May 27, 2008
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Mousetrap
Cranky Geeks runs a series of definitions during the breaks. So the first definition might be iPod, the second might be podcast and the third might be podcatcher. It’s annoying, just like reading a photo caption that goes on and on like this one.A Memorable Memorial Day
Too many people forget just why we celebrate Memorial Day here in the States. Memorial Day is a day to remember and celebrate the best and the brightest among us who gave their lives and yielded their freedom so that we could have our lives and freedom. Sadly, most people this year just looked to this date as the official release of urchins fromconcentration campspublic screwls and marks the beginning of summer.I celebrated this Memorial Day by sitting on my ass and not doing a damned thing.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I did go to the park and walk around for a couple of hours enjoying the ever-living shit out of my iPod Shuffle. I did a lot of brainstorming on many writing projects walking around. I now know what my next large purchase will be: a MacBook.
I long to have a laptop so that I can go write in remote locations and get away from my desk. Yes, it doesn’t make a lot of sense right now as all I ever do is work, but those moments that you can get away you cherish, and by God you want a laptop.
And I refuse to settle for anything less then a MacBook. Why? Because in my experience, Leopard offers me a platform that is extremely stable, simple to navigate, speeds up my workflow, supports all of my apps and is nice and pretty to boot. One of these days I’m going to have to revisit my Using miniMax0r post–say at the one year mark–and address some of the complaints that I have. They are minor, but they are aggravations and interruptions to workflow. If enough voices speak out, perhaps some of these issues will get addressed.
I LOVE what you are thinking…and it’s wonderfully twisted.Of making many books there is no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
So the university that I went to offers this program called academic bankruptcy. It’s where they take all of your previous work at the institution and erase it from you record…kinda. The courses still show up, but not your grades and your GPA goes back to 0.0 You have to start from the beginning and can only do this once in your career, but it’s a last chance for fuck-ups like me. I’ll need to schedule and appointment and take the time off to make it, but I think that if I were to do this, I could then go to the community college just down the street (new shiny MacBook in hand) and take out the GERs (that’s General Education Reguirments for those of you in Juanita). This would allow me to go someone a bit easier and more importantly, cheaper to get those filters out of the way. This would also provide me with an excuse to take some photog classes at said institution as the university doesn’t offer any. (Fucking Communist, Nazi bastards!)It’s quite funny. Today I was reminiscing with
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
whester about those early college classes. I took American Lit with a certain teacher because I had her for Freshman Comp. She and I had a blast in Freshman Comp as she said that she had never had a class as outrageous as that one, though to be fair, there was a second joker in the class to help pull the slack for me.I’ll never forget when I turned in my first paper: it was eight pages long! She very patiently took me aside, told me I had great ideas and an excellent conversational tone, but needed to learn to condense. In hindsight, the irony is that was before I wrote for either The Exponent or started blogging. (My first blog entry was January 29, 2005; I took Freshman Comp in the fall of 2002.)
But back to American Lit. That semester I was living in the dorm and was all burnt out. I would write both my code and papers an hour before they were do. I pulled my Lit teacher aside and told her “I’m not looking for pity or sympathy, but I thought you ought to know that ‘m not really reading in here and I’m writing my essays an hour before they are do without reading the material.” I got an “A” on all of my essays that semester as I recall.
Maybe I could get involved with the school paper after I got the GERs knocked out. There’s a lot I could do better the second time around because a) I’d already known/seen the material and b) I know what to expect from college. I could finally relax and have fun. Who knows what networking opportunities lie in store.
Hmmmmm….There’s cheese at the end of this maze!I’ve told several of you that all of the sudden there’d be a lot of writing come out onf nowhere from me and I mean it. I’ve got several writing projects that I’m involved with; currently there are two active scripts Re’eh and another project that I’m working with an International (UK + US) team that I’m not ready to announce publicly. I have a few posts stored up that I will be releasing in the coming days, some of which I think that you my ever patient and faithful readership will enjoy. Though I can’t talk about it now, there will be an exclusive sneak peak of a music video I had the pleasure to be a part of January coming to this blog the first part of June.
