31 posts tagged “life”

There's a terrible, terrible feeling you get when you realise you've lost something almost certainly forever.

I've heard it described as a feeling in the pit of your stomach. And that's true, that's there. But it's an all-over kind of bad feeling.

Part of me wants to cry and the other parts of me wants to scream in frustration and despair.

(I'm talking about losing something I wrote, something on the computer. But it's important to me -- irreplaceable. And it's my fault for having lost it.)

UPDATE (13 July 2008 @ 9:11pm): I FOUND IT/THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!! On a backup DVD of data files from 2005. I can't believe it. But you'd better believe that I'm backing them up tenfold now -- FTP'ing it up to my domain, Google Docs, sticking it on various hard drives here and there and everywhere, etc. And of course I have the backup DVD now, too. Whew.

On Sunday, a really awesome deal on a wet/dry vac (AKA ShopVac, only it's Craftsman brand) popped up online. It was at Sears and you could buy it online and then pick it up in the store to save on shipping. It's normally $90, and in-store it was on sale for $80 but online it was only $18. No brainer, since we'd been wanting one for a long time now and had been waiting for a good deal.

I bought it and we drove into Louisville to pick it up. The first one we got, the box was all smashed up. I figured, eh, what is there that could really be broken? Tracey, however, was adamant that we open the box and check it before we left. We did that... but not until we'd already lugged it all the way back through Sears and out the parking lot to the car. We opened it up, and wouldn't you know it, but the filter for it was broken. (It has a plastic collar around the top and it was snapped in half.)  Grrrr. At least Tracey made me check it before we left, though, otherwise we'd have discovered it only after we'd driven back home 30 miles. Silver lining and all that.

Rather than haul it back through the store, we loaded it into the car anyway and drove around the back to the special merchandise pickup area. I parked at the curb like you're supposed to and turned my hazard lights (or flashers, whatever you want to call them) on. We took the vacuum into the store and explained what had happened. The guy checked his computer and said they had three more in stock, but he kept making excuses and crap, acting like it was almost a foregone conclusion that the computer was mistaken and that they didn't have anymore and that we'd be out of luck -- we'd have to return it for a refund, or take it as-is. (Um, what?)

Well, they checked, and they had did indeed have another one. We were getting ready to carry it out to the car when the same guy stopped us and told us to wait. I thought it was going to be more BS or some kind of stall tactic to get us to, for whatever reason, not take the new wet/dry vac. He said, 'I think... are you... I think... I think you car might be the one that got... scratched'.

Uh oh.

So we all went out to the car, and oh yes, there was a nice scratch. Turns out one of the employees tried to drive a forklift up the curb  by our car, and it tipped the forklift so that his load of compressed boxes fell onto my car. The scratch was from the metal band that had been holding all the boxes together which had snapped when the load tipped over. Well, once they moved all those boxes off of the car... we could see that not only was the car scratched, but the boxes had smashed in the rear door on the passenger side. It didn't even look like it would open, and when I did the automatic door locks, the lock on that door didn't open. Heh.

Then we had to fill out paperwork and crap, while loss prevention/security took pictures of the 'incident'.

This morning, I had to borrow my father-in-law's Avalon (again) so Tracey can take the car into the body shop for an estimate and then fax it to Sears.

Suck.

While I was watering the lawn last night (or, rather, watching the sprinkler water it for me), I was messing around in the driveway, shooting hoops. I didn't even have regular shoes on, just my pair of sandals. But man, I was hitting everything. At one point, I told Tracey that I thought I could hit any shot I took. I walked away from the basket, with my back to it, and flung the ball over my shoulder and it went in -- nothing but net. hahahaha

It was awesome.

(What do you mean this isn't the kind of life update you wanted?!)

Watching 'In Treatment' makes me want to become a psychologist.

Was it like this for my parents? Is it still?

When I was growing up, primarily in the 80s, music from the 60s was oldies. So in 2008, music from the 80s should be oldies, right? I actually heard a teenager refer to 80s music as 'oldies'. They were passing by, so they didn't see my look of surprise.

I saw a car on the road a couple weeks back. I can't remember the make or model, but it was definitely from the 80s. It had an official 'historic vehicle' license plate.

