Sunny in San Diego

Vicariously missing the night

It’s been a strange year.

A little over a year ago I was an out of control thirty something single guy with a good job(albeit kind of boring, with lousy management, and dead end-ish), good friends, a cool roomie, and tons of new people to meet and plenty of wonderful places to explore. Times were fun. There were no worries, no real responsibilities, no real cares, and nothing really pushing me in one direction or the other. I guess you could call me a drifter. But an adventurous drifter tying to find oneself in the world. Everything was new in a sense. Everything was old. Everything was an exploration of riches.

I didn’t really know where I was going nor did I care. I was out to have fun. I was out to explore the world. And I was really free for the first time in my adult life. There were other moments along the way, but there were always barriers. Sometimes I had no money. Many times my friends had no money. Other times I had a girlfriend. Other times I was back in school or working mad hours. And most of the time I lived in places where nothing really ever happened. It was the same crap, different day theory. People never changed. They never cared to explore or learn or think outside the box. A lot of people had the mentality of hopelessness. It wasn’t that it was a bad life, it was more or less the feeling of being stuck in a place with nothing really happening and no desire, want, or plan that anything would ever happen. Lots of complaining. Lots of people who see pictures of the world and assume they’d never see those places. I was never one to have that mindset. I needed to explore the world for whatever reason. And for most of my adult life, I did try and explore what I could. But it was always moments. You can only see so much in a weekend.

A short weekend is far different than moving to those places and really discovering what they were about. What the people were about. What the companies were about. What the culture was like. What the real history was like. And meeting the people who lived in those places, grew up in those places and/or moved to those places. That’s when you discover what it’s like to be living/from such and such place. And when I moved out west, it was the first time I really experienced that. However again, I was not free, more like open to exploration while being attached to by a nagging grump who really didn’t see things the way I did nor did they care. Again, nothing wrong with that, but it makes things less adventurous when they aren’t an adventurous person and they constantly complain about that fact. You could say they were more or less a person who was glad to get away from New Jersey.

And looking back, it must have been great to have traveled around and lived in many places without worrying about paying for this or paying for that. Who wouldn’t enjoy that kind of freedom for a bit. Somebody else worries about the bills. Somebody else worries about transportation. Somebody else worries about rent. Somebody else worries about jobs. Somebody else gets to be the bored such and such and explore different places and people while you work all day. So again, the freedom wasn’t there when half your money is being spent on a very ungrateful person who really isn’t into the same things as you. You can’t really go off and explore Mt Rainier when you have somebody who doesn’t like that and would be upset if you went off by yourself for a few days. It is what it is I guess.

Looking back now with a clearer mindset, it was something that never should have happened from the start. But sometimes you do stupid things, then try to prove others wrong, and then just get into a routine. The god honest truth was I really couldn’t stand that person from day one. There were qualities that I did like, but mostly, they were a person who was rather dull, boring, hopeless, and unintelligent. I’m not saying she was stupid, just not somebody you’d ever consider educated even if she had a degree. Some people are ambitious. Some people are adventurous. I’ve been called those things at times. I’ve also been called stubborn and careless and aloof. But she didn’t have any of those traits. We really shared nothing in common. Why the hell we ever got together escapes me.

Well, I was down on my luck, stuck in a place I hated, bored, lonely, and worked all the time, so things happen. She was a person who was down on her luck, bored, hated where she lived and knew I had my own place far away from where she lived. Stupid things like that happen all the time and then they end. Unfortunately it just continued to drag on and on and on and on. There were a million fights. A million arguments. I’d say almost every day went by where I was miserable or just had that aloof attitude and did my own thing. Whether it was going on adventurous escapes and she tagged along with her disinterested grumpy attitude or I spent a lot of time writing, working on videos/etc, or I spent lots of time on my computer. It was what it was and it was never really good. And the truth is I really had no desire ever to marry that girl.

If I never joined the Army, we’d have never been married. That’s just the facts of life. But I felt like it was the right thing to do since I was going off to ‘war’ and who knows what happens then. There were feelings but mostly the entire relationship was filled with that notion that I’d never be one of those people who fell in love or found love. We would watch some movie about people falling in love and I’d feel like that’ll never happen to me. Sad really but it was what it was. Even years later when I’d make some adventure videos to show on the net and to show my family places I’m living and visiting, people would say the two of us look like side kicks and not a couple. Her father even told her that one time. It was what it was. I honestly didn’t like her as a person. Like I said, i found her to be boring and a pest. I also always felt like I was being used or more like she was just leaching off of me all those years.