Thanks to Friends List filtering, I will be self-publishing a novella and a novel exclusively on Live Journal. The novella will be a narrative of my mission trip to Guatemala seven years ago; the novel is what some of you old timers would remember under the title A Time to Fight. If you want to be a part of either of these (and I’ll announce this again before publishing either one which will be done serially) you must have a Live Journal account and will need to leave me a comment asking to be added to either/both. Let me re-iterate this for those of you in Juanita: if you want to read A Time to Fight in it’s virgin run you need a Live Journal account. This will not be available via Xanga. At this time, I am not announcing a time frame for either publication. Leave a comment somewhere on
schpydurx if you want to be part of this action.I’ve always thought that there is a blogging season that runs from sometime mid-to late spring and continues to the holidays; it looks like my season is just around the corner.
Let’s put a SMILE on that face!
Comments (9)
I read it. *shrugs* Have nothing substantial to add. However this does not explain your current mood.
Congrats on being able to write again. Hope it lasts.
@xXxSnapperxXx -
Didn’t mean anything to me either, though he did de-friend me over it on livejournal.
@ehowton -
Hmm… he seems unusually cranky lately… definitely something bothering him.
Hi Tomas:
I’m glad you’ve got your juices flowing again, although I don’t think I’m up to reading anything lengthy or heavy right now.
Good luck with the progress & try not to be so cranky!
Terri
@xXxButterfly_ladyxXx -
You don’t know the half of it. I’m a real bastard.
Hi Tomas:
I clicked into the link. Heidi mentioned briefly that there was some problems brewing.
Well, what can I say? On one hand, we’re all big jerks. On the other hand, when we actually recognize the fact, then we can change the behavior. The fact that you’ve come to terms with the fact that there is a problem shows that in some ways you may be miles ahead of others who do not wish to see their own faults. The question remains, now what?
I hope things will resolve and friendships may be repaired. Forgiven? Perhaps. Forgotten? Maybe eventually. You may have to earn the trust of those involved, but then I’m sure you know that.
One of the comments talked slammed your “flowery words”. Personally, I thought it was good. It showed there was some thought put into what you wanted to say. In today’s world, if you can actually write well, it’s a rare thing, especially with humility.
This cyberworld is a strange thing. We think we can say & do anything we like, that it’ll not come around to bite us on the butt, but we really would be wise to consider what we say & do (as Heidi has learned). It allows relationships that are almost “real”, but in a way aren’t really. Strange, isn’t it?
Have a good one Tomas. Live & learn . . .
Friends ~ Terri
@xXxButterfly_ladyxXx -
Normally I’d try to hide my shame, but not in this case. I fucked up real bad and I don’t think I’m going to get back what I had. I felt that I owed it to you to show my stupidity since you had once been bitten by a similar trick.
I’d like to make some general comments on the issue and then address something that you said.
First of all, the reason that I did this with Heidi was that I thought she had used my password to get into my account and delete comments. It took a while for me to learn that this was not the case and there was much fallout over what happened. In this case, I was trying to stop what I saw as a primal instinct of two males fighting over a beautiful female, despite one already having family commitments. Now I do not mean to say that we both had the same objectives; there is a bit of metaphorical play here. The point is, I found a way to instantly end what was causing jealously and rage. This failed miserably.
Because of the short time span between the two events, I can see why people would think that this is a) becoming habitual for me and b) I am not to be trusted; in reality, it is petulance tempered with envy. I would say that the first “attack” had merit to it though it was vicious; the second was just spiteful.
However, I have spoken to Heidi about both issues. Regarding the one involving her, we have come to an understanding and I think that it may have in a weird way brought you two closer (at least, anyway, that’s what I keep telling myself.) Regarding the current event, Heidi comforted me by saying that if love truly exists, there will be forgiveness one sweet day. I do not believe in forgetting such a treacherous act, and thus I feel like I have wounded to the core my beloved and am to be forever banished from her presence.
It allows relationships that are almost “real”, but in a way aren’t really. Strange, isn’t it?
