Daily Mugshot

The end of another year.  One behind, one forward.  It is odd that at this point in time we all stop for a moment and reflect more on where we are going than where we have been.  I am not against this as I am generally a "glass-half-full" kind of guy.

So here we go.  A brief look back.  2008 was probably the most stressful year of my life.  Not the Marines, the kids or the layers of drama I have experienced in my life.  No, 2008 was the high-point in that honor.  It all seemed to be going so well.

Was rolling into my 9th year with the same company heading towards the 10th.  Good work doing IT Service Management stuff globally.  Happy family life.  It was good.  Strangely enough it all began to change with the decision to sell our home and move to a town we had been thinking about moving to for quite a while.  

Shortly after the search we had decided on the next house, put in a bid, was accepted and then began to focus on putting our home on the market in lieu of the pending move.  I was also planning on attending the Pink Elephant conference in Vegas for work which was a great opportunity to network and pick up new tips/tricks/advice on implementing various elements of ITSM.

Then it all fell apart.  The morning of February 13th, a mere 5 days from my Vegas trip, I was called on the carpet and told that with the market conditions my services were no longer deemed essential to the business' operations.  I was delivered my bag, jacket, my card was taken and I was escorted out of the building never to see my desk, nor co-workers again.  I vaguely remember standing outside of the building for what seemed like an eternity in a daze while every imaginable thought was rushing through my mind.  

The house, the family, the future..... What would I do now?  How would I tell the family?  Did I fail?  Then I hit panic mode and after arriving home immediately began flooding the market with my hastily updated resume.  I needed to find work and quick.  To hell with the severance, I needed to work.

Long story short, in a tight market, we were able to find a buyer for the house, closed on the new home and while out of work, I coordinated the move itself, enjoyed time at home with the kids and continued searching for work.

I would say that lasted a couple of months until we were settled in the new home and I began to get stir crazy.  No calls were coming in from companies looking to hire.  As the days drug on, I began thinking about going it alone.  Photography?  Pro-Blogging?  There had to be something that I could do to earn some income.  I even did a few Mac support jobs for friends earning a tad bit of cash.  

In the end it just wasn't fulfilling.  I suppose having worked a solid day since the age of 17, I needed to actually be in a position to "GO" to work.  Begin home seemed somewhat strange to me.  As if I couldn't' take it seriously enough as work.  After all I was at home with no where else to go but maybe the local coffee shop to feel as if I was working.

Then in August the call came in!  A company was interested in ITSM (ITIL) and were looking for an Incident Manager.  Sure the pay was less than what I had worked my way up to achieve, but on the up-side the company offices were only 20 minutes drive from home and I wouldn't have to do the hell-commute into Manhattan.  I could wake up at a reasonable hour, get home at a reasonable hour and still have time to spend with the kids.  I jumped at the chance.  It has been a pleasure ever since my start of October 6th.  Good work, good company, good people and great location!

So there you have it, my look back.  I know now that there may just be a plan in life for all of us.  I understand that in the daily grind we may not see what that is, but for me it seems to all have been a journey that has delivered me on a new path that has given me exactly what I wanted; a better quality of life.  

Yes it was hard.  No I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but as they say, that which does not kill you, will only make you stronger.  I am focused now on the future.  One which I will address in my next blog.  For now, I will simmer on this one for a while and appreciate my hardships so that I may plan for a brighter tomorrow.

The end of another year.  One behind, one forward.  It is odd that at this point in time we all stop for a moment and reflect more on where we are going than where we have been.  I am not against this as I am generally a "glass-half-full" kind of guy.  As with many during this time of year, it is time to reflect and plan.  This is the first post of that process for me.

So here we go.  A brief look back.  2008 was probably the most stressful year of my life.  Not the Marines, the kids or the layers of drama I have experienced in my life.  No, 2008 was the high-point in that honor.  It all seemed to be going so well.

Was rolling into my 9th year with the same company heading towards the 10th.  Good work doing IT Service Management stuff globally.  Happy family life.  It was good.  Strangely enough it all began to change with the decision to sell our home and move to a town we had been thinking about moving to for quite a while.

Shortly after the search we had decided on the next house, put in a bid, was accepted and then began to focus on putting our home on the market in lieu of the pending move.  I was also planning on attending the Pink Elephant conference in Vegas for work which was a great opportunity to network and pick up new tips/tricks/advice on implementing various elements of ITSM.

Then it all fell apart.  The morning of February 13th, a mere 5 days from my Vegas trip, I was called on the carpet and told that with the market conditions my services were no longer deemed essential to the business' operations.  I was delivered my bag, jacket, my card was taken and I was escorted out of the building never to see my desk, nor co-workers again.  I vaguely remember standing outside of the building for what seemed like an eternity in a daze while every imaginable thought was rushing through my mind.

