It's been a... week. I won a trophy last night. More on that, and a pic from the trophy presentation, sometime within the week, or whenever I get the picture, whichever doesn't come first.
I also finally put a recent picture up in my Bookflap (link over there on the left), though that's not such a big deal since everyone pretty much knows what I look like anyway.
Okay, that's it. I haven't been moved to write too much.
Saturday, February 28
Friday, February 20
Ping!
Things are looking up, all. Tonight, all of a sudden, my dogs decided they were tired of giving a lackluster effort, and we had four wins. Go figure. That's the way this business goes. I've been tearing my hair out for a week, trying everything I could think of to get them to fire up, and apparently all it took was me taking a day off.
Anyhow, I've been making a few efforts to get myself rolling again. I gave a call to my doctor's office, only to find that my doctor moved to Vermont last September. So, I got hooked up with a new doctor, and we had a lengthy getting-to-know-me chat today. And I feel like a weight has been lifted from my brain. That's honestly what it's felt like; like there was a grocery bag full of oranges hanging off of my brain stem, pulling down on my skull all the time. So I'm going back in a couple of weeks, and we'll chat some more. But I'm on the road out.
I'm going to write a word here that I have checked on to make sure it doesn't exist in Google.
sqzernhgjdkln46eljkfnwuiofkergfrg
I'd just like to see how quickly Google "spiders" my blog archives. I'm in there, but there's a decent-sized delay as to how quickly my page is updated. That word will give me something to reference it to.
Anyway... I think LOTR III is one of the best movies ever. Rare is the movie I can watch *3* times and still be on the edge of my seat for every action sequence, and have a lump in my throat for every emotional scene. Rudy is on there (geez... 8 times? 9?), along with Matrix I (four or five) and Brassed Off! (three). And LOTR III checks in at a butt-numbing (or, as in my case, coccyx-dislocating) three hours plus, too. Great movie. Great movie.
Admit it... you cried at Rudy. It's one of the only (if not THE only) movie guys will admit to crying at while in mixed company. Oh, wait... Old Yeller is on there, too.
'Course, I wellled up with tears when Joan and Adam Rove finally hooked up on Joan of Arcadia. Shut up. Don't knock it 'til you've watched it.
Things are looking up, all. Tonight, all of a sudden, my dogs decided they were tired of giving a lackluster effort, and we had four wins. Go figure. That's the way this business goes. I've been tearing my hair out for a week, trying everything I could think of to get them to fire up, and apparently all it took was me taking a day off.
Anyhow, I've been making a few efforts to get myself rolling again. I gave a call to my doctor's office, only to find that my doctor moved to Vermont last September. So, I got hooked up with a new doctor, and we had a lengthy getting-to-know-me chat today. And I feel like a weight has been lifted from my brain. That's honestly what it's felt like; like there was a grocery bag full of oranges hanging off of my brain stem, pulling down on my skull all the time. So I'm going back in a couple of weeks, and we'll chat some more. But I'm on the road out.
I'm going to write a word here that I have checked on to make sure it doesn't exist in Google.
sqzernhgjdkln46eljkfnwuiofkergfrg
I'd just like to see how quickly Google "spiders" my blog archives. I'm in there, but there's a decent-sized delay as to how quickly my page is updated. That word will give me something to reference it to.
Anyway... I think LOTR III is one of the best movies ever. Rare is the movie I can watch *3* times and still be on the edge of my seat for every action sequence, and have a lump in my throat for every emotional scene. Rudy is on there (geez... 8 times? 9?), along with Matrix I (four or five) and Brassed Off! (three). And LOTR III checks in at a butt-numbing (or, as in my case, coccyx-dislocating) three hours plus, too. Great movie. Great movie.
Admit it... you cried at Rudy. It's one of the only (if not THE only) movie guys will admit to crying at while in mixed company. Oh, wait... Old Yeller is on there, too.
'Course, I wellled up with tears when Joan and Adam Rove finally hooked up on Joan of Arcadia. Shut up. Don't knock it 'til you've watched it.
Friday, February 13
Hey, all. I'm at the helm of my new computer. I got my dad to front me some money so I could pay for it upfront, and we'll take it out of my check over the next few weeks.
I bought the basic model at Gateway. It's honestly all I need. I don't do anything tremendously fancy on here; just some browsing, some emailing, some occasional AIMing, and viewing the races at Phoenix via the streaming webfeed if I don't feel like going to the track.
