Critical Path Items

With everyone returning to college, I often find myself sitting in a nostalgic reverie, reminiscing about my college glory days.  I know I’ve only been out for less than two years, but in that short amount of time I have come to realize how much those years really meant to me.  I’ve also come to realize how much I need something like that again in my life.

Even after I graduated I never was truly separated from college and the St. John’s / St. Ben’s atmosphere since I often went to visit Kristin and some of my other close friends on weekends, and even took some days off during the middle of weeks to go up.  I may have technically graduated, but in spirit I was still living the dream.

Once Kristin left for her study abroad program in January of this year I started to actually feel my ties start to loosen.  My vicarious living was slowly unraveling.  I managed to go up a couple of weekend to visit some friends, but for the most part my ties had come untied.

In the isolation that I felt being removed from the college life, living out in the middle of farm country with my parents, and having Kristin living in a foreign country I was overwhelmed by an unending bout with loneliness and longing.  What had defined me for five and a half years was suddenly, and quite viciously, snatched away.

What was I to do?  Actually, a better question might be, what am I to do?  I haven’t magically “found myself” or suddenly gained direction in my life over the summer, but instead have actually become a little more lost.

Being the goal oriented person that I am, I had a determined path of events that I was planning on transpiring at this point in my life and over the next few years, but as the summer months have passed me by I’ve seen all of my plans start to fade, crumble, or become unstable.  

With that in mind, I’ve started searching for a rerouted life path, in order to right this drifting and aimless ship, but I keep getting hung up on a couple of items that I feel I absolutely need in order to progress onward with the rest of the things I want to accomplish.  Without those items, the rest of my progression feels as if it will be hollow, shallow, and lacking the full depth of experience.

Of course you’re all wondering exactly what it is that I need, but as much as I want to pour my heart out here, there are still some things that I like to keep to myself and that I want to struggle for in private.  As much as it’s welling up inside of me, ready to burst out in a jumble of expressive nonsense, sometimes personal torture is good.  It helps you to realize what it is that you really, truly need in your life.  I know what I need… but I also know that the likelihood of my achieving it any time soon, or maybe at all, is looking somewhat grim.  You can never lose hope, though, and I plan on keeping hope alive.

Most Boring State Ever

I'm in Iowa all this week on business so expect my posting to be sporadic at best. I've got a couple of 12 hour work days with clients scheduled so I don't see myself getting too much time to do anything while I'm down here. I'll sure be glad when this week is over.

Flexibility

I think I’ve finally figured it out.  Well, at least partially figured it out, but that’s better than not having it figured out at all, right?  Anyways, I was trying to figure out, yet again, why it is that I miss college so much and why it is that I have such a hard time easing into the real world, even after being at it for over a year and a half, and it just came to me as I was reading one of my friend’s away messages that read simply “Nap”.

Scheduling.  The real world scheduling of everyone’s lives just isn’t conducive to what I want.  Working the 7 – 4 work day and then having the rest of the day to yourself isn’t what I like.  I loved college for the unrestrictive schedule that it offered.  Want a morning off to just chill out?  Done, as long as you don’t have class or work study, which I’m assuming I wouldn’t if I wanted to stay in.  Anyways, yeah.

If I wanted to work from 9 at night until 1 in the morning to get a project done so that I could have the afternoon off the next day, I could do that.  If I wanted to write a paper on Sunday instead of doing it on a Tuesday so that I could go out for a disc golfing afternoon, I could.  

Now, all of those options are gone.  Sure, I have flexible hours and I’ve taken some days off and made them up on weekends or taken half days and worked later on in the evening, but it’s not just me that needs to be able to do that—it needs to be everyone that has that flexibility.  What’s the point of having it if everyone else is still constrained by the workday schedule grind?

If I want to go for a bike ride with someone right now, at 2:00 in the afternoon, it won’t happen 95% of the time because even if I could go, no doubt the other person couldn’t just up and leave work.  I hate being relegated to nighttime hours to being able to do things.  Often by that time of the day I don’t really feel like organizing people and getting them together and whatnot to go do something.  Complicating this one hundred fold is that most of the people I know have wives and/or kids that get most of their time.

