THANKSGIVING HAS COME AND GONE. .
And it turned out a lot better than I thought. My son stayed at his grandparents (my parents) and I saw him three days he was here. I still wish his ankle had been fixed so we could go snowboarding. It would have been the earliest I've been out in a LONG LONG time. Like I said, it would have been nice, but I have to understand having his ankle heal properly is more important in the long term.
WHY DO PEOPLE MAKE THE DECISIONS THEY DO?
I always wonder sometimes why people make the decisions they do. I have a friend who does some web stuff and a year ago, he took a big corporate job downtown and hated every minute of it. He posted about it all the time on his site (which shall remain nameless) and finally after a year - he quit. He said he wasn't cut out for the "corporate" life and had already taken a job at a smaller company.
I'm not going to bag on him making his decision, but clearly some people don't need a lot of money to be happy - which is admirable. What I can say is I spent a long time working for small businesses and I never made much money, while I basically ran the place and the owner reaped all the rewards of my hard work. This was something I always resented. Not to mention, I felt like I knew more about the industry in which we both worked,and here I am, still making a pittance for salary and commission.
Several years ago, I felt like I needed a lot more security and saw the writing on the wall in my own industry that changes were taking place and unless I did something, I was going to be out of work - which is not cool. I actually sought out a corporate gig because I felt working for a larger company would give me a stable income with a buttload of benefits.
After almost four years and three positions, I think I finally found where I really want to be. I was successful in my main goal of getting out of sales, and had a career change at *gulp* 38. In less than 3 years, I dug myself out of a sales career, changed positions twice and have arrived at somewhere where I feel challenged every day, in a fast paced environment, with some of the smartest people I've ever worked with. It's a nice perspective when you're not the smartest guy in the room all the time.
Like I said, I don't know why this person opted to get out of his corporate gig, only he will ever know, but he must have felt like he could not find happiness doing the corporate gig during the day and then doing what he loves after his day job. Maybe his friends were harassing him about it, I know when you're a skateboarder, it's pretty uncool to work for the "evil empire" (whatever that evil empire might be) and I've plenty of people laud my decision to work at a large corporation.
In any case, I will never know what motivated him to quit, but I do hope he does find happiness in whatever he does decide to do in the future.
AM I FINISHED WITH CONSPIRACIES. . . . ?
I was thinking this afternoon about how long its been since I've been interested in conspiracies. Maybe its because I don't have much time anymore. In my old job at Mobile Cellular, I could surf the internet all day and do whatever I wanted. I was on several message boards which kept my interest most of the day.
I famously gave up the ghost on the one conspiracy I followed the longest, after a long time of thinking about it and what might or might not be happening. In the end, it never really mattered to me, and I found once I pulled back a bit, I found the people on the above board to be completely fucking insane. The paranoia of these people was pretty intense and pretty shocking.
In any case, I concluded today that conspiracies only have so much life, until they run their course and then what do you do? Where do you go from there? It's like a dead end, nothing else left to do except let people decide what really happened or who was actually behind whatever it is your investigating. In short, it gets boring pretty fast.
SO WHAT IS INTERESTING TO ME NOW?
A LOT of new things. I've set up one of my desktop computers with a Linux system last year (after my laptop took a crap and stopped working) and I've been learning ever since. I consider myself a pretty creative person so I've been looking into how to change the theme on my Mandriva / KDE environment. The one site I lean on a LOT is KDE Look. They have a lot of cool stuff and a hoard of good developers.
I'm also trying to do some low level web development on it as well - just as another challenge. I say its a challenge because its hard to find comparable developer software for Linux, and more specifically Mandriva.
What else? Just more graphic design stuff with Photoshop and Illustrator. Things where I can use my creativity to make cool things.
I might be burned out on soccer, but at this moment, I'm watching Juventus play Reggina in the snow. Juve is up 3-0, late in the second half. Even though I still watch a LOT of games, the bug to play still isn't there. I feel like I've closed the book on my career and want to focus on other things which I've taken an interest in.
WHAT ELSE?
Oh yeah, about a month ago, I got a call from my sister about where the project to re-do her website was going. After trying to wrangle a few guys to do the site, I was pretty disappointed with the results. I guess I shouldn't have expected something amazing since all the guys were working for free and they all had several freelance projects which they should be working on and which had paying clients. In the end, I scrapped it and was moving on when she called me and was talking about how her and her partner were going to close up shop and call it a day for their business.
