17-Apr-2005

On Life, Liberty , and the Pursuit of, Well, Happiness

So, I'm alive, and I'm free to the extent that I need to be.  Am I happy?  This is rather hard to answer.  I'm intellectually satisfied with the choices I've made.  But not emotionally.  I know it's where I need to be right now.  I'm three years ahead in school, but the rest of my life is somewhere behind that.  I'm a senior in college at 18.  Let's just say being around so many other people that date and such has made me tired of being on the outside of those relationships.  I've tried my hand at more serious friendships, and have learned a lot about how unready I am.

Yeah, I'm a fairly normal guy as far as my internal motivations.  I'm designed to want to be a husband and father.  But for now, I'm putting all that on hold.  I'm doing everything I can to keep from getting too close to any girl right now because I've got some personal issues to work out with Dad passing away and all.  A lot of this stuff has just come up in the past week.  I realized that some things you can't just get over.  There's things that some of my friends do that remind me of some things about my dad I don't want to think about.  I know I can't suppress these things (letting it build up screws up a lot of people).  I've spent a lot of time thinking about these memories and talking to a psychologist and family members.

I don't think that there is a set process you an go through to work these things out.  I just take the time to think and write about them and over time, ideas come to me and things start to make sense.  Talking helps.  Time is a big factor.  It can take me months to understand some of these things I'm dealing with.  And I can see myself maturing through the whole process.  But maturity only comes with time and experience.  Right now, I'm just trying to finish the semester and get the summer started on the right foot.  That's why I'm keeping distance from everyone.

Some day I'll be ready to date/court.  That day isn't today, and I don't have the slightest clue when it might show up.  I'm just praying that God would show me things I can do to mature and that when the time comes, He'll make sure I don't miss any opportunities.  I tend to be slow when it comes to His lessons for me, so I'm just doing the best I can.

Social Experiments:

I don't recommend this, but I tried something the past few weeks.  I stopped making an effort to keep in touch with many of my friends.  I did my best to not ignore them when they were around, but didn't go out of my way to find them or chat/call as usual.  The idea is that I would find out who my true friends are (they should call to check up on me because they noticed I hadn't been around as much).

Heh.   This part hurts.

Well, either this doesn't work, or I don't have any friends.  Not one person in the test group I was focusing on tried to contact me in any way that required any effort.  I even invited one to join me at dinner in the caf one night.  This person said sure, and then went and sat with someone else.  Yeah.  I feel welcomed.  It took me about two months to work out the fact that a relationship on any level (family, friend, acquaintance...) only works if both people put the same amount of effort into it.  I don't mean to be rude, but I feel down right insulted and mistreated.

Yeah, I’m angry at the world and under a lot of stress.   I’m probably blowing some of this out of proportion, but the following really bothered me:

I'm reading the book Bonding: Relationships in the Image of God by Dr. Donald M. Joy.  In just the little that I've read so far, it talks about the network of closest relationships one must have to be healthy socially and emotionally.  Well, a normal person will have 20-30 strong relationships (this includes immediate family, extended family, life long friends, and geographical friends such as coworkers, social clubs, and other friends that change when you move/change jobs).  At a glance, I have 10 that I can think of right now, perhaps 12-15 if I relax the rules.  I have a small immediate family, extended family doesn't really make a big effort to stay in touch, a few people at work/school that I know well enough, and only one person in my life long group right now (and he is my mentor).  I'm a little sad that so few people take an interest in me, when I've invested so much time and effort into them.

I'm sorry if this bothers anyone who considers him/herself my friend and doesn't think they're included above.  If you think I'm mistaken, take some time to talk to me about it.  I will gladly change my mind about you if you show me you do care and aren't just saying hi when you walk by (I consider that the level of acquaintance).  When you really take a minute to go out of your way to stay in touch or go catch a social event with me, that shows me you care.   I’m not saying you have to change your life completely.   I’m just saying from time to time, it’s nice to know I pop into your mind when I’m not standing right in front of you.   Sure, I think about you when you are right there on the sidewalk, but do I think about you when I’m washing dishes or driving to church?   Do I ever wonder how your day is going or think about sending you a note when you're not around?  I do, do you?

Is anyone out there?

12-Apr-2005

I appologize now to everyone who doesn't want to hear this.

There are many morons in this world.  It makes me depressed.  I posted a simple thread that didn't point at anyone about how there are two main practices that bother me about how some students drive - backing up on a one way street and parking in the middle of the road and putting emergency signal on thinking that makes it ok.  A few people have been/almost been seriously injured because students don't know how to back up correctly, let alone backing up in the wrong places.  Did  anyone listen?  HA HA HA.  Actually, a few people agree, but no one posted seriously.  There was one comment agreeing with me, but the whole car bomb joke at the end sort of ruins anyone taking him seriously.  I didn't.