So I often end up fending for myself or using my work day to socialize with the people at work and then actually doing work later on in the evening.  Heck, I end up working a lot from Panera Bread just so that have people around to keep me from feeling lonely like I often do sitting in the basement of my  place all by myself.

Let’s all just work when we want, from wherever we want, and have fun at the drop of a hat.  That’s how it was in college, so why can’t it be that way now?  As long as you get what you need to do at work done on time, what’s the point of sticking to a regimented schedule?  I don’t think there is.  Someone needs to lead this revolution.  Down with the 8-5 workday!  I freaking hate it.

Book Crossing

Recently I received a book in the mail and on the inside cover was a book plate from Book Crossing. Interested by the little blurb on the book plate, I checked out the site. Upon doing that I became very interested in this wonderful little, or not so little really, book trading / scavenging site. Before I talk about it any more go give the site a quick look, I'll wait.

What really intrigues me is seeing the path a book takes around the states or, in some cases, world. I was the first person to get the tagged book, Remains by Steve Niles, which was sent to me, but once I finish reading it I plan on leaving it at a local coffee shop here in Rochester in the hopes of someone finding it and continuing its journey.

I've also decided that since I like the concept of stealthily finding, hiding, and reading books that have been read and enjoyed by others that I am going to tag some of my books and leave them around in town here with the hopes that someone will find them and enjoy them, and when they are done enjoying them continue their journey around the world. There really aren't enough people that read books anymore, so hopefully the added fun of Book Crossing will turn more people on to reading. It's really a great concept, if you ask me.

The Crybabies

Me: let's start an emo band
Brandon: The Crybabies!
Me: hahaha, hot damn that's a great name for us
Me: we'll sign to Victory
Brandon: and ole baldy will promote us once and never again.
Me: totally
Me: dibs on being the guy that screams since i can't sing
Brandon: you got it. i'll be the singing emotional guy
Me: sweet.  i'm the screaming, angry one
Brandon: hah! nice!
Me: and since we're in an emo band we'll get all the girls, and then we'll write more songs about how we don't want them, we only want those two girls that are totally unattainable
Brandon: yeah, and the two girls will never talk to us because they know we are singing about them.
Me: and then we'll morph into a Boys Night Out clone and stop talking about how we want these two girls, but instead just want to kill them for breaking our hearts and not dating us
Brandon: haha, and before you know it we'll become a tech metal band
Me: and then we'll retire, reflect back on our glory days, and reunite in 20 years for a stadium tour

In the Middle of Lonliness

Right now it feels as if I'm not really a part of this world. Everything around me, everyone around me, it's all just so far away. I'm lying here feeling filled with guilt for hurting people I care about, and for hurting myself. If there's one person that you don't ever want to disappoint, it's yourself. You know why? Because forgiving others is so much easier than forgiving yourself.

We are creatures of emotion and our bodies are ruled by those emotions, even when we wish they weren't. Like right now I can feel my insides churning all around and my heart weighing itself heavily in my chest, and there's nothing I can do to alleviate it. There's no amount of Pepto or Ibuprofen or anything else that can make me feel better, the only thing that can cure what ails me is being able to forgive myself and being able to make things up to those that I've hurt.

I've never felt this way before, never been so disappointed by actions I was capable of doing. This pain must be used as a tool to learn a lesson, a lesson that I wished I hadn't needed to be taught. I'm so alone right now, alone in the agony I created for myself. When there's no one to blame but yourself, there's no way to shift the burden of guilt off of your shoulders.

It's crushing me... slowly, right now it's crushing me. But I deserve it. I just pray that I'll be able to climb back, that I'll be able to forgive myself, that I'll be a better person, and that I'll feel whole again. I'm sorry. I'm sorry everyone for not being as good of a person as I always thought I was. I'm hurting and alone tonight, but I don't have anyone to blame but myself.