The house, the family, the future..... What would I do now?  How would I tell the family?  Did I fail?  Then I hit panic mode and after arriving home immediately began flooding the market with my hastily updated resume.  I needed to find work and quick.  To hell with the severance, I needed to work.

Long story short, in a tight market, we were able to find a buyer for the house, closed on the new home and while out of work, I coordinated the move itself, enjoyed time at home with the kids and continued searching for work.

I would say that lasted a couple of months until we were settled in the new home and I began to get stirr crazy.  No calls were coming in from companies looking to hire.  As the days drug on, I began thinking about going it alone.  Photography?  Pro-Blogging?  There had to be something that I could do to earn some income.  I even did a few Mac support jobs for friends earning a tad bit of cash.

In the end it just wasn't fulfilling.  I suppose having worked a solid day since the age of 17, I needed to actually be in a position to "GO" to work.  Begin home seemed somewhat strange to me.  As if I couldnt' take it seriously enough as work.  After all I was at home with no where else to go but maybe the local coffee shop to feel as if I was working.

Then in August the call came in!  A company was interested in ITSM (ITIL) and were looking for an Incident Manager.  Sure the pay was less than what I had worked my way up to achieve, but on the up-side the company offices were ony 20 minutes drive from home and I wouldn't have to do the hell-commute into Manhattan.  I could wake up at a reasonable hour, get home at a reasonable hour and still have time to spend with the kids.  I jumped at the chance.  It has been a pleasure ever since my start of October 6th.  Good work, good company, good people and great location!

So there you have it, my look back.  I know now that there may just be a plan in life for all of us.  I understand that in the daily grind we may not see what that is, but for me it seems to all have been a journey that has delivered me on a new path that has given me exactly what I wanted; a better quality of life.

Yes it was hard.  No I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but as they say, that which does not kill you, will only make you stronger.  I am focused now on the future.  One which I will address in my next blog.  For now, I will simmer on this one for a while and appreciate my hardships so that I may plan for a brighter tomorrow.

I was asked to partake in a little tagging exercise. Tagging is where you prompt others to share information that they are interested in discovering about you. So out of respect for Dramatic I will attempt to provide the information that he has so graciously shared with me.

What was I doing 10 years ago? June 1998. I was working in my former career of Radio/Television. I was employed as a contractor to Reuters Financial Television in Tokyo, Japan. This was also around the time that I met my wife who also worked there. But what I remember the most is the motley crew I worked with. They were a cast of characters. Not to mention the various events that went on behind the scenes of a live television operation.

It was also at this point that I began to discover what would become my true calling, Technology. Reuters was my jump off from Radio/Television into the fast paced world of Information Technology.

What are 5 things on my to-do list today?

1. First and foremost, get employed! As a victim of the recent culling on wall street due to the Sub-Prime Mortgage fiasco, I can tell you that it is very hard to find work around the NYC area, especially if you are from the Financial Services Industry.
2. Get settled into the new house
3. Pursue the quest to leverage one of my creative hobbies (Radio/Television etc.)
4. Get back in shape
5. Sign up for events with my kids

Snacks I enjoy: I prefer to call these my guilty pleasures. Reeses anything would be at the top of that list. On the healthy side, my Carb-Friendly mixed nuts would be a solid choice for me as well. Chocolate Chip Cookies - Dangerous. Hell, chocolate anything is dangerous.

Things that I would do If I were a billionaire: I would take care of home first and foremost. Kids - College; Parents - House; Me - Vacation Home and possibly some land out west to go and hide from reality. Has to have a river with plenty of room for fly-fishing. I would invest some to set me up for life even though I would have to work to retain my sanity and the rest I would contribute to a trust that supported a cause I believe in.

I find it amazing that the gray-matter that lives between the ears is capable of such wonders and powers of creativity. In some it is not so much creativity but logic. For me it is all about creativity. I struggle with this on almost a daily basis. I often attribute it to being left-handed/right-brained as science indicates this is the creative half of the brain. I am not sure why but there are days when I feel a cloud of pressure within my mind to release something, anything that will remove the frustration within.

I seem to have dabbled in various creative media my whole life. Music, art, writing, broadcasting, photography and in some cases technology. I am not entirely sure what drives this. I just feel deep within that I can create something of substance. As if there is this one thing locked deep within me that I need to let out. Traveling through the various creative avenues of my soul I search for it without knowing what it is.