You could say that if things were that bad, then just move on The sad truth is at one point in my life, and hopefully I’m different now, but I’d be the kind of person who would stick at a job I hated for years and years. One of my first jobs is a case in point. It was boring. It was filled with people about to retire or talking about retiring. It was old technology. As far as jobs go, it was kind of a job that doesn’t promote career growth. I did meet a lot of great people and I did learn a lot, but at a certain point, many people were telling me I needed to find another job or I’d be stuck like them. But I hate interviewing. I hate being forced to meet new people I may or may not like. Oh don’t get me wrong, I love meeting new people. I just don’t like meeting a lot of people who are judging you like techies do and then you are forced to work with those same people who might be smart as hell, but about as personable as a brick wall. Add to the fact I’ve never been one who was too high on my own abilities on top of the whole working with old technology problem and bam…. stuck at same job. I remember working day after day being bored and thinking, “i guess I’ll be stuck here forever doing this same crap.” It was depressing. Especially considering I’ve always been a creative person and this was as far from a creative job as you can get. Maintaining 35 year old technology wasn’t exactly doing much for me in any way. Which brings me back to the relationship issue. It’s the same analogy. At some point you just figure your life sucks and you’re stuck. I would have probably been better off alone, but nobody really things like that. At least not me. You just accept being miserable and lifeless.

To this day that job really hasn’t helped me in my career. I should have stuck around for maybe a year and then found something better. But I lived in Southern NJ where there wasn’t much better and it was the whole dot com bust era. Years later as the department was cut back, my manager pushed into a different department in a different city, my office roomie retired, and then I was laid off and got my ‘escape’ I guess. Who knows what would have happened if that didn’t happen? Maybe i’d be stuck in misery land? I should have quit, I should have found something better, but at some point you become driven into the mindless submission of ‘this is your life’ and you suddenly wake up and realize you’re just like everybody else you grew up with. Stuck in a dead end life with no hope. And you just live in misery hoping that one day you’ll win the lottery. How the hell did I wind up at that point? I don’t know. Same thing went with the whole relationship. I do remember a time when I first moved to Seattle how annoyed and tired of her I was and just wanted her to go back to NJ and I stay in Seattle. Of course, she had no place else to go, so it was what it was.

You become content I guess. Or more like you give up on happiness and just accept things for what they are and deal with it. I spent most of my adult life working in a career I really can’t stand. You build things that most people don’t ever give you credit for. You spend 100 hours and get paid for 40 hours building something that might just get canceled anyway and you have to start over. You work with a bunch of anti social arrogant pricks who aren’t as smart as they think. You work with lots of managers who have no clue about technology but proceed to assume they know what the hell you are talking about. Then you get pushed into the fact that most of your time these days is spent trying to comprehend what somebody is saying because they don’t speak English. Most of your time is spent speaking to somebody 10,000 miles away. And again, they don’t speak English. But these people are more qualified than your former co-workers who were let go? Yeah if you doing all their work qualifies them, then I guess so. The sad truth is that it’s boring as shit and serves no purpose. Most of the time your fixing or updating something that really doesn’t need to be fixed. Or you upgrade something that really doesn’t need to be upgraded. You build reports that don’t show anything different than the reports you built last week. You build systems and analyze data that essentially puts thousands of people out of work. How the hell are you supposed to feel when the same shit happens to you? For years us techies have been eliminating peoples jobs, we’ve been the reason behind number crunching, crashes, firings, lay offs, etc. We just don’t get the blame but everybody uses the numbers, reports, and data we provide. Maybe it’s karma that a lot of tech jobs are now going to India and to visa workers. Because for years we’ve been putting lots of people out of work and never gave a crap. If you work in IT long enough and for enough different companies, you start to figure things out and you start to become the goto person. You also can’t ignore the truth. We are the reason lots of people lost jobs. You can hide under those facts, but it is what it is and you must deal with it. It just kind of sucks to feel that way in a career that you really hated since day one.

It was always just a job to me. And the longer I go in this ‘job’ the more dead I feel inside. So the freedom was never really freedom. My adventures, sky dives, ocean dives, swims, runs, bike rides, hikes, etc are more or less escapes from the truth. I’ve always been an adrenaline junkie. I’ve always been adventurous. Hell I’ve always been a little out there. I build a baseball field with a backstop and all long before Field of Dreams came about. I tore down an old swing set, got some old pipes and nets, dug up some sand and gravel, found some cheap bases, and built a baseball field at my parents house when I was in 6th grade I think. I spent a couple of months every weekend when I wasn’t playing baseball or studying building that damn field. I did it all for the big memorial day weekend. What kid in their right mind would have spent all that time by themselves building a baseball field for no real reason at all? I guess me.