This is sad.  The more I think about it, the more I realize that I'm attending here because that is where my parents would pay for me to go.  I'm not happy with a lot of things at this school, and I don't see them getting better in the next 10 years, let alone before I graduate.  I really like my job here, I'm enjoying two of my classes this semester, and I've made friends, but the rest of life is really not going very well.  I really need summer to get here.  I want a break.  Most of all, I want to get away.  And I need major sleep right now.

10-Apr-2005

I should blog more often.

As you all will note, I'm up rather late.  Reason being that after we left swing dancing tonight, we all went to Steak 'n Shake (or however that is spelled).  I like everyting about the place, other than the incredibly slow service.  I'm told it is like that at every store, but I don't know.  That was my first time.

Dancing was so much fun.  There where about 20 people there from Trevecca.  We are definitly on our way to being able to start a club here.  I look forward to it.

In Other News

I look forward to this opportunity to work at a great company this summer.  But it is so far away from home and Nashville.  The highest concentrations of people I know halfway decently are in those two places right now.  And I could have worked it out to stay in Nashville, I think.  I would love to stay here, dance in the park at their summer events, keep up my swing lessions, be around a lot of the people I know (including family), find some good camping/hiking parks, and work down in CIT.

I guess I'm just tired of change.  I want things to all fall into place and not have to worry about big decisions.  I'm exhausted and really want a break from it all.  When I'm not in school, I'm working.  When I'm not working or in school, I manage to get sick.  Life's kicking me while i'm down still trying to figure out life without a dad here on Earth.  Everything is different now.  Holidays, remembering him being born and passing away in March, wishing I had him around to talk about his experiences at Trevecca and compare stories - all these things make me wonder what life would have been like had things been different.  But they weren't different.  They were exactly the way they where.  And the hardest thing for me to figure out is what now.  I wish I knew how it all panned out in the end, but I don't.  People say the point of life is that it is a surprise.  I don't like surprises so much.  I like to know that something is going to happen at a specific time and in a particular way.  That is one reason I like programming.  When I write a web application to do something a specific way at a particular time, once I work all the bugs out, it does it.  I wish my life worked that way some times.  I like a good surprise now and then, but I don't like living life wondeing what the next minute will be like.  I have my plans and all the most important points to me are falling apart.  Where will I live?  What will I do?  Who will I know?  What do I do tomorrow?  I just don't know. 

God, give me peace and patience to wait on your timing and clarity when the right opportunities down the road come.  And above all, don't let me screw up my one shot at life too badly.  Amen.

1-Apr-2005

Currently Playing
U2 - The Best of 1990-2000
By U2
see related

26-Mar-2005

New Computer ... Sort of

So, the tech from Dell came yesterday.  Nice guy.  He was from California , and had a few stories about some of the extra work he did in several movies.  He also does animation/special effects, and was talking about how Paramount seems to have dropped off the map for a little while due to financial problems.  He also had a lot of insider info about movies in the works and sequels and such.  It was fun talking to him.  I hear Disney stole Toy Story 3 & 4 out from under Pixar and is working on them both at the same time....  But I can't really prove anything.  I don't have the interest to look up stuff like that on the web to see if any reputable leak sites can substantiate that.

I did the dishes while he took my laptop completely apart just to replace the touch pad.  I tell you, if they had brought in the support techs when they actually designed the case, the techs would have a lot to say about design changes....  He had to first remove the memory panel and memory cards on the bottom, then open up a few other compartments.  After taking off a lot of screws, he had to pull the main body apart and remove the LCD screen to get the palm rest area off (the palm rest is the area surrounding the entire keyboard and touch pad - the top side of the lower portion of the laptop case).  Turns out he replaced the palm rest, keyboard, and touch pad all together.  That was more that I was counting on, but I'm not going to complain.  If he had to replace the screen too, everything I look at when using my laptop would be brand new.  Talk about warranty’s worth.  They even replaced the missing rubber feet and would have replaced any missing screws if there were any absent.  I like this warranty thing.  One tip: if you ever get a laptop, get a Dell and get the full 4 year warranty.  (And don't even talk to me about Macs - PC architecture is sooo much better).  It is two years into my warranty, and I just had all that work done for free.  I have two more years of this, so I'm guessing I'll be getting some more new parts in the next two years.  The thing is, if you take perfect care of any system, it will last for at least three years without servicing , but accidents do happen, and that is what the warranty is for (covering for my stupidity even though I did the best I could to make sure I didn't hurt anything). 

