Umm...

So my boss forwards me a lengthy email conversation between him and his counterpart in my company's Sunderland, UK plant about my project. Last question is if they think they'll need somebody to help out during installation.

So I ask if that means I should think about heading over there. My bosses reply:

:)


Yup that was it. Verbatim.

de-MYST-ifying: A long story.

A long time ago (more towards the year and a half mark then two years ago), a young impressionable, somewhat insecure engineer (me for those that didn’t guess) was doing cool stuff for a small company in the middle of nowhere. Some tumultuous events had occurred earlier that year and things for this guy were just starting to look up again when he re-met a girl he had known in college (Dess).

Okay so enough with the third person. It sucks to write in. And it sucks even more to read I think.

Anyhow, we started dating. Well I guess to be more specific we spent a lot of time together for some reason mutually didn’t call it dating because didn’t want to. Of course now that sound amazingly dumb, but hey I wouldn’t be at this point if I had made all the right choices the first time.

So after a few months of dating (but not “dating”) I remember receiving a message like this: "I by no means want to confuse things between us, and I have a great time just the way things are, but I have to ask, because it's been gnawing at me in the back of my mind, have you ever thought of making this more than it is?"

My answer to this was classic. Well classic in my mildlyretarded (shameless plug) way and said in no more words then this: “Well I won't lie and say that no it hasn't ever crossed my mind, but it doesn't really sound like the best of ideas to me for a huge number of reasons. And really what would be gained by changing the name of what we have? We happen to be idling in the same place and while we're here it may seem a good idea but we'll move on in different directions, its just a mater of time. In general friendships last much longer for me, transcending distances substantially better so I would prefer to keep things that way.”

Wow, reading back through that now is terrible. I can’t believe I would say such a horrible thing. I am amazed by how degrading a comment such as that really is. So in short order things ended as one would expect. The thing is that wasn’t what I wanted to say, it just sounded like the right thing to say.

I guess now is the time to explain a complex I have seemed to suffer from for a great long time. I nearly always chose the hard choice without considering if it’s a right choice. I have since learned that if your heart is in the right place then the hard decision is actually the wrong decision because it is your head thinking what is right going against what you KNOW is right. Where in this case knowing is not rationalizing.

Anyway getting back on track this separation was not long lived because I did a few things that I don’t really seem to end up thinking about they just happen. In this case a bouquet and note at exactly the right moment. Also, I think by this point I realized how wrong I was (but not how wrong I realized I was now).

So I guess now I have to fast forward though a lot of moments in time where things were up and down for miscellaneous reasons. Of course though the times I thought I knew all the answers and thought we had come to an agreement of sorts to resolve them. Well not so much, I didn’t really live up to my side of the bargain. I am actually probably skipping a lot of important history here but I guess it remains to be seen if that affects the way this story should read.

Well then I ended up moving back to Terre Haute after putting in a couple years at my first employer. It was nice moving back into the haute. At least the drive went from three hours to 10 minutes. Unfortunately, while I had the opportunity for spending a lot of quality time with Dess, I didn’t. Instead I blew her off to play WoW instead. That’s pretty much the brutal truth of it. I squandered the short time that we had together.

The thoughts going though my head were greatly varied at the time and I guess I wouldn’t call them doubts, but just more along the line of accepting of the fact that I could live without her. That was farther from the truth then anything I think I’ve ever heard.

That brings the story nearly up to date. Just skip a little bit into the summer months.

The one thing that I guess I haven’t mentioned really in this whole thing is though my life two things have been true. One being I have gotten by more on talent than motivation. I am not the most self-motivating of people. The second is because of events in my life I chose to create a shell for myself to live in, a facade of strength and aloofness to combat the possible judgment or hurt the world would bring to bear. It thought that not only would that protect me but would also help me because who would possibly resist that strength?

Well I learned this weekend that in the end it didn’t help me at all. And, it was one of the things I see now is one of the most offensive things to the people I know. The details of how things recovered from such a catastrophic fall will be put off for another time.

Note: Thanks Jerry for the post title :)

Did I read that right?

White House spokesman Scott McClellan reiterated on Monday that the administration "doesn't think we need to be providing tax credits to oil companies when the price of oil is above $50 a barrel."

OMG a statement that makes sense! We need more of those!

*heart*

Monday was one of those days that really makes me believe I was not the one calling the shots. There were a lot of events both large and small that seemed to conspire in my favor. I am very thankful.

With that, my mid-20s crisis is over.

I love you Dess.