She was giving it 6 months and then she was moving on. I figured this would be a good opportunity for me to use my savvy business skills and rescue her business. Problem is, she's not very motivated. I know if it was me, I would be working my ass off to make it work, but my sister is a different person than I, and I needed to realize this. I'm going to see her tonight and she's supposed to have some figures for me so I can determine how much monthly overhead they have, and develop a business plan which will work going forward. We'll see if she comes to my parents with the info I need. I know the business is already $25K in the hole, and that's a BIG hole to dig out of, but her partner is responsible for half of the debt, which at least takes care of a large part of the debt - which is good news. Like I said, we'll see.
For now. . this is all I have. .
Sorry, no pics or vids. . just some rambling on a crappy day.
SEACREST EWT.
A CONSPIRACY NO MORE. . .
Wow it was a long weekend. Two VERY long calls with my son and his Mother, and I finally got him moving in the right direction. We'll see how the reception at the airport goes. He can be pretty chilly when he wants to.
In the end, I had to dig in and play the hard ass in all this. I always think the more time I have to spend with him, the better off I'll be and sometimes you just can't let the other side win and give up and give in to let them get what they want. It also helps when you hold all the aces at the table.
The rest of the week should be pretty smooth (all things considered) and we'll have some good free time before he heads out Friday morning.
I was planning on going snowboarding with him, but his recent ankle surgery, and long recovery time has put that notion in the back seat for now. It would have been nice to get out early this season, but. . .whatever, I'll get over it.
TIME FOR A NEW CHALLENGE. . .
Okay, so I dropped onto the development team like a commando in the dead of night. I'm sure some of my co-workers woke up and were like, "Who the FUCK is this guy?" and here we are a year later and it's been pure paradise. Oh sure, has all been tea and crumpets? Not always, but my co-workers are some of the coolest people I know. I got a great spot, and my two cube mates (Vah Jay Jay and Tief) have made a funny and fairly easy transition. Of course, being, "the new guy" opened me up to some artful hazing, but I took it all in stride. This is the place I finally feel like I WANT to be here and help the team as best I can. And that's no Bull Durham rip off quote.
After a year though, I need a new challenge. I've just found out I will have it come December when I get to learn CSS. I deal with CSS on a daily basis and am well familiar with it, and I've started to do some development projects outside of work with CSS, but this it going to be completely different. The one thing I need to learn to do before I feel like a "real" developer is how to take a PSD design and cut it up into vaild CSS code. Likewise, learning how to design a full site in Photoshop has always been a goal of mine. The ability to combine both and be good at it is one of my long term goals.
The following months are going to be another barn burner.
I'll hit yah back up on the flip side after my son goes back to school.
In the meantime, here's another couple of vids for you to enjoy:
I've always been a skateboarder fan, and a HUGE fan of Plan B. If you don't already know, Plan B formed after H-Street skateboards went defunct and Mike Ternasky (God rest his soul) passed away.
This is the trailer for their video - Live after Death which I think came out sometime in 2007. Anyways, this is the second trailer, you should also check out the Part 1 of this on youtube - its INSANE as you can clearly see in this clip:
The second vid I'm pretty sure hockey fans will like. My soccer career is all but a smoldering bit of ashes right now. After the outdoor season ended and the I played the first session of indoor, I just had no desire to play anymore. It was as if a ghost had finally left my body. Sure, I still love to watch the games on TV, but I have no more desire to play. Dunno what happened to kill my desire to play, but there's not a single bone in my body which wants to play anymore. Instead, I've chosen to play hockey on Wednesdays and am loving it and feel like I'm actually getting better each week. I just feel a lot more confident on the puck and feel like I'm a much better defensemen now. Anywho, hockey is where its at right now, so here's a good one:
Alls I got for right now. . .
Seacrest EWT.
I'M NOT GOING TO SAY IT ANYMORE. .
All my posts have been few and far between. Free lance jobs, home life, a new daughter and all kinds of other stuff have all but extinguished my blogging. Right now there's so much going on - the election, my son skipping out for Thanksgiving, all the drama surrounding him skipping Thanksgiving, my Mom striking out on her own and opening her own Pilates studio, trying to build a site for my brother in law and getting back into shape.
Lots and lots to write about - just no time to sit down and get all down on paper. What's a guy to do? I was going to try and just leave my Blogger page open on a separate monitor and if something popped into my head, I could write it down. That didn't work so well considering I do web development and I utilize both of my monitors, so in no time, the window with my blog would get closed. Oh well, let's get to the important stuff!!
