Ray E. Toler, Jr.

Given that this is my first visible post in a couple of years, perhaps some framing would be helpful. Consider this your (re)introduction to me.

My name is Ray. I am, as of this writing, 41 years and 61 days old. I am classified by my Wii Fit as “overweight,” an improvement from my just-over-the-line obesity two weeks ago. My hair is thinning in what seems to be a fairly typical male pattern, but I keep it short enough that few people notice.

I have a wife, two brothers, a father, a mother who is no longer here, one remaining grandmother, one remaining uncle, four sisters-in-law, no children, and twenty-two nieces and nephews.

I am generally happy, but frequently stressed out by things that are largely out of my control. I make snarky comments and feel bad about them later. I get too caught up in artificial drama and the histrionics of others. I think music stopped progressing in 1993 and, with few exceptions, has offered practically nothing of value since.

I’ve reached the point in my life where I can admit and accept my shortcomings, and do my best to correct them. I think I’m smarter, wiser, and a better driver than most people, even though I know that’s probably not true. I’m no longer in my “acquisition” phase and more concerned with figuring out what it is that I really want to do with my remaining time on the planet.

After more than twenty years of politically correct indoctrination, I’ve been beaten down to the point where I’m afraid to say anything in public, most especially anything that might be true or offensive to some group that isn’t white males or that might hurt my chances for a job when an HR person needing to cull the candidates googles me. If it might come back to bite me in the ass, the emperor can just stay naked. I’m both oversaturated with and addicted to information. I feel like there’s something perpetually just out of my mental grasp that would make everything click into place.

In short, I am your typical fat, balding, middle-aged, cynical, stressed-out, smart-assed white guy watching the engineers argue over who gets to pull the brake lever while the train roars toward the abyss.

I should say here at the beginning that I don’t expect anyone to actually read any of this. If you’re reading this, it’s most likely that you are either related to me or work in an HR department, but I have decided that it’s time for me to stop worrying about the latter. If what I write here makes me unsuitable for your organization, chances are your organization is unsuitable for me as well. And if you’re related to me, well, you already have your own problems.

If, by some chance, you are not in either of those two groups, however, I encourage you to create an account and leave a comment. I would prefer at least part of this site to be a dialog. To further entice you, I plan on making some entries password protected and the only way you’ll be able to read them is to start an account here.

So there we have it. Yet another new beginning. Until next time…