In the process, I have turned to writing to pause life long enough to look within and try to understand where this desire is located. My posts have become my own personal form of therapy. Without it I would not be able to vent some of the pressure of the mind's craving to create. How lucky people like Picasso, Mozart and even Einstein were to have discovered the route to releasing this creativity. How is the question I need to find. Some days I force myself into a creative mode trying to force something to emerge. Other days, I believe it is all about inspiration as I wait for that one great epiphany or lightning bolt to strike.

Until the moment of enlightenment occurs, I am proceeding through life as I learn new ways of expression with the resolve that I may never find that "one thing" but will at least become a "Jack of all trades but master of none."

I am not sure if subconsciously I have waited until the end of Black History Month to write this or not. I think it has more to do with the fact that Black History month always makes me think deeply about myself.

Not because I am African American, because logically, having been born in the United Kingdom, how the hell can I claim to be an "African American?" "African British" maybe. LOL You see, I have always struggled with the African American wording as it relates to myself. Now, I just accept it to be the truth of living in the United States and looking the way I do. To understand where I am coming from you have to go back to how I was raised.

I was born in London during the '60s to a very rebellious white woman and a father who was in the U.S. Military and never knew. I do know that he had a family of his own to return to the U.S. to. That left me to be raised by my Mother who basically took me back to her home in Northern England where I spent much of my youth with my Grandparents.

All I ever recall is nothing but love from them. I never remember being treated differently even though they severely disapproved of my Mother's lifestyle at that time in her life. To me, there was no understanding of color. I was, as my former Blog title stated; "Simply Rik."

At some point my Mother met another U.S. Air Force member who she married and he became my step-father. For years I just thought I was a normal kid with two parents who appeared to love me. Sure they had their issues and I was not shielded from some pretty harsh battles, but it was all normal to me.

Culturally however, in retrospect, I look back and realize that I was raised in a predominantly African American environment. Home consisted of black light posters of very strong African American women. Music was Marvin Gay, the Temptations, Earth Wind and Fire and Richard Pryor records.

It wasn't until I was attending Elementary School in Alaska that I was confronted with the fact that I was not somehow "normal." It was at a PTA meeting which my Mother and I attended that after which, one of my classmates asked me if I was adopted. I didn’t know what that word meant so I did the only natural thing, I asked my mother if I was. To put it lightly, she lost her mind! Something to the effect of whether or not I wanted her to show me the scar from the stitches of getting my big assed head out. I graciously declined.

She did however explain to me at that point the difference between her and my father at that time. Why his skin was so much darker than ours. That was my first understanding that I was neither white, like her or black, like my father. It was a bit confusing but I just accepted it as nothing else really changed much.

Another reason nothing changed was that we were in the Air Force environment where mixed races were everywhere. People were people, race was never really mentioned much and school was always a rainbow of cultural flavors.

The shock occurred when it was time for my step father to retire. The decision was made to move to Norristown, PA outside of Philly. The neighborhood we moved into was a true African American neighborhood consisting of brownstones. My life had shifted to one color over a multi-colored environment. Maybe it was because I appear more black than white, but I was openly accepted into the culture surrounding me. I can say these were some of the best times of my life and everything I remember I can find all over again by watching those early Spike Lee movies. Football, Roller Skating or stick ball in the streets. Hanging out on the steps in front of the house with friends killing ice cream in the summer sun. All very fond memories to say the least.

I moved from one cross culture environment to a completely African American one. Not much of a leap in exposure to the issues surrounding race stresses. That is until one day at the cafeteria at school. A fight broke out between a white kid and a black kid. I just remember that someone was stabbed. That was when reality began to set in. Something was wrong, something was different and it was much bigger than me.

I think some how this affected me. Live on Cherry Street didn't change for me, but I was much more of a recluse at school. Kept to myself and didn’t really socialize much with anyone.

The summer of '82 found me going to Steubenville, OH to visit relatives on my own. I hung out and had a blast the entire summer. When it was time to return home, I walked into a war zone. I suppose my Mother had enough. She was tired of the abuse (Physical and mental) and the Alcoholism of my Step Father. Things escalated when I arrived and the end result was my Mother and I being put out.

With no where else to go we returned to Steubenville and that is where we settled down and I finished up my education. Steubenville was easy compared to Norristown. There everything was pretty segregated to begin with back in those days. Italian, Black and Irish. I guess you know where I ended up. LOL. I do remember that in my Senior Year there was the first real open relationship between a white cheerleader and a black football player. That sent some ripples through the halls of Steubenville High.

Because I was still figuring out where I fit in, I never dated anyone in High School really. So that whole scene was never an issue for me either. I finished up High School and went off to the Marine Corps where I assumed I would fit right in to that whole cross-cultural environment where color didn't matter much.