Anyhow, one of the main reasons I bought it at Gateway was, they offered to "slave" my hard drive over to the new one if I purchased a new system there. I figured that would be cool; the thing was completely shut down, and I couldn't get it back on to access what files I wanted to save. Besides, I never had any complaints about the operation of my previous system, so I purchased the 310S without a monitor (my old one is working fine, thank you $150 much) or printer (ditto). And let's hear it for me remembering to save my cable modem driver CD and the Cox High-Speed Connection CD. That saved me a couple weeks of downtime.
I'm getting ahead of myself, however. The guys in the service center took my list of what I wanted copied, and told me it'd be a few hours. After a while, I'd thought of a couple more things I wanted to save, so I gave them a call. The guy who answered said, "Oh, hey, Mr. Gray. I was just about to call you. We're all done." I asked him if they could still pull a few more things off of it for me, and he said, "Um, well, there's a problem."
Turns out my hard drive was DEAD dead. Or, as the receipt put it: "HD is clicking but not registering on BIOS. Slave of HD not possible."
SO, basically, I've spent most of the evening being pissed at myself. Doubly. Now, if I'd taken the old one in to get it fixed when I first started having problems last September or so, it would have been free. But I didn't get off my duff and find out when my warranty expired (as I mentioned previously, turns out I had a 3-year warranty, which expired just before this past Christmas). THEN, if I'd taken it in this year to buy a new one, like I was thinking about doing, SOMEtime before last Tuesday, they would have been able to pull my files off the old system, since it hadn't died yet.
I didn't have anything on there I can't live without; anything to do with the business, I do on my parents' computer at the office anyway. I had a few charts and such that I did here at home, but I had partial foresight in taking copies of those over to the office a few weeks ago when my computer got finicky about when it was going to print. Honestly, what I'm most upset about losing are my email address book, my Favorites folder (which I'm slowly replenishing as stuff comes to me), and my gargantuan spam filter list. Over the course of those 3 years, I'd accumulated a bucketful of phrases, words, and other things to watch for in spam that routed messages off into a separate folder I'd check once a week or so and delete the 176 messages in there. Coupled with my whitelist that saved messages from usual places like Top5 and stuff, it was a nearly flawless system (I'd get maybe one or two spams in my regular Inbox a week). Now I get to start from scratch.
Oh well. I was looking for a little excitement, something for a change of pace. Got my wish, I suppose.
It's a nice system. When I took the keyboard out, I noted it was smaller than my old one -- for starters, it lacks those stupid "Internet Dashboard" buttons all over the top of it. But for some reason, I'm flying over this thing. I don't know if it's the dimensions of it or what, if it's angled a little differently so as to promote aerodynamic movement of my fingers, but I'm typing like Tank at the controls of the Nebuchadnezzar.
Anyway, this has reshuffled my priorities a little bit. I'm going to have to put that new computer chair on hold and stick with my folding chair, back-paining as it may be. And another thing... if you're reading this, email me a message, so I can start to rebuild my Address Book. I'd appreciate it.
We're addressing my mad mood swings next week, too. Stay tuned for a week from today or so. Perhaps I'll post before then, perhaps not. Depends on how I'm feeling.
I bought the basic model at Gateway. It's honestly all I need. I don't do anything tremendously fancy on here; just some browsing, some emailing, some occasional AIMing, and viewing the races at Phoenix via the streaming webfeed if I don't feel like going to the track.
Anyhow, one of the main reasons I bought it at Gateway was, they offered to "slave" my hard drive over to the new one if I purchased a new system there. I figured that would be cool; the thing was completely shut down, and I couldn't get it back on to access what files I wanted to save. Besides, I never had any complaints about the operation of my previous system, so I purchased the 310S without a monitor (my old one is working fine, thank you $150 much) or printer (ditto). And let's hear it for me remembering to save my cable modem driver CD and the Cox High-Speed Connection CD. That saved me a couple weeks of downtime.
I'm getting ahead of myself, however. The guys in the service center took my list of what I wanted copied, and told me it'd be a few hours. After a while, I'd thought of a couple more things I wanted to save, so I gave them a call. The guy who answered said, "Oh, hey, Mr. Gray. I was just about to call you. We're all done." I asked him if they could still pull a few more things off of it for me, and he said, "Um, well, there's a problem."