I'm 28. I feel 19. Maybe younger. My friends are almost all married. Many have kids.

I have a job. A wife. A car. A mortgage. Responsibilities.

It's already too late for some things in life. Though, never too late for many other things.

I realise this sounds melancholy. But it's really not that way for me. I'm just feeling introspective. I'm so happy with life and wouldn't have it any other way.

I was thinking on my drive in to work this morning (after I was done with my morning prayers) about creativity and my song writing, and how I haven't really written any songs in awhile now. Bits and pieces here and there, but no full songs.

I do sing songs that I create 'on the fly' while I'm driving in the car, but by the time I get to a place where I can write down the words, I've almost always forgotten it, or forgotten the tune, or both. I can use my phone to record myself, but even then, by the time I get it set to record, it makes my mind go blank. It sucks. But I digress.

The thought that popped into my head regarding my song wring is this: Negativity breeds creativity. 99% of my songs are 'negative' in some way -- they're about sadness, they're about loss, they're about betrayal, they're about suffering, pain, death, suicide, etc. The 'positive' ones have been far and few between, and much more of a struggle to write. Hence, negativity breeds creativity.

But today, for the first time, when I thought of that phrase, the next thought I had was: bullshit.

Who says it has to be that way? I've made it that way, but it doesn't have to be that way. I can write songs that are positive. I can write songs that are uplifting, that focus on the good and not the bad.

Other people can. Hell, I was listening to Natalie Merchant this morning and thinking of her positive songs, and it's like... what, I'm not as good a songwriter as her? Bull! I can do this.

Really, I've always been drawn to that kind of song, though, the 'negative' ones. Not just since I got into grunge back in the 90s (where depressing is almost synonymous with grunge), but even when I was a kid and listening to 60s music. The Beach Boys are pretty darn positive and upbeat, but I'd focus on songs like 'God Only Knows' and 'Wouldn't It Be Nice' and 'Help Me, Rhonda'.

Well, I've lost my train of thought now.

Tuesday afternoon: Sore throat. Not too bad.
Wednesday: Sore throat. Pretty bad. Feeling pretty crappy.
Thursday: Go to doctor. Get antibiotics for strep throat. Miss work.
Friday: Miss work due to being contagious.
Saturday: Move house.
Sunday: Church, move house.
Monday: Back to work. Tired as crap. Still a lot left to do for the move. Still feel yucky.
Tonight: More moving, more packing, more unpacking, more setting up, more assembling.

Tracey has it worse (except she's not sick). She's taking a "vacation" day today because furniture is being delivered, the blinds are being delivered and installed, and cable TV/Internet is being installed. In order for all that to happen, she has to move boxes out of the way of where furniture needs to go, etc. Not. Fun.

Still here, still alive, all's well, all's fine.

Didn't move last weekend as scheduled due to the house not being finished (due to the weather). We spoke to the builder last night and he said we should definitely be able to move in this weekend. So, that is the plan.

My laptop's internal wireless is broken, so I'm shipping it back to HP Compaq for repairs (it's under warranty). Due to some stupidity on my part, some stupidity on FedEx's part, and some stupidity on HP Compaq's part, I'm awaiting my third set of return shipping materials before I can ship it back. But I've reset the laptop back to factory defaults (read: Vista, so they don't freak out over Linux) and boxed it up (twice now :D) anyway, so I haven't been able to use it.

Since my memory card reader is built into my laptop, this also means I haven't been able to upload any pictures of the house. It's just as well -- I really don't have the time. I'm still taking pictures, though, although I've been slacking a bit. Most of the stuff now is minor, aside from the deck construction, so I'll get a good set of pictures once the house is 'done'.

There's a lot of other stuff going on, too (kid-related), but I'm not going to talk about it here.

When did you really get to make a difference for someone else? 

Dude, every day!

What is your daily commute like?  What is the weirdest thing you've seen on that commute? 

About an hour to drive into work (~34 miles if I'm going to the shop on Tuesdays/Thursdays, ~46 miles if I'm going to the high school; still takes an hour either way), and the same home, unless there's a bad wreck or something.

The weirdest thing... hmmm. Ooh! The one and only Wienermobile! That was pretty cool.