Making Mistakes

We make mistakes, it's what we do - So make your pain a lesson - I make my own mistakes and I learn from them well - The pain I feel inside is my own hell – Pain is a Lesson by Trigger Point

Mistakes are something you can’t avoid.  No matter how much (or little) you think about doing some things or not doing others, you can’t be perfect.  Eventually, despite all your best efforts, you’re going to screw up and make a mistake.  As much as I hate to say it, I make mistakes, but in doing so I try to learn as best as I can from those mistakes so that I don’t make them again or so that I don’t make similar mistakes.

Sometimes a mistake is barely noticeable and, in fact, you might be the only one to know you made it.  Other times it’ll have ramifications on other people, your life, and your lifestyle.  Those are the hardest mistakes to swallow, but swallow them you must because like it or not you’re going to make a mistake.

Lately I feel as if I’ve been making more mistakes than I usually would.  Mistakes upon mistakes, but each one, no matter how hurtful it is, I learn from it.  The more screw ups I have now, the fewer I’ll hopefully make in the future.  I know that sounds pretty damn common sense-ish, but often times we forget to learn from our mistakes.  We’re just content to keep on making them or if we do know not to do something again, we still don’t see it as a part of the big picture.  A mistake can have ripples throughout your life.

It’s those ripples, and those mistakes that cause them, that I feel I’ve been forgetting about.  I’ve simply been content to live in the pain of my mistakes instead of learning from them.  That’s been my biggest mistake lately—not realizing how my screw-ups actually affect me and those around me.  

I’ve made my mistakes.  Now it’s time to learn from them. Time to make this pain a lesson.

The Empty Insides of a Nice Guy

It’s always easy to complain about things, much easier than actually doing something to alleviate what you are complaining about.  I know this because I seem to complain a lot, at least according to those who know me.  I whine about how boring Rochester is.  I bitch about how I have so much to do at work.  I moan about how I hate driving places.  When I think about it, usually whenever anything even mildly annoys me, I have the urge to complain.

I’ve often used this blog as a place to air many of my complaints, often simply because I didn’t want to complain to people lest they think I’m nothing more than a whiner and I didn’t want to keep everything completely bottled up, as I do with many other negative emotions.  Do something that annoys me and makes me want to complain, I’ll just air it out on my blog or blab about it to a friend.  Do something that genuinely pisses me off and gets me angry… well, I’ll not do a damn thing.

Well, I may fume and be a little more anti-social, but that’s about it.  I hate confrontation and I hate expressing anger, mainly because when I have I’ve done things and said things that I wish I hadn’t.  I don’t want to hurt anyone, no matter how they’ve hurt me.  Wait, actually I usually do want to utterly decimate the person who hurt me, but I never act on it.  

For me, I always rationalize my lack of expressing anger towards someone in that it is better for only one person to be hurting than for two, and I am a strong person so I can take it.  Of course this is totally unhealthy and has allowed me to be walked all over many times in my life, but I really can’t stand to hurt another human being, even if that human doesn’t mind causing me a little pain.

I remember one instance in particular that illustrates perfectly how I handle things.  In high school one of my friends, and I use the term friend loosely here since I didn’t have many true friends in high school, decided that it would be fun to give me a somewhat negative nickname.  It pissed me off since no one really likes to be called names, but I let it go and pushed down my anger.

Later on in high school this friend did something really stupid and developed his own pejorative nickname.  Every kid that this friend of mine had ever made fun of threw that nickname at him every chance they got.  They were out for blood and it made them feel so damn good to be getting even.

I didn’t call him that nickname, though.  He’d hurt me a ton, true, but I couldn’t bring myself to hurt him in return.  No, I just called him by his name.  I couldn’t bring myself to be nasty, to be mean, to be callous… I only realized how much I had been hurt and how I wouldn’t want anyone to hurt like I did, even if they caused me pain.

I realize now that by not ever trying to get even, by never wanting to cause anyone pain, or trying to start a conflict that I have been taken advantage of over and over again.  People see a nice guy and that tells them they can walk all over him if they so choose and he’ll still be there in the end, positive as ever.  The only difference, which you people who take advantage of us nice guys don’t know, is that deep down we’re all a little more cold and little more empty, you just don’t know it because you’re too concerned about getting only what you want.