Turns out my hard drive was DEAD dead. Or, as the receipt put it: "HD is clicking but not registering on BIOS. Slave of HD not possible."
SO, basically, I've spent most of the evening being pissed at myself. Doubly. Now, if I'd taken the old one in to get it fixed when I first started having problems last September or so, it would have been free. But I didn't get off my duff and find out when my warranty expired (as I mentioned previously, turns out I had a 3-year warranty, which expired just before this past Christmas). THEN, if I'd taken it in this year to buy a new one, like I was thinking about doing, SOMEtime before last Tuesday, they would have been able to pull my files off the old system, since it hadn't died yet.
I didn't have anything on there I can't live without; anything to do with the business, I do on my parents' computer at the office anyway. I had a few charts and such that I did here at home, but I had partial foresight in taking copies of those over to the office a few weeks ago when my computer got finicky about when it was going to print. Honestly, what I'm most upset about losing are my email address book, my Favorites folder (which I'm slowly replenishing as stuff comes to me), and my gargantuan spam filter list. Over the course of those 3 years, I'd accumulated a bucketful of phrases, words, and other things to watch for in spam that routed messages off into a separate folder I'd check once a week or so and delete the 176 messages in there. Coupled with my whitelist that saved messages from usual places like Top5 and stuff, it was a nearly flawless system (I'd get maybe one or two spams in my regular Inbox a week). Now I get to start from scratch.
Oh well. I was looking for a little excitement, something for a change of pace. Got my wish, I suppose.
It's a nice system. When I took the keyboard out, I noted it was smaller than my old one -- for starters, it lacks those stupid "Internet Dashboard" buttons all over the top of it. But for some reason, I'm flying over this thing. I don't know if it's the dimensions of it or what, if it's angled a little differently so as to promote aerodynamic movement of my fingers, but I'm typing like Tank at the controls of the Nebuchadnezzar.
Anyway, this has reshuffled my priorities a little bit. I'm going to have to put that new computer chair on hold and stick with my folding chair, back-paining as it may be. And another thing... if you're reading this, email me a message, so I can start to rebuild my Address Book. I'd appreciate it.
We're addressing my mad mood swings next week, too. Stay tuned for a week from today or so. Perhaps I'll post before then, perhaps not. Depends on how I'm feeling.
Tuesday, February 10
As I texted a few people earlier, "My computer's history like Crystal Pepsi." I'm back once again at the controls of my parents' computer, but this time out of necessity rather than just not wanting to be at my apartment. I've been having more and more trouble with it over the past few months, getting progressively more serious. Well, finally last night it just decided it was going to stop working. Outlook Express crashed, then Explorer crashed, and then Explorer crashed again. It went to a black screen and froze, so I tried to restart it, but it wouldn't turn back on.
I spent an hour and a half on the phone with the tech center, and I went through every possible checklist they could think of. I had the cover off of the tower, and I was moving little pegs back and forth... still nothing. As it turns out, my fan hasn't been working since I unpacked the computer last April from storage, and I didn't know it. Apparently, things have been overheating and malfunctioning, and since my warranty expired at the end of 2003 (of course!), I'd be on the hook for all repair costs. So I'm just going to buy a new one.
I can still check my email here off my parents' computer, since they have Cox too. And I can write to the website, if I feel up to it. However, I find myself increasingly suffering from severe bouts of doing-nothingness, so we'll see.
I spent an hour and a half on the phone with the tech center, and I went through every possible checklist they could think of. I had the cover off of the tower, and I was moving little pegs back and forth... still nothing. As it turns out, my fan hasn't been working since I unpacked the computer last April from storage, and I didn't know it. Apparently, things have been overheating and malfunctioning, and since my warranty expired at the end of 2003 (of course!), I'd be on the hook for all repair costs. So I'm just going to buy a new one.
I can still check my email here off my parents' computer, since they have Cox too. And I can write to the website, if I feel up to it. However, I find myself increasingly suffering from severe bouts of doing-nothingness, so we'll see.
Saturday, February 7
So much for tomorrow.
There's times when I feel like I'm in control of everything in my domain, when I feel like I'm where I want to be. I've got everything a young bachelor could want. And yet, there's times when I feel like I'm going to implode under the weight of everything out there. And the problem is, I find myself increasingly unable to reconcile the two.