Anyway I’ve gone round about nothing here and need to finish up. Now I have a adorable little son who is wonderful. He’s a bit stubborn, he’s grumpy, he never sleeps, but he’s a wonderful little boy with a great future ahead of him. All this leads to nothing really. I have no real point to this story I guess. If I found an IT job in some biotech out to save the world company, i’d enjoy that. But will that ever happen? Who knows. Until then I guess I need to find myself. And a point would be not to waste soo much time doing things you don’t like to do, being in relationships you don’t like, and just doing or being in places you don’t like. You only live once. If you spend most of that time just marching to whatever people tell you you should do or banging on a wall because that’s just the norm and you’re too afraid to climb over that wall, it’s really never worth it.

At the end of the day you have to look in that mirror. If you spent half your life stuck in something or stuck somewhere because that’s just the way it is or that’s what other people tell you or because you’re afraid of the unknown or afraid of change, well remember, they aren’t the ones looking back at you. You are.

Lil Severin is a handful and only two days old. The labor took over 15 hours and it was a struggle. Deb is tough as nails and I love her even more.

The lil guy never sleeps. He’s stubborn. He always wants to be held. He likes to kick and punch already. He’s an escape artist and doesn’t like to be comfined by swaddle mes, mittens, socks or blankets. And he can yell and scream with the best of them.

And hey, he was one of eight born on the 10th at our hospital and he was the only male. And he was The only one kicking and complaining in the nursery as the others rested. Attention seeker already.

Everybody in the hospital knew us. I felt like a celebrity. He’s the popular little man causing all the trouble. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

 Got AT*T UVerse installed today and it’s up and running.   I’m connected to the world again.  Well I still had my IPhone, but not the same,  Maybe I need to get an IPad.  But I need to get a job first.  But then again, I need to stick around until my son is born.

36+ weeks and counting and still in south Florida with no job. Had a semi offer but that is still a no go. Budgetary reasons. So whenever they actually have money and a budget in place I guess i’d have a job. Who knows when
That would be though. I was supposed to start over a month ago.

Now I just get weekly updates about the situation, if I’m still interested and if I have anything else on my plate or lined up. I imagine this could go on forever and really it’s just a job and not wow i can’t wait. As far as the west coast trip to Bev Hills, well, it went well but haven’t heard anything. Plus with a kid on the way that’s a stress to up and move at this point.

Hopefully something great comes up that I actually like with great career potential. Who knows.

Two more days. That’s all she wrote.
Goodbye San Diego and hello Miami.
Train ride from SD to Los Angeles then from LA to New Orleans.
Then stay a night and rent a car onward from NO to
Florida’s panhandle and the Gulf coast.
Cross from west to east and wind up in
Miami, Florida.

so much packing and organizing and
Clearing out tasks. Not enough time but plenty. Find new doctors. Look for a place. Find a job. Paint some walls and prepare a crib and room. So much to do and not enough time in the day.
Growing up in a sense. Still me but different. I see things differently now. Still my crazy self but in a different way.
Why waste money on needless nonshowable things? Why wake up in the afternoon not remembering anything? Why pretend like staying fit and eating healthy matter when nights are spent filling the body with poisons.
Why lie to the mirror? Spent a long time being a kid really. Money spent on what? Then make some more bread to pretend like it didn’t matter.

moving on. New energy. Son on the way. Be back in San Diego in a few years. For now it’s off to Miami.

A Stifling Rabbit walked along an incurable road and discovered the ultimate Epiphany.
For it’s never about one’s destiny during endless and hopeless battles. Nor is it about reaching one’s full potential according to some fear mongered hope.
Pursuant to a conceptualized realization, an immutable Epiphany if you’d like, it’s never about what others see in him; nor is it ever what they feel is a realization of oneself; rather an acceptance in the eternal damnation of the world within himself and himself within the world.

One of my new favorite sites since I found out my soon to be child is a Boy. That’s right there will be another mini-me running around in the world. A baby boy coming July 2, 2010. Fascinating to see all the ultra sounds and baby movements. Even felt a kick the other night. Weird.

Anyway the site is….

http://rockabyebabymusic.com/

My son will have some Ramones, Metallica, Beattles, Nirvana, and Bob Marley lullabies…I’m stoked.