On a related note, I'm thinking about wearing chain male for a while.  I keep shocking the crap out of myself and the 'male would prevent/dissipate a lot of that.

22-Mar-2005

New touch pad

So ESD (Electro-Static Discharge, the official name for the releasing of that charge you build up on a cool, dry day by rubbing some types of cloth in an act such as taking off a jacket) really bites.  I think it is the reason that part of my touch pad on my laptop is no longer working properly.  The thing is, I did everything right.  I took my jacket off and felt a slight charge build up, so I took out my metal pocket knife and walked over to the light switch plate on the wall here in CIT.  I touched the knife to the metal plate to "ground" myself.  Holding metal like that ensures that the transfer point is the end of the knife, not your finger tip and keeps you from feeling that nasty little zap.  Well, it still shocked the heck out of my fingers that wer holding the knife (I guess I should have seen that as a sign that I might still have a charge in me).  So knowing that I should be free of any noticeable charge, I sat back down at my desk and touched the touch pad on my Dell Inspirion 5100.  I though I felt a little zap, but didn't think anything of it until i moved my hand back to that part of the TP, when I noticed that the mouse pointer would almost stop when I was moving through that region.  Dang it.  There goes an hour on the phone with tech support trying to convince the guy on the other end that it isn't software related.  "No I didn't install any new software OR hardware."  "No, reinstalling the drivers doesn't fix it."  "What do you know, it does the same thing in safe mode."  "Nope, resetting the bios to factory defaults doesn't change the fact that I ruined minute electronic circuts with the tineist of charges on my finger tip."  "No, I'm not an ideot.  Is that really one of the questions?"  (That last one was not part of the conversation).  I know a lot of people who don't know as much call in, but can I get some sort of an express phone number or something to talk to someone who will treat me according to the experience I have?  At least I could use the speaker phone and keep working on web pages.  So, the tech is coming out sometime later this week to replace my TP.  I'm getting used to the routine of going through everything for the first 30 minutes of the call.  First you call and sit on hold for about 10 minutes, which is not that bad considering some places will require a wait of hours, (this is a good time to shave or dust your desk).  Then, the guy/gal on the other end will ask if this is involving a previous call - at which point I said no and interrupting his routine described the problem.  He transfered me to another department.  About 3 minutes waiting there.  15 minutes so far.  The next guy gets all my info and asks what's wrong.  Fifteen minutes to go over restarting, safe mode, bios reset, driver reinstall, and disable/enable (not in that order).  If this was my first call, I would have been insulted at the restart question, but it really didn't bother me, because I know that sometimes does actually fix some problems (as rare as the chance is).  I was patient.  So after all that, the guy says "It looks like you have a hardware problem with your touch pad."  At this point I'm tempted to sarcastically say "Is that what the problem was?"  but I know they get enough of that, and they have been really nice to me so far.  Plus, he didn't have as stong an accent as some people I've talked to, so that made me a little more relaxed.  I'm not racist, I'm just lazy in that I don't want to learn another language or have to work hard to understand the other guy.  I'm American in that sense of the steriotype.  So, he gives me the case number,dispatch number, and a 1-800 to call if the tech doesn't contact me in 2 days.  I'm thinking this sounds good.  He types for about 7-8 minutes and then makes sure I don't need anything else.  Nice, all said I'm only on for about 45 minutes, and the tech dispatch just called a little while ago.  I've got an appointment for Friday morning for the guy to stop by my apartment and do the replacement and a number to call if he doesn't show in the 3 hour window.  I could have had it done thursday, but if he showed up while I was in class, that would not have worked, and I'm not skipping class for something little like that.  I know I love my babies (some people have cars, I have computers), but they are not worth my grade.  Besides, I'll have a new baby in a few months to a year, so my commitment to them isn't as strong as it would be to a car or a person.  Understand that once I'm to the point where I have a young woman to call my baby, there isn't anything that will get in the way.  So, that extra my dad put into that warrenty wasn't a complete waste.  And I'm hoping I can get a new screen in 4-6 months (design/manufacturing problem is causing the keypad to rub on the LCD screen, so if something breaks, they'll replace it).

Bye-bye for now

12-Mar-2005

Of blogging and Life

So, we are supposed to have I.C.E. version 3 published on Monday.  But it still needs a lot more work than I have time (or work hours left in this week) to do.  My supervisor mentioned yesterday that we might be pushing back the release date.  I'm not sure what is going to happen because he has been sick the last few days, which isn't helping the situation.  But I do hope he gets better soon.  I also hope that we can release the new version soon.  Right now only time will tell.  I'll try to keep this updated over the next few days, but if y'all don't hear nothin', check on the I.C.E.  It will be out sometime in the next two weeks (I hope).