I'm better off than I was in Tucson. I don't know how I survived without going nuts down there. Oh, wait... that's right... I DID go nuts. But anyway, where I'm at now is better than that, and I still feel like I've got nothing. I can't put my finger on it, but increasingly more often, I find myself zoning out, lost deep in thought over where I went wrong. Should I have stayed in school? Would I have met the girl of my dreams there? Would I have found some career path that would have given me years of exciting work days to look forward to?
No, strike that last one. I still love my job. I hate my home, is what the problem is. I stay at work longer than I ought to, just to avoid coming home to the cold, empty cavern that is my apartment. I find myself spending more and more time at my parents' house, finding excuses to come over... doing a load of laundry here and there, doing bookwork that doesn't need to be done, even (today) wanting to touch up what the car wash didn't catch on my truck, so I came over to borrow the Windex, justifying it by thinking I'd feel weird standing out in the parking lot of my apartments cleaning my windows. But I've got my own damn bottle of Windex, just the same as I've got my own damn washer and dryer, and 2/3 of the bookwork I do, I could just as easily do on my own computer. As we speak, I'm sitting at my parents' house doing this blog.
Why?
Why?
I don't know. My apartment just represents the abject failures of my life, even though it represents the successes I've had, too. But being there just reminds me how insignificant I really am in the grand scheme of the world.
Can you tell my dogs are running poorly? Am I ever this depressed when I'm having a good week? I need a vacation, but I don't have anywhere to go. Sure, going to SixFlags again would be fun, but it's awful expensive, and besides, given my luck, it'll be raining the whole time I'm there... again. I managed to make Tucson livable by living off credit cards, just buying whatever I wanted to make myself feel better for that small amount of time. Now I'm paying for it, literally. By my projections, I ought to have them paid off in four years, if I make no other major purchases during that time and my rent and utilities don't go up. I'm not behind on any of them, and I haven't used a credit card to buy anything in months, and even then it was some gourmet chocolates online but I refuse to use my debit card online for security reasons.
So I'm doing all right. Like I said, I'm so much better off than I was two years ago... why then, sometimes, do I still feel like I haven't gotten anywhere?
And just as there's times when I wonder if it's all worth it, there's times when I wonder why I could ever feel like that. I look at the kennel I'm in charge of, and I beam with pride. I can out-train anyone in the state, I feel, with maybe the exception of the two-headed monster that is my aunt and grandfather. (My dad also doesn't count, since he's not in the state, see.) I've finally been given the controls of a kennel with potential, unlike in Tucson, where I made the most of what I had, which wasn't much. The possibilities are limitless with this fleet I have now.
And though on an overall look, they're doing better than most other kennels we've ever had here, when they hit a cold spell like they're on now, I can hear the voices warming up in my head, asking me why they're running badly, why I can't seem to get them to snap out of it. I guess that's a bad description... I don't actually hear voices, no, but I think about it. My mind overreacts like that. But when it's at its worst, I feel a pressure descending upon me, such that I feel like my ears are going to explode. It only goes away if I hit a stretch of good luck.
It's on me now. Not bad, but I can feel it, almost like my brain's too heavy. I had a chance to go to Tucson tonight with Jeff and go to one of his wild middle-of-the-desert parties, but I told him I couldn't because I had to be at work at 6:00. Is it any wonder I feel like I do? How am I ever going to have fun if I can't give myself permission to cut loose and enjoy myself every so often? But, then again, cutting loose and enjoying myself usually means spending money, and we already discussed why I can't go out and drop a wad of $20's at Christie's every weekend. And then I reach another conflict point, because in spite of my desire to just blow the world off and lose myself in a weekend, I can't. I press up against the Plexiglas wall that is my morals, and just on the other side, I can see myself having a good time. But I can't get through that wall, though I've tried several times to drink just to fit in, and it still makes me cringe. Even when someone gives me something and says, "Here, you can't even taste it." The fact of the matter is, it's in there, and thus I can't drink it.
Why not? I don't know! I want to! But I can't. I'm too weak.
I'm not as crazy as I was before I went and hashed things out with a psychiatrist last year. I don't view my problems and my internal conflicts as two distinct people fighting for control over my mind anymore. But just the same, all the same conflicts are still there. And I don't want to deal with it anymore.
There's times when I feel like I'm in control of everything in my domain, when I feel like I'm where I want to be. I've got everything a young bachelor could want. And yet, there's times when I feel like I'm going to implode under the weight of everything out there. And the problem is, I find myself increasingly unable to reconcile the two.
