Summer has officially kicked off in neighborhood with the arrival of the ice cream truck – it's a different one from last year, a van that plays a schizophrenic loop of 30-second song snippets that includes Christmas music. Yesterday two realtors walked the subdivision placing plastic American flags near everyone's drive. Most of the flags fell apart in last night's spectacular thunderstorm. Tonight the college-aged boy across the street moved out of his parent's house while a group of kids cruised around our looping roads in an old Chevy Caprice drinking beer and tossing out their bottles. Yep. Summer is here.

In 1976 my father was in the middle of a three-year tour of duty in West Germany for the army. My family was stationed with him, which meant we missed the entire U.S. Bicentennial celebration. I've never told anyone, but I was really disappointed we weren't in the States. We learned about the American Revolution in the international school that I attended, but I know it just wasn't the same. We didn't have parades or anything patriotic. The closest I got was the Bicentennial postage stamps that arrived on letters from relatives. And, I got a tri-corner hat for Christmas.

I like parades. It's not the big, over-produced ones that I like – the Macy's Thanksgiving parade or the Rose Bowl parade – so much as it is the small ones. It's the quintessential Americana of the antique cars, the hotrods, the fire trucks, the little league teams and accompanying cheerleaders, the dance teams, the grand marshals, the marching bands, and the candy thrown to kids. Once, when my wife and I were traveling on a country highway we were stopped by a Sheriff's deputy in a town with no stoplights so the resident's kids march in costume for a Halloween parade.

Most people don't believe me when I tell them that my hometown newspaper used to have a swimsuit edition. Every year for Independence Day, the newspaper would validate the old farmer's adage of corn being "knee-high by the fourth of July," by posing a high school girl wearing a bikini (or at least a bathing suit) in shoulder-high corn. A couple of years ago I made a special trip home to pick up the swimsuit edition to prove I come from a hick town. But, modern times have come to my hometown – they had posed a family clad in overalls.

Driving home in the dark, the dry, grassy smell of fresh hay blew into my windows. It was when I looked into the field to see the pale expanse against the black that I realized the wheat had been harvested. I'd seen farmers out during the day, combines cutting large swaths out of the copper-colored wheat, sometimes miles at a stretch. Everything about wheat is so tidy, it grows at one height and when it's green it looks like a well groomed but overgrown lawn. Even after it is harvested there is a level, straw-colored stubble left in the fields.

I had a good, wholesome all-American weekend. Attended a Fourth of July parade, which was followed by the family cookout, and lots of eating. On Saturday we slept in, then took my son to the park to play. Today we went to church, then went with the grandparents to buy peaches at an orchard and have ice cream. I've been thinking a lot about the concept of wholesome lately. When I was younger I used to think wholesome was stupid, which was reinforced by television, movies, music. But now, I'm finding I really like wholesome. It makes me feel good.

The electricity went out at work today so I decided to leave for the day, as I wasn't really working at anything in particular. I navigated out of the building in explorer-mode as the halls were pitch black making the whole place even gloomier. It seemed symbolic of my relationship with my job – murky, restless, uneasy. I've come to the realization that I'm struggling with my career. I want something more exciting and challenging, but that means sacrificing family life. And I don't want to leave this job because it pays well and allows me to have a family life.

I can't remember when the power has been out so much. I'm sitting here writing in the dark (thanks to my trusty laptop battery) in what is my third power outage in roughly 36 hours. Yesterday it sent me home from work early. This morning about 5 a.m. the power went out due to a tremendous thunderstorm that knocked out electricity to more than 150,000 local (and mostly irate) residents – it was restored about 7:30 a.m., but we were among the lucky ones. Now, after most of this evening's thunderstorms have subsided, we're all dark here at the Erwin homestead.

I've been in a bad mood all week. Not so much a seething, angry disposition as a dark gray attitude of discontent, hovering just above my consciousness, tainting everything I around me. What is it about me that is making me miserable? What is the reason? I'm afraid to actually admit that I am not happy with my job, that I want a challenge, a place to grow. I'm afraid to start looking, to leave something that is at least familiar, even if it‘s less than I want. A friend told me the other day I need balance. I'm confused.

Okay, this funk is getting a little old. I'm tired of feeling like I about ready to lose it at any moment. I mean I felt edgy enough as it was and then work just started annoying the hell out of me until I wanted to punch someone. I know it's not all that rational, my thought patterns at time. Maybe my depression has crept up on me again. I didn't get to the pharmacy to get my meds, so I didn't have them today. I feel like shrinking into myself. I have no desire to do anything at all.