Inadequacies

So I spend a decent amount of my time programming in VB6 at work. This is mainly for historical support reasons and we haven’t made the switch to anything .NET yet. Though my next project that doesn’t involve being needed for production next month I do plan using it.

The one major problem I have with VB is that its object system support really sucks. The class system is handled primarily in the development environment instead of inside the file. So this means each object that is its own class must have its own class file so the environment will identify it correctly. Even if the classes are part of a collection you can not put them in one file. Basically the annoyance becomes apparent when making data structures like trees, or in my case state machines (one of these days I will have to write a generic state machine system that actually makes sense and doesn’t have huge entries and exits for errors). See the problem is since each class requires its own separate file that means you have a to declare a file for a node, and a class for the entire data structure.

Then you have to include all of those files into the project every time you want to use that structure. Or you compile it into a dll. The later I find annoying because this is a structure only used for this program.

I know there are well documented cases of major inadequacies in VB6 but this is just the one that annoys me.

Leason Learned Today

Breakups are bad for gas mileage.

New template

So I noticed that the little thing at the top of the screen was eating most of the top of my blog when it was displayed. So much for having a template I created ages ago.

The only real problem with the whole thing is I moved over to using the commenting system that blogger has built in. That means I will somehow have to figure out a way to either import comments in or just say goodbye to them all.

Sorry about that folks.

As much as you can think you'll be okay with a life change such as this (since in reality you knew it was coming) when it actually happens, nothing can actually prepare you for how drastic the change really is.

I really did know that this was going to happen. It was just a mater of when. I guess the knowledge didn't really faze me at all. Sometimes I wonder how was so very able to completely ignore the thought and deny so much.

And as much as really didn't want it to there wasn't much stopping the split. While not nearly as life, altering as some previously were there is still a profound feeling of loss. To say I didn't make some choices in the last two years without certain things in my would be lie. There was a very good chance that I would now be in DC or Detroit had things been different.

There are always many things to be missed, as anyone in a similar situation will attest. There are some things not to be missed as well (nobody is perfect right?). I don't know if its sound or a pseudo-sixth sense that tells you somebody exists nearby that, I miss. A feeling of presence even when they're not around, either though some trickery of the mind or some deeper emotional connection that seems to cut through distance, that is truly what I miss.

I guess the really ironic thing about it all is my whole life I’ve been able to be alone fairly easily. I love the solitude of being alone, especially out in the wilderness, even as rarely as I will venture there. But, it only really works if there is someone. It is as if the knowledge of someone is enough to not need their presence. I wonder if this is how some people end up with imaginary friends? Actually there is a funny quote describing this really well. My grandmother once said this to my Uncle, “For somebody that loves to be alone, you never are very long”.

Sometimes you have to wonder if upbringing really has anything to do with your personality at all.

Today Sucks

Yah it does. Sometimes when things are over you wonder how you could have been so horible to all the rest of your friends.

I'm sorry to all you folks I've neglected.

And so the Circle is complete again and my blog title seems accurate still.

--
October 3rd 2003 to July 22, 2005
It was a good run. Too bad things can't be worked out. I wish you the best of luck.

Interesting.....

So I learned something very interesting today. The Glassmen require three semi-tractor-trailers and four tour busses to get from place to place. In fact the semi-trailers even were logo'd

I did not know they had THAT much equipment to carry around.

And.... why the hell were they driving in front of my appartment complex? Either their tour dates are a little messed up or else they took a weird path.

Also... I wonder if my former RA is with them...

Pictures

So time for two horrible pictures. But at least they say a little about my life right now.

The first item is a picture of the fishy in one of the previous posts:



He's about 6 inches long now from nose to tail. I've had the two of them for about 3 months now since the time they were an inch and half long. I would expect them to be almost fully grown (12-16 inches) within the year. So far the guy I pulled the plasic plant parts out of seems to have suffered no ill effects.

The next item is:


That is actually almost (only the mirrors are different) exactly what I have. I picked up the last Quadrasteer Suburban in the radius I searched in (about 200 miles). They only made about 400 this year and since the option has been discontinued I was happy that things ended up conspiring in my favor :)

Yah I know scary. So I decided it was a time to upgrade. The dealership gave me a wonderful deal on the suburban. I got it for a little under what I would expect to pay for it used since I got it while the "GM Employee Discount" was in place and GM also matched my downpayment basically paying the taxes on it, pulled 5% on the loan, and got a little extra back on my trade in. Now its just time to liquidate some other "assets" that are less mobile :)

Note: Quadrasteer gives the 'burb a turning radius about a foot wider than you average Honda Civic.