I'm better off than I was in Tucson. I don't know how I survived without going nuts down there. Oh, wait... that's right... I DID go nuts. But anyway, where I'm at now is better than that, and I still feel like I've got nothing. I can't put my finger on it, but increasingly more often, I find myself zoning out, lost deep in thought over where I went wrong. Should I have stayed in school? Would I have met the girl of my dreams there? Would I have found some career path that would have given me years of exciting work days to look forward to?
No, strike that last one. I still love my job. I hate my home, is what the problem is. I stay at work longer than I ought to, just to avoid coming home to the cold, empty cavern that is my apartment. I find myself spending more and more time at my parents' house, finding excuses to come over... doing a load of laundry here and there, doing bookwork that doesn't need to be done, even (today) wanting to touch up what the car wash didn't catch on my truck, so I came over to borrow the Windex, justifying it by thinking I'd feel weird standing out in the parking lot of my apartments cleaning my windows. But I've got my own damn bottle of Windex, just the same as I've got my own damn washer and dryer, and 2/3 of the bookwork I do, I could just as easily do on my own computer. As we speak, I'm sitting at my parents' house doing this blog.
Why?
Why?
I don't know. My apartment just represents the abject failures of my life, even though it represents the successes I've had, too. But being there just reminds me how insignificant I really am in the grand scheme of the world.
Can you tell my dogs are running poorly? Am I ever this depressed when I'm having a good week? I need a vacation, but I don't have anywhere to go. Sure, going to SixFlags again would be fun, but it's awful expensive, and besides, given my luck, it'll be raining the whole time I'm there... again. I managed to make Tucson livable by living off credit cards, just buying whatever I wanted to make myself feel better for that small amount of time. Now I'm paying for it, literally. By my projections, I ought to have them paid off in four years, if I make no other major purchases during that time and my rent and utilities don't go up. I'm not behind on any of them, and I haven't used a credit card to buy anything in months, and even then it was some gourmet chocolates online but I refuse to use my debit card online for security reasons.
So I'm doing all right. Like I said, I'm so much better off than I was two years ago... why then, sometimes, do I still feel like I haven't gotten anywhere?
And just as there's times when I wonder if it's all worth it, there's times when I wonder why I could ever feel like that. I look at the kennel I'm in charge of, and I beam with pride. I can out-train anyone in the state, I feel, with maybe the exception of the two-headed monster that is my aunt and grandfather. (My dad also doesn't count, since he's not in the state, see.) I've finally been given the controls of a kennel with potential, unlike in Tucson, where I made the most of what I had, which wasn't much. The possibilities are limitless with this fleet I have now.
And though on an overall look, they're doing better than most other kennels we've ever had here, when they hit a cold spell like they're on now, I can hear the voices warming up in my head, asking me why they're running badly, why I can't seem to get them to snap out of it. I guess that's a bad description... I don't actually hear voices, no, but I think about it. My mind overreacts like that. But when it's at its worst, I feel a pressure descending upon me, such that I feel like my ears are going to explode. It only goes away if I hit a stretch of good luck.
It's on me now. Not bad, but I can feel it, almost like my brain's too heavy. I had a chance to go to Tucson tonight with Jeff and go to one of his wild middle-of-the-desert parties, but I told him I couldn't because I had to be at work at 6:00. Is it any wonder I feel like I do? How am I ever going to have fun if I can't give myself permission to cut loose and enjoy myself every so often? But, then again, cutting loose and enjoying myself usually means spending money, and we already discussed why I can't go out and drop a wad of $20's at Christie's every weekend. And then I reach another conflict point, because in spite of my desire to just blow the world off and lose myself in a weekend, I can't. I press up against the Plexiglas wall that is my morals, and just on the other side, I can see myself having a good time. But I can't get through that wall, though I've tried several times to drink just to fit in, and it still makes me cringe. Even when someone gives me something and says, "Here, you can't even taste it." The fact of the matter is, it's in there, and thus I can't drink it.
Why not? I don't know! I want to! But I can't. I'm too weak.
I'm not as crazy as I was before I went and hashed things out with a psychiatrist last year. I don't view my problems and my internal conflicts as two distinct people fighting for control over my mind anymore. But just the same, all the same conflicts are still there. And I don't want to deal with it anymore.