THE ELECTION
Much to the chagrin of my Mother, I voted for John McCain. My mother and I had some pretty heated debates about Obama and why I was voting Republican. I basically told her it was because of how bad the press have been skewering Bush and giving Obama a free pass on everything from his relationship with Tony Rezko to his affiliation with a radical dictator in Kenya.
I'm pretty sure people voted for Obama for change. But voting simply for change for change's sake isn't a good idea. Now we're faced with a president who is going to raise the capital gains tax, increase taxes on anybody making over $250,000 (which interestingly enough changed from 250, then down to 200, then down 150 and then another Democrat actually said 120,000) per year.
It should be no surprise that the market has been tanking ever since he's been elected. Right now, we're supposed to be in a recession and here he is wanting to RAISE taxes. When asked directly if he would raise taxes next year, he never answered the question. Even his chief of staff couldn't answer the question!
I'll give him 4 years, but what he's already doing now, I don't think he's going to last very long. People are moving their money out of the market right now in order to avoid losing money when he increases the capital gains tax. Not to mention the disastrous consequences of raising taxing during a recession. Oh well, only time will tell I guess.
MY SON, HIS MOTHER, AND THE GREAT THANKSGIVING DAY CONSPIRACY.
Here's the deal:
My son wants to stay out in Washington DC to have Thanksgiving with his Mom and Step Dad and not come here like he's supposed to. Both have conspired to make it happen and now I'm left to play my aces. I've already purchased the ticket and now just have to wait until she violates the court order and then I'll have to bring her for mediation and then I'll have to get my money back for the ticket.
The worst part about this is she has HIM lying to me now telling me he doesn't know where he's going to be for Thanksgiving. They both must think I'm some kind of idiot not to figure out what's going on.
It's too bad, she can't open her eyes and understand what she's doing by letting our 13 year old son make his own decisions. BAD very very BAD. Talk about setting a bad precedent. My son has no legal standing to make ANY decisions himself, but suddenly its convenient for her to have him make his own decisions, so then she says its between me and him. Really!? I'm your fucking father, you get on the plane and you be here then - this is not a discussion, and its NOT YOUR decision - period, end of story.
Just another nail in the coffin. I really wonder what's going to happen when he turns 18. I'll no longer be financially responsible and I believe all these battles are going to have a net negative effect on me. I honestly don't know what he's going to do or who he's going to want to live with. I want to continue the relationship with him, but after so much time, my connection to him is fading. I feel like this is what his Mom wants. After all, it's what she's done his whole life - just put more time and space between me and him. It's like she's always attempted to keep me at arms length from him. I'm just hoping one day he'll figure it out. right now, the only thing I am to him is a cash register. He just calls when he wants something. Maybe it will change, maybe it won't. This is why I wonder what our relationship will be over the next few years.
I've been contemplating sending her email about the all the shit that's been going on the last 13 years just to get a lot of it off my chest, but somehow, I just don't think it will have any effect.
Oh well FUCK HER.
For now I've quit soccer and am just playing Hockey. I've been getting up at 5:30am and working out before I go to work. It's been about 4 weeks and I'm seeing some decent results. My Dad said he noticed it in my forearms, that was cool.
What else? I found a good template site online and built my Mom's website (http://www.pilatesonthehill.com/) it was a rush job since she needed it up and running right away so I just tweaked the CSS and HTML and BAM! There you have it. I'm almost done designing my brother in law's site and will post it when I get a chance. It's a flash site and I think will turn out pretty cool.
The nice thing about my freelance work is child support isn't taken out so my son's mother can't get her little grubby paws on it. This very simple thing makes me so happy I'm getting over her.
Instead of a picture of the day (note to self: DO NOT hotlink images unless you want a picture of big dick on your blog) I have to post this video. It's an old one, but as I was driving home from Hockey this week, it was around midnight and there was a fine mist in the air and I had Perfecto on Tour bumpin through my speakers and I was totally zoning out, thinking about all kinds of deep stuff.
So this is what it felt like, with the lights drifting by, and the mist in the air.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIc8LxcXFk0
After I start thinking about it, I could almost hear Phil singing in the background. I felt like I was running towards some unknown destiny. It was a spooky, uneasy feeling.
Till then. . .
OUT