Upset!

Bam!  Knocked them right out.  They didn’t even know what hit them.  We’re moving on to the championship game next Monday.  But before then, let’s step back to last night’s semi-final game between M.O.F., which stands for Mostly Over Forty or Mostly Old Farts, whichever you like better, and McGladrey, the league’s #1 team.

We had played McGladrey earlier in the year and, quite frankly, got stomped 14-4.  It wasn’t even really a game as they were just having their way with us.  Their downright domination of our team was not so different than their domination of every team in our league.  It was pretty apparent that they would quite handily have this league’s championship wrapped up.  Even we thought that.

We went into our quarterfinal playoff game ready to play and came out with a strong win, which wasn’t unexpected as we were favored to win, but it still felt good nonetheless.  Upon winning, though, we realized who our opponent would be in the semi’s and resigned ourselves to the fact that our next game would most likely be the last of the season.

When it actually came time to play McGladrey, we went into the game with no expectations other than to have fun and try to do what we could against a team that had pummeled every other team in the league.  Since they were the higher ranked team, they were the home team for the game.

As we went out to bat in the top of that first inning we somehow strung together hit after hit until the bases were loaded with no outs, at which point we just kept hitting and built a giant six run lead by the time we had to take the field.  We were prepared for them to start an outright offensive onslaught against us, much like the last time we played, but they only managed two runs coming off of a home run.  We’d take that.

In the remaining six innings they only managed three more runs while we tacked on four more to our already strong six from the first inning for a final score of 10-5.  Everyone had a great game all around.  I even managed to eek out a good game going 2 for 3 with 2 RBI’s.  It might have taken me all season to finally get my bat going, but it couldn’t have come at a better time.

After the game there was a vast difference in the demeanors of the two teams.  We were ecstatic to have pulled off a game that we didn’t think we could while they all gathered around their beer cooler like their parents collectively died the moment we caught the final fly ball.

It was great to win, especially given the odds stacked against us.  Now we have a chance to win the championship and that is something our team hasn’t done in 26 years.  Obviously I haven’t been with them all 26, but this season has been a great one.  Wish us luck!

Fear Factory - Transgression CD Review

One of the original pioneers of the industrial metal genre refuses to die. The boys of Fear Factory are back yet again with their latest effort, Transgression. With a new cd comes… more of the same, and unfortunately it’s more of the same crap that was on their last two efforts, Archetype and Digimortal. Anyone hoping for the rawness of Demanufacture era and previous Fear Factory, sadly, need to keep hoping. I’d hoped they would at least maybe attempt to capture some of the ambitiousness of Obsolete, considering the raping their last two cds received when it came to reviews, but no. Instead they decided they’d just try to get even more boring.

The biggest and most glaring flaw this album has is its attempt to become more radio friendly, even more so than their last couple of albums. It’s hard to fathom why they would do this, considering their last two albums didn’t exactly light up the sales charts and mellowing even more probably won’t shift any more units at the local Best Buy.

Listening to songs like “Supernova”, “I Will Follow”, and “Echoes of My Scream” makes you really wonder if these are songs that the band that brought you classics like “Piss Christ”, “Martyr”, and “New Breed” would actually want to make. It almost feels like the members of Fear Factory have had their bodies possessed by the ghost of nu-metal past. It’s so hard on the ears to listen to the watered down, meandering mess that this cd is. Yeah, I can’t believe I used the word meandering to describe Fear Factory either.

What used to be a band that created pulse-pounding, mile-a-minute, blisteringly paced metal with a special electronic edge now feel slow, boring, and unevenly paced. Rarely will you hear the bruising double-bass marathons of old on Transgression. What you will get is a ton of songs focusing on melody, which some might see as a good thing, but most won’t, simply because, no offense to the band, as talented as they are they just aren’t suited for making melodic metal.

It’s hard to listen to a band slowly decline release after release, but that’s just what’s happening with each new effort that Fear Factory puts out. They either need to sit down, do some real soul searching, and find the intensity of the old Fear Factory or hang it up for good before things get too much worse.