July 2, 1862 - Second Day of Gettysburg
Col. Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine are given orders to hold the Union's southern flank at all costs on a hill known as Little Round Top. The Confederates recognized the strategic value of Little Round Top and ordered several Alabama regiments to take the hill. The outnumbered 20th Maine held off the 4th and 47th Alabama regiments with serious numbers of casualties. It looked like Chamberlain's flank was exposed so the 500-man 15th Alabama attacked. In response, he ordered a complicated, textbook maneuver of withdrawing his flank to form a "V."

Things for the 20th Maine were becoming desperate. The swinging-gate maneuver of their flank weakened its line. CSA Col. William Oates and his 15th Alabama regiment rushed the 20th Maine over and over threatening to crush the Federal flank. Faced with dwindling ammunition, Col. Chamberlain ordered another unorthodox tactic: fix bayonets and charge down Little Round Top. Before the Confederates knew what was going on, they were overwhelmed by the 20th Maine and were forced to retreat. This victory was a pivotal moment in the Gettysburg battle, saving the Union Army from being defeated by a collapse of their flank.

We took my son to the zoo today for the first time. He's mostly too little to really be interested in much more than just the few big animals that move around or make noise. He seemed to be more interested in the people moving around him. The whole thing got me to thinking about how much I dislike zoos. Even when I was a kid I didn't like them. It's probably because the animals really don't or can't do much. That and the fact that zoos are profoundly sad with small concrete enclosures made to look like natural habitats.

The first time I grew my goatee, it took a long time. I was in graduate school, trying desperately to evolve into something different, my face slowly changing from patchy chin hair to thin beard. My beard is thicker now but it still takes it time to grow. A couple of months ago I shaved off my moustache to go with a beatnik vibe (some say Amish) and for the most part it worked. Except that I've finally developed a 5 o'clock shadow (at age 35 nonetheless) making me look sorta goofy. So, I'm growing my moustache back. Very slowly.

The employee Webcast that we have been working on, the one originating from Germany, has been rescheduled for the States due to cost constraints. Even though I wasn't going to travel, it was still fun to plan one of these things with our German operation center. It just reminded me of the three years I spent in West Germany when my dad was stationed there for the Army. We lived in two Rhineland cities – Wesel and Karlsruhe – and for a while I attended an International school in Düsseldorf when there wasn't a base school. These are my fondest childhood memories.

My parents told us that Fasching was like Halloween – I learned later it was the German equivalent to Mardi Gras. We went with several other military families to a parade in Düsseldorf and had a great time catching the things they threw off the floats. After it was over, I got separated from everyone. I was about 10 so I thought I would never see my family again. A nice British couple found me and I thought about how neat it was going to be when they took me to England. But, eventually my parents located me safe and sound.

Getting out of prison after a couple of decades must be the closest thing there is to time travel. Today the news covered a story of a man who had been proven innocent of his murder charges after being incarcerated in 1976. Think about how many things that have changed in the last 27 years. New roads and shopping centers. Buildings torn down. PCs. The Internet. Cell phones and pagers. Cars with airbags and satellite TV and Tivo. Rap music and computer animated movies. Pierced bellybuttons and silicone breast implants. It must be astonishing to come face-to-face with modern culture.

I'm feeling very frustrated with work, the insanity, the lack of growth opportunity, the nasty corporate culture. It was nice to get back into the workforce after being laid off for eight months, but I'm wondering if I should have taken something so open ended. I really don't do well with little or no direction. Half of the time I feel like I'm making it all up and the other half of the time I feel like I'm just trying to look busy. I should be grateful for this job, but that little voice inside me is asking for more.

Lately, my sleep has not been restful. I wake feeling more tired than when I went to bed, continually hitting the snooze on my alarm clock until I can't postpone my day any longer. After a couple of cups of coffee I'm not bad, I function. But the afternoons are agony, I try desperately to stay awake, focused, on task. What is baffling is that I experience definite doldrums between 2 and 5 p.m., a hazy dark sleep-wishing void. Yet by 6 p.m. I'm wide-awake and by the time I go to bed, I'm tired but I can't fall asleep.

He hated going underground, through the ammonia reek of the subway tunnels to face the damp darkness and the hard plastic seats, to see her. It wasn't that he was a stranger to the world outside, but that he preferred not facing it when he could. But his desire was too much. He wished it was ablaze in his soul, but he knew it was only a tingling of his skin, an itch, a craving. So he endured the stinking green fluorescence of the train to posses her pureness, capture it forever, knowing it will only last for a moment.

It is sweltering already, the sun barely off the horizon and the day stretching out before him. It is more comfortable to travel at night, but he can't afford that luxury. In this country, scavengers make use of the night, jackals hunting in the dark for the small shadows that scurry, not resting until they sate their bloodlust, desires. The one person he trusts is his guide, the small man beside him that carries the Kalashnikov and drinks too much vodka when he can afford it, but that is only because he hates the fascists as much as he does.