It’s been a bit since I last posted. Not that I’ve been in trouble or anything or going through mad pain or horrible circumstances or depressing moments. More like just figuring everything out at this point in time. Yes I’ve been kicked out of a bunch of bars. Too much dancing, partying, meatheads, hotheads, and anger issues but at the end of the day it is what it is. Spending way too much money might be the biggest problem but that just happens. Somebody has to support this damn economy. Dealing with various issues is more likely the scenario. And at this point in time it has nothing to do with past relationships.

Walk along an abandoned railroad track and you get a glimpse into the past. Create whatever memory you want to create because at that moment in time who is going to correct you? Or walk along and figure out whatever it is you need to figure out. I’ve met some interesting people over the past year. Some good and some not so good. If I never got divorced I would have never met these people. I’ve partied like I was 22 again except this time I had the money to burn and didn’t have to hang out in the back of a 7-11 or grocery store or wawa sipping on Cisco or Mad Dog. Or I didn’t have to go to a club with 20 bucks and not be able to afford much of anything. Or I wasn’t the person at a club wearing crappy clothes bought at some crappy cheap store. I’m able to buy drinks for everybody in a damn bar at times and other times just drinks for the pretty girls. Which sometimes leads to numbers, leads to conversations, leads to something more as they say. None of that would have been possible if I were still married. True none of these people really matter or give a crap about me, but I never really wanted anything more than that at this point in time. Why would I after all the mess I went through?

However, I was also deep down on myself dealing with everything in the sun. For the longest time I didn’t deal with anything. I became the guy everybody vicariously lives through. I have to top what I did last week so to speak for my ‘fans.’ I was in my own reality tv show in a way. Whether it was partying, bottle service, making it rain, jumping out of airplanes, feeding sharks, hiking 40 miles, or doing random crazy things, it was always about never sitting still. Never sleeping much either. But I also hit the gym hardcore, did my work, and tried to eat healthy. Then things change. Sometimes age does catch up to you or the hard life drains you. The switch to go from party mode to hardcore gym rat was broken. I drained myself soo much that there wasn’t that switch anymore. I tried to workout but I could feel the lack of energy and lack of anything. Maybe a little bit of depression set in at one point for various reasons too. It was a self destructive path that Heath Ledger or Chris Farley would have been scared of that’s for sure. Nowhere to go at a certain point. I guess you either roll with the punches or you roll into a ditch someplace and hide. I’ve never been one to hide for very long.

I’ve met some interesting people who liked me for whatever reasons. I really don’t know if they do or not but that’s another issue that only time will heal I guess. There are tons of issues I have to learn to deal with that have nothing to do with my ex wife. People like to blame everything on that or they like to tell me to move home where everybody loves me. While that’s true to a certain point I left the east coast because I couldn’t stand it there. Too many small minded individuals stuck with no hope and nowhere to go. There are some great people there but there are also a lot of people who gave up on life a long time ago and then blame the world for their problems. I never had that mentality. I always wanted to get out. And while the grass isn’t greener on the other side, I see far more opportunities where I’m at then where I came from. I left the east for many reasons and I have no desire to ever move back there. I will visit, I will laugh, I will enjoy the company when I go but I’ll never live there again. There is nothing for me there. I never fit in there.

Maybe I’ll hike through Europe for a few months soon or sail around the world, who knows. Those are some things I want to do before I get too old to actually enjoy it. I want to set up a charity to remember my sister. I want to actually build my new company into something successful. I also want to date again even though I can tell I keep a far distance these days. There is one girl I’ve been seeing and talking to for about a month now. Some might know her as picnic girl. We aren’t exclusive or anything like that as people who follow me would definitely know. But she’s different. She doesn’t party or drink. She informs me I should start saving money for the future and when I told her I sort of did that once and it didn’t turn out so well, she seems to know the right things to say that make sense. She actually knows about my divorce and doesn’t think negatively of me for it like quite a few people I met thought. And she isn’t afraid of it I guess. And her smile. She has the prettiest smile and loves to laugh. I spent soo much time with somebody who didn’t seem to like laughing that I forgot how much of a kidder and teaser I am. And I forgot what it feels like when somebody can kid and tease you. A sense of humor is worth it’s weight in gold. You have to be able to laugh at yourself and at life sometimes because it’s not always sunny in San Diego. Plus she’s smart. Masters degree and all. But who knows where things will go as like I said, I keep my distance these days. Do I like her? Yeah. But it’s only been a month and we aren’t even exclusive so we’ll see what happens. She is the first girl I’ve actually wanted to hang out with and just relax. We’ve hung out for hours upon hours on our dates just chatting, walking around, seeing the sights, eating, and chatting some more. In the past year or what not most of the other girls I’ve met were more about not getting to know them at all.