Consider: Mel and I really did hit it off when we first met. I don’t know what the hell she ever saw in me, but she pushed me to become a better person and I have her to thank for the job that I currently have, even if I hate going in on a daily basis and long for a change in careers. But as Rumsfield said, There are unknown unknowns.
For instance, I barely make enough to support myself, much less a family and it’s pulling eye-teeth to try to communicate what needs to be said without communication taking up all of our time. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy her company; I’m simply saying that we both have busy schedules and without being able to use my voice (which we did do in the beginning) I find it much harder to communicate and as you and Heidi both know, even when I do use my voice, it still takes me forever to communicate what I wish to say.
I have had a lot of friends say that I have been played and that all I have done is play around on the internet with a bunch of thirty-some-year-olds; I really don’t know how to counter that as I have always enjoyed mature company. As for being played, I’m sure that we used each other to our own personal advantages from time to time, but that’s life.
From what Mel told me, I had almost won her trust and had I not pulled my little shenanigan, she would have re-friended me on LJ.
I’m reminded of the verse in Ecclesiastes: One sinner destroyeth much good.
The other thing I wanted to say about the internet being a strange community is that it’s amazing how much Follow-the-Leader goes on. There really is a mob mentality on the web as demonstrated here; you did not go to where the real heavy comments were leveled.
I don’t know. I’ve probably said too much publicly, but I thought I owed you an explanation. Whether or not there was every anything more then a long distance really-good-friend relationship the second time around I don’t think I have the tools to tell at this point and my crystal ball is cloudy; I do know this: there is only one way out of this shit hole and that is to get out of debt, go back to school, find something I enjoy and become successful at it. If I can’t win her back by doing this, maybe I can make her regret not forgiving this bumbling fool.
Tomas:
Yes, I will admit that there was some “added tension” between Heidi & myself for awhile, after the first situation. My daughter likes to think that she keeps me in the dark about much of her life. There are aspects that I am unaware, but I also know her well enough to “know” her better than she thinks. Therefore, the conversation revealed was not as shocking as she thought it was to me . . . Disappointing, yes, but she knows our standards & I believe she has continued to honor them even though the circumstances may be questionable at times. It’s one of those: hmm, “who you gonna believe?” moments. I choose to believe her, at least until I have additional information that is contrary to her word. Has this strengthened our relationship? Perhaps. My daughter is struggling to find out “who she is” apart from her family which has been such a big part of her life up until now. I could take this struggle personally, but don’t. It’s a natural thing, hopefully to bring about an emotionally mature, healthy adult who knows she is loved.
As for the motives behind the actions, misunderstandings & miscommunication between the people on the net would seem very common to me. We are able to put forth any “personna” that we wish, whether this is the truth or not can’t be known on the receiving end. Therefore is is easy to deceive. That was what I was referring to when I said that internet friendships are real but not real.
I am glad that you & Heidi have “patched things up”. At one point, your friendship was very important to her. She no longer “needs” the connection, but any type of disagreement should be resolved if possible between the parties involved. Once again, with the net, it becomes a much more public debate or spectacle, which in my opinion does nothing for resolution (when everyone else is adding their .2, it just keeps the fires going). The internet needs to be respected in this way: say nothing online that you wouldn’t say to another person face-to-face. Others should be treated with dignity & respect. Heidi has learned this lesson the hard way.
As for the disagreement between the Howten’s & Michaela, I really don’t know enough nor do I wish to know what took place. Obviously there were bad choices made. It may be costly in terms of friendships, but you have apologized. The ball is now in their court. If they choose to hang on to the grudge, that is their choice. You have requested forgiveness, if it is not forthcoming, then all you can do is move past it, forgiving yourself if possible.
Perhaps the Lord is using this circumstance to get your attention, Tomas. As you mentioned, there are many proverbs that may apply . . . Hang in there.
Not holding any grudges ~ Terri
@xXxButterfly_ladyxXx -
Everyone seems to think that my latest apology is condesending because I used such “flowery language” but I chose my words carefully to convey precisely what I meant. Unfortunately, words and word combonations have connotations as well.