like 3 months after that.

But when we were in Springfield, before we left town and because it was so cold, we hit up this little Mexican food spot down the street from the old Capitol called Emilios.

It’s actually kinda grimy, so if you’re into waiters in uniforms and someone standing next to your table at all times with a pitcher of water and a pepper grinder, this place is not for you.

Erin had pancakes then. She had pancakes this time, too.

The table cloths are actually just blankets put over booth tables and plastic over that. The colors are kinda obnoxious but it works well for the place. And there’s booth seats, only four booths I think, but they aren’t anchored, so don’t lean back in them.

I had a breakfast horseshoe with chorizo, eggs cooked over easy, and a cheese sauce that was more like a thick batter than a watery dressing. The coffee is good ( Erin thinks otherwise) and the service is great too.

Plus, we went there two years ago, so the place has some sentimental value to it.

Anyway, so after like two years, Erin and I are still together. I’d say it’s been a pretty good two years.

Last year on our anniversary, we were moving in to our apartment in Springfield. And barring a miracle, it appears we’ll be leaving. I don’t see any statehouse reporting jobs opening up so I’m looking elsewhere and we’ll jet from here as soon as we can.

This means, no Emilio’s next year on our anniversary. Bummer.

Or was an old author trying to write his own closing scene?”

On a rainy day, when I can only reiterate my love for thunderstorms and the tranquil peace that they bring, I give to you …

“Word from the big bad, fat ass, motherfuckin, Brother Ali! Ugh!”

This is one of those songs I feel privileged to have stumbled upon. Can’t even begin to recite all the quotables from this song. I’ve quoted extensively from this song in my journal entries, on my facebook/myspace pages, and in random ass conversation with people and they don’t even know about it. Also, when you get drunk and talk with one of your buddies about life stuff? This is one of those songs that spurs conversation.

This is gotta be one of the most introspective and insightful songs I’ve heard.