So when you walk down the railroad and forget that this track actually has trains passing by, remember to look up and step aside. Sometimes life throws you off a cliff and the only thing you can do is hope you don’t fall too hard. Because you need your hands and feet to climb back up that cliff one rock at a time. Life throws tough punches sometimes, you have to either roll with them and find a way back up or you can go hide and give up. Like I said I’ve never been one to hide for long.

Some people write to make it a career. Some people write just to write. And some people write to make their stories, opinions and ideas known. I guess all of those are valid reasons. But for me half the time I write because I have to write. I have millions of little stories and poems floating around so many places that most will probably be lost forever. Or maybe 100 years after I’m dead somebody will find them and give me the right credit. Who knows about that as I’ll be long gone and the way things are going it doesn’t look like I’ll be having any next of kin that’s for sure. Maybe my nephews and their children and my cousin’s cousin’s kids will lay claim. Who knows and who really cares at that point.

The madness behind all of this is that many times I have no other choice. If it’s 3am and something pops into my head I have to get up and write it or at least take notes about it. My mind isn’t as crazy as it once was I think, but who knows about that theory. People would tell you back in high school that I would look like a man possessed when I started writing. I’d write 50 pages in such a short time and after all was said and done I’d have no clue how the hell all that was written. There are many stories I’ve read years later and thought there was no way I wrote that, good and bad. My problem was always never having faith in my abilities. And then other times I’d refuse to write. Writing takes a lot out of me. It drains me.

It drains me because it’s not just that I’m writing but I’m living and breathing my stories. If a character is going insane, I’m right there with them. If a story is about evil or good or whatever I’m in that story. Which brings me to a new story I’ve been working on for months now. Yeah it revolves around the divorce but it’s so much more than that it’s not funny. For the longest time I had no clue where to go with the story. I had ideas but none of them were anything special. They were just thoughts. And then one day something happened and suddenly I started recreating this story and a week later I have 100 pages written. It’s a long process to go and finish, re-edit, rearrange, and make it special, but I think I needed something good to happen at some point. I’m not so sure it was a good moment anymore, but at that time I felt it was good enough. Call it a good date with a cool person that spawned the creative juices. Who knows why things happen the way they do but they do.

The story isn’t really about me per say but it sure has a ton of realistic situations so far that either happened or were so close to what happened that it’s hard not to go through the same emotions again. Which means not only am I draining myself because I’m writing but I’m also draining myself because I’m going through all those emotions once again. And I’m not even at some of the hardest moments. That will come soon enough. But I do know after all the drainage and pain and suffering and lack of sleep I will be happy after all is said and done. Everything I write comes from my heart. Everything I do basically revolves around me being honest with myself. All the good, bad, and ugly that I might have gone through. I’m not going to sugar coat it or create some fake persona like soo many I’ve met seem to do. They don’t want people knowing their vulnerabilities. They don’t want people knowing the truth. You know what the truth is, we’re all human and most of us mess up. We get back up and fight another day. Seems everybody just wants everybody else to believe they are better than them and it’s all peaches and cream. What a silly concept really.

Ever wonder why you do the things you do?

Once in a while I’m strolling along the railroad tracks and a train may cruise on by without much of a whistle. It doesn’t notice me and I don’t notice it. Almost two invisible objects passing through time. We share no real connection and no real memories. But once in a while a train will storm by and rattle my sneakers so hard I almost fall to the ground. The train kicks up a little dust to remind itself I passed through its tracks and it rattled my silence. I noticed it and it noticed me. We shared some kind of secret moment. And so goes life in a way.

Sometimes things are just a moment in time that we’ll never really remember. A person or place will just be some forgotten piece of time. Other times a person or place will change our lives forever, even if just for a moment. It’s weird. People or places you never expect anything from surprise you while people or places you expected to make a difference are just a forgotten slice of time. Who knows about this thing called life. Doors open and doors close but sometimes you have to shove down a door or make sure another door is locked and you throw away the key. Life works in weird ways. You roll with the punches and go with the flow and wherever you may wind up is where you’ll wind up. You make choices and decisions and you live and learn from them. Regardless if they are good, bad, ugly or beautiful you have to live with them, learn from them, and/or change them. Life shouldn’t be any other way I guess. Even when others try to ruin your moments.