...it's raining in my apartment!
At least, that was my first thought this morning when I was rudely disturbed from my slumber at 0339. I turned on the light and heard dripping noises. Upon further inspection, I discovered there were not 1, but 4 places in the ceiling that were leaking. I scrambled around to throw my bed against the wall out of the way of the putrid water coming from the apartment above me...and fired up my computer to find the number for maintenance. (I just threw away all of my stuff from The Atrium yesterday...literally) The guy came in and the only words out of his mouth were "Oh S***"...and he ran upstairs to find out what the heck was going on. In the mean time, I went to the gym. I wasn't going to let a little mess in my soon to be former apartment ruin a morning with my trainer. When I got back, I found out that the guy upstairs had been filling his fish tank...and went to bed.
This of course explains the random rushing of large amounts of water I hear coming from the balcony now and then... So anyway...my process of packing up has been turbo charged. I've gotta get out of here before the entire ceiling caves in on me...and ruins another television.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
TV!
Hey! A few months ago I mentioned about my misadventures with my apartment building and the resulting destruction of my television...I got a new one this week. It's a 46" 1080p 120Hz Samsung. I've been glued to it now for 2 days. I'd forgotten how nice it was to watch movies on a screen larger than a toaster. Now the only problem is having to move it...again. It's not like it's heavy, it's just a little unwieldy in the box.
Spending more time in my living room, I've realized that my cable box's HDD spins up and down like a siren all day long. It's really quite annoying. So much so that I unplugged it last night to watch The Empire Strikes Back in peace. I turned on a recorded episode of LOST on Monday night and started giggling like a little kid in awe of the HDTV wonderment sprawling before my eyes. I'm hoping to find something that runs in 1080p without having to buy a Blu-Ray player, but I'm okay with just watching any television again.
I've watched a large smattering of films in the last 2 days...it's like watching new movies or something...even though I've seen some of them more times than I can recall.
Oh, the Dragon Dynasty series of films from Hong Kong presented here in the States by the Weinstein Brothers is amazing. They've got new films and classic Shaw Brothers films from the 70's. It's really interesting to see the changes in HK cinema style over the course of 30 or so years. Anyway, if you're ever over...you should watch something with me! I'm always up for watching a movie.
Another oh, Zebraman! As cheesy as the title is...it's a great film. It's directed by Takeshi Miike of Grudge fame here in the US. I found a terrific review of it that sums up about how people feel when I suggest films. :) The title is cheesy, the premise sounds like some sort of bad joke...a man who is a lousy teacher and crappy family man discovers that his love of an obscure costume superhero tv show from 1978 (canceled of course) is coming true and he's the titular hero...anyway...lots of good cinema out there from places other than Hollywood. You should try it...you might like it. :)
Spending more time in my living room, I've realized that my cable box's HDD spins up and down like a siren all day long. It's really quite annoying. So much so that I unplugged it last night to watch The Empire Strikes Back in peace. I turned on a recorded episode of LOST on Monday night and started giggling like a little kid in awe of the HDTV wonderment sprawling before my eyes. I'm hoping to find something that runs in 1080p without having to buy a Blu-Ray player, but I'm okay with just watching any television again.
I've watched a large smattering of films in the last 2 days...it's like watching new movies or something...even though I've seen some of them more times than I can recall.
Oh, the Dragon Dynasty series of films from Hong Kong presented here in the States by the Weinstein Brothers is amazing. They've got new films and classic Shaw Brothers films from the 70's. It's really interesting to see the changes in HK cinema style over the course of 30 or so years. Anyway, if you're ever over