What I failed to realize was that as a kid in that environment you never were exposed to racism. Here at 18 years old I was confronted with it hard and fast. I had just reported to my first unit who lived in Open Squad Bays. Which is short for a big room with about 40 or so roommates. The only thing I had to do was pick a bed. As I looked across the squad bay to find an empty bed, I was amazed to see a form of subconscious segregation in action. Each culture had carved out its own area of the Squad Bay. African Americans, Latino, Asians and the whites were further segregated into basically north v.s. south. I was greeted and absorbed into the African American section. Mostly based on my looks.

With my background, I was definitely the odd man out. Couldn't dance, didn't have rhythm, loved the music. Talked white (thanks to arriving in the U.S. with a British accent) and looked Black. When Fridays came around we would all "posse up" and travel to the various black clubs in and around eastern North Carolina. After the first few of these adventures, I guess I got what could only be called a "mentor" to work with me on fitting into the African American culture more. In the end, I found my rhythm, learned to dance and was exposed to more types of African American culture and music.

The result of everything I have described above, I realize now, has given me a unique talent. A talent to morph into any situation and be what that situation dictates. I shamefully have found myself subconsciously adapting to whatever situation I find myself into feel as if I fit in where I am not that threatened by the environment. Is that wrong? I struggled with that for years.

Now that I am older, I have come to the firm realization that I am me. Simply Rik. I am tired of trying to be what society dictates I should be. I am tired of being absorbed into a culture simply based on my skin color. I am tired of being accepted by another because I am articulate. I am Rik, take me or leave me, because as 2Pac said, "Only God can judge me."

Having said that, and I know it sounded harsh, I can not claim one culture over another, I respect all of myself and my ancestors who have gone before me that passed on their traits and experiences which have given me the intelligence and strength to be who I am today.

In honor of that I WILL pay tribute to that part of me that has reaped the benefits of being exposed both genetically as well as environmentally to the African American culture.

I am blessed and fortunate to this African blood running through my veins. I am blessed to have been raised in a culture rich in struggle that has resulted my sense of self and strength. I am blessed to be part of a culture that has produced some of the greatest artists and minds this world has ever seen.

I will not deny my heritage. My grandmother was Italian. My Grandfather was Irish, my mother is British and my father was African American. To choose one negates the other. Often society forces you to choose one over the other and this has always been my struggle.

My responsibility in this life of mine is not to the various struggles that continue even in this day and age, but to my children who are further mixed with the Japanese culture. I look into their eyes and may find physical traits of myself, but not in skin tone, in bone structure, their hands, feet and hair.

It is these same eyes that as I gaze into them, makes me promise to myself that I can not let them ever forget about the heritage that is part of me and hence part of them. They are not weaker because they are not Black, White or Japanese, but stronger because of it. They need to learn about their varied histories and through that I hope learn about tolerance and acceptance of the person over the skin. They need to learn about the struggle, the domination and the atrocities of their cultures. This is the reality of being a mixed child. They will probably be stronger in one culture over another, but I can not allow them to be consumed by any one culture.

So, in closing, get this if you get nothing out of my writings; I am Simply Rik. There may be some cream in my coffee, but rest assured it is the best damn blend you may ever taste.

I have talked before about living in Japan and in some blogs about race and the differences of living in Japan v.s. here in the U.S.. No one knows more about these challenges then Ray and Montana Rodney.

I have known these two kids and their parents since they were very young. Ray Sr. and Eudith or Momma-Monkey as I called her basically became my mom-away from home when I lived in Iwakuni, Japan on the Marine base. Their family was truly amazing.

African American parents who sent their children to Japanese school from the time they began school. I remember babysitting Mon-chan (Montana) when she was a wee-little thing. I was just forwarded a YouTube site link from Momma-Monkey and WOW I am amazed at how beautiful these kids turned out to be. Guess that is a sign that we all get old. Damn!

Anyhow, when I left Iwakuni in 1993, the Rodney's were still there and although we have gone our seperate ways we have always managed to stay in touch. They have since moved back to the U.S. and found their home in New Orleans well before Katrina.

They too have their nightmares from that event, however they are trying to do something rather unique with the situation. The children are out promoting various causes in the area both in the U.S. as well as Japan. After seeing this clip for a Japanese effort, you can understand why.

Ray doing Calligraphy with Montana 

Brilliant, Beautiful Children I am proud to know (and be able to communicate with in either Japanese or English!)

If you want to see more from these two or what they're efforts are these days please visit their site at:

ANTJA LLC (Access Network Trade Japan America) is focused on building a strong bridge between Japan and the United States with the New Orleans based Dillard University brother-sister team of Ray Rodney Jr. and Montana Rodney.