New blog

I’m not very good at cohesively communicating my thoughts. So here they are. I make no promises on spelling, grammar, and proper literary structure.

Becky and I are spending the weekend in Wenatchee. Becky officially changed her name and we finally got a joint bank account. I was pleasantly surprised that my credit score has gone up over 100 points since the last time it was checked when we applied for our home loan.

Being out of town puts me away from my desktop PC which does not allow me to indulge my normal video game temptations. As a result, I tend to revert back to my old computer usage habits like writing in my blog. This time I decided to mix it up a bit and create a WordPress blog and import everything from my LiveJournal. There are some things I wouldn’t mind forgetting about but I decided to perform the import for historical reasons. I do sometimes enjoy going back and reading old entries to see how much things have changed since my college days.

To update the Interwebs on the past few months of my life, yes, I am now married. Something I never thought I’d ever be but I guess that’s what you do when you get to be my age. It doesn’t feel much different than unmarried life.

Work is still work. It’s fulfilling in that it keeps my work-week brain from permanently turning into the jello-like consistency I allow it to during weekend-long Minecraft binges. Sometimes I wish I did something that had a profound positive impact on society as a whole, like developing a cure for unexpected butt itch or something.

Still working on overcoming some lingering feelings of depression. I suppose it’s normal during what I commonly refer to as my quarter-life crisis. Forcing myself to not succumb to my social anxiety and video game addiction to hang out with friends when I’d normally hide out in my man cave has proven very helpful.

I’ve been having trouble turning my brain off recently. I can’t seem to keep from thinking about the vastness of the Universe and the mind-boggingly minuscule chance my existence really is for more than a few hours at a time. Sometimes I wish I could accept a comfortable lie instead of a harsh truth, or at least find a way to glamorize the truth. If you succeed in doing this yourself, please tell me how.

 

 

Workin’ late

Work has been grueling recently and as a result my work-life balance has been extremely one-sided. I elected to help my coworkers with a project that had some hiccups during its planning phase that resulted in there being not enough time to finish it as planned. I technically brought the extra work on myself but I’m hoping it will be recognized properly. I hate to complain but I feel I deserve at least three sentences worth from the fifteen hour days I’ve been working.

On a related note, I’m attempting, somewhat unsuccessfully, to limit the amount of white whining I do. Also commonly referred to as a first world problem or a problem that only someone in a first world country would encounter. Common examples are "I ate too much food and now I’m tired" or "My cushy desk job blocked YouTube and now I can’t watch funny cat videos at work." Every time I catch myself complaining about something that someone else would kill to be able to complain about I bite my tongue. In retrospect this does not directly better the lives of those less fortunate but a positive outlook can be wildly contagious.

On a completely unrelated note, Becky and I are hoping to adopt one of six French Bulldog puppies that were born just yesterday from a breeder in Idaho. I asked my cats if they were opposed to adding a dog to the family but all they did was meow for food. I’ll take that as a no.

Live it

I received some advice the other day that struck a chord. It’s not poetic. It’s not insightful or even something you’d find in a self help book. It’s short, simple, and crude; just the way I like it: "This is the only life you get, so live the fuck out of it."

Holiday

I came into work today around 11 and there were hardly any cars here. I thought maybe people decided to extend their holiday vacations one final day. It wasn’t until about noon did I realize that today is actually a Microsoft paid holiday. I decided to stay in the office since I have to be in Bellevue this evening to sub at a Music Works Jazz Orchestra rehearsal.

2010

As 2010 comes to a close, I like to put together a list of memorable things that I did. In a nutshell, I

  • Got new glasses.
  • Went to my friend Dan’s wedding
  • Was a member of the Sounders band: Sound Wave
  • Saw Michael Bublé in concert
  • Read A Brief History of Time which subsequently opened my mind up to that which is bigger than myself, bigger than the human population as a whole, which ultimately led to solidifying my atheism
  • Began pursuing the works of other scientists such as Carl Sagan (my personal favorite) and Neil deGrasse Tyson
  • Proposed to Becky
  • Quit playing World of Warcraft
  • Started playing Minecraft
  • Went camping in Port Angeles with my parents
  • Hiked Tiger Mountain with James Harper and Lisa Borkowski
  • Bought a 2008 Toyota Tacoma
  • Saw Weird Al in concert
  • Went on vacation to Orlando and did the whole Disneyworld/Seaworld thing

Just a lazy day

I removed all my LiveJournal friends. Not that I didn’t like them, I just didn’t know anyone who was still actively writing in their journal. I had planned on going into work today but when I woke up I was very unmotivated so I stayed home. I played some video games and watched Maury Povich (one of my guilty pleasures).

I watched 8: The Mormon Proposition the other day as part of my newfound religion-is-poisoning-the-minds-of-our-youth mentality. It put into perspective just how much power and sway the Mormon church has in American society and how powerful and damning it can be. It’s on Netflix Instant Streaming and I would recommend watching it.

A couple random thoughts for the day:

  • I really need to ask my intended groomsmen if they are willing to be my groomsmen.
  • I made salmon fillets, rice, and red potatoes for dinner. They were damn good I must say.
  • I hope work picks up soon. It’s been awfully slow lately and I can feel my brain rotting away.

Christmas 2010 and WoW

There were a couple things I wanted to include in my first-post-in-four-years post from yesterday but wasn’t able to due to the Tylenol PM kicking in. I conveniently left out that during my LiveJournal hiatus I was addicted to World of Warcraft which was a large contributor to the hiatus in the first place. There wasn’t much sense in writing "woke up, went to work, played WoW" day after day. I quit cold turkey three months ago and I can feel my life slowly returning to normal, whatever normal means I’m not exactly sure. I still play a lot of video games but none that require my attention for extended periods of time. No longer having to decline invitations from friends to hang out is nice. I always felt terrible for doing that in the past. 😦

I also mentioned in my previous post that Becky’s family completely spoiled me this Christmas. Gifts included:

  • Four-Drawer Husky Tool Cabinet and Four-Drawer Husky Tool Chest
  • Werner Telscoping Multiladder
  • Celestron AstroMaster 90 telescope (from Becky)
  • Craftsman 24-piece screwdriver set
  • Craftsman 12-piece combination wrench set
  • Craftsmen ratchet and 9-piece socket set
  • iWork 6-piece pliers set
  • Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Gran Torino, and The Matrix on Blu-ray Disc.
  • Some nice shirts and some car cleaning stuff

I also bought a truck: a 2008 Toyota Tacoma. I could have technically lived without it, but having the use of a truck at my disposal has turned out to be very nice. I replaced my 1997 Camry (that I still need to sign back over to my dad). I also have my 1975 Chevy that I’d like to restore but after this Christmas, I’m trying to save some money. I had to dig into my savings and I don’t really like doing that.

Today, Becky and I drove back from East Wenatchee. I don’t know how long the kitties had been out of food but we fed them way more than enough to cover for the days we were gone. They we happy to see us and even happier after I gave them a little snack. 🙂 I assembled my Christmas gifts while watching Monday night football. I think I’ll throw in a movie and maybe try to hit the hay early tonight.