Tomorrow will be the first road trip that we've taken since my son was born. I'm excited. I love road trips, being on the road, seeing the landscape, experiencing someplace new. When I was a kid, our family spent endless weekend leaves from the military bases to see what there was to see – from the canals of the Netherlands and the castles of the Rhine to the NASA training center in Huntsville, Alabama and the Civil War battlefields of Gettysburg. The little guy is too small now, but I can't wait until he can travel. There's a lot to see.

Fifteen hours on the road, covering more than 850 miles. The whining sound of my tires on the Interstate. Sunny clouds, mild weather and the sunroof open for most of the day. Miles of unbroken Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois cornfields stretching out on all sides, golden rust tassels marking the rows. Big fat clouds on a brilliant blue sky. Towering rock formations jutting abruptly up from the flat Wisconsin prairie. Twins – St. Paul and Minneapolis – so strange to have two big cities with striking skylines so close together, a 10-minute trip between metros. The rush of moving, of going somewhere.

There are aspects of the modern, consumer-driven culture that make traveling uninteresting. We went to the Mall of America today and essentially we saw nothing new, except an aging concrete mall with county fair amusement rides. In fact, I could have stayed in Columbus to visit the Gap or Old Navy or Eddie Bauer or the Pottery Barn. America has become too homogenized, too pre-packaged. It seems like people can't deal with their surroundings unless they are exactly the same as everyplace else. I know I'm generalizing, but I like to experience new surroundings, ones that have their ambient signature.

In about an hour, we'll be back on the road headed home. I'm looking forward to the journey, but not the end of the trip. I wish we had another week to keep driving west into the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana or maybe north into Canada. Right now I really want to feel the open space, stand beneath the big sky, sleep on the ground while gazing at the stars. Mostly it is the solitude, the peace that I want or at least the meditation that comes on the road, the drone of the tires like a lingering prayer of movement.

The best time to observe people when you travel is after midnight. This morning we stopped outside of Indianapolis at a truckstop for gas and coffee. Beneath the orange and green glow of lights, the truckstop teemed with lethargic travelers struggling with this part of their trip. A gregarious trucker fixing coffee makes idle chatter with a frantic employee restocking the sugar. A family with sleepy teenagers gasses up at the pumps. A couple of obvious lesbians buy apparel from sundries. Lines of bleary-eyed men pay at the counter. I'm giddy with weariness, my wife's running commentary making me laugh.

While gassing up and scrubbing bug guts off my windshield in Bloomington, Illinois, a clump of college-aged girls wander by looking baffled.

"Sir," one of them yells in my direction. "Do you know what town this is?"

One of her friends points at my car and laughs at her. "He's from Ohio."

"Yeah, I'm from Ohio – but this is Bloomington," I respond, wondering if they think it might be Bloomington, Indiana. The couple at the next pump laugh. They are locals.

Getting back into the car my wife points out where they are: "The same place that chick's head is."

I'm having lots of trouble waking up in the mornings. Today was no exception. I know it has a lot to do with not wanting to go to work, but I have responsibilities. Coming back from vacation, nothing had changed, just the date on the calendar. I'm beginning to think what I'm doing is the mental equivalent to factory work. It is really weighing me down, especially the culture – fear, jeopardy and sniping. This is compounded by the countless lifers who can't afford to lose their well-paying, yet pointless jobs. I couldn't image working someplace for more than ten years.

I'm finding it hard to accept that my mental and emotional states cycle. Once I get used to feeling good about myself, content in my space, for some reason things spin down into the all too familiar blackness. I've been fighting this latest bout for a couple of weeks now, but right now I'm feeling so empty that it hurts into my soul. Mentally I know I should be able to choose to feel good about myself, but I'm just having trouble getting through the day without losing it. I can't get rid of the uselessness, the self-pity, the doubt.

I've used up all my ideas today. I write all day long, mostly turning bullshit into something that kinda smells like bullshit but looks like a well-reasoned, insightful managerial commentary about something very important internally but is really rather inane to the rest of the world. So, I don't actually have anything to write about, except to be very flip about my job in a semi-public way. Not that anyone will probably read this, given the fact that I work amid a bunch of engineers, but if you are my boss, I like my job and please don't fire me.

I've never really felt old, maybe a little older than some of my old staffers, definitely younger than all the people I work with now. I ended up shaving my moustache back off because it made me look really old. Huh, never thought I was that vain. I even had more than a handful gray hairs and it never bothered me. But then again, I turn 35 this year, which means I'm really not even youngish. So, I said fuck it and shaved off my beard. I'm not sure if I like being clean-shaven, but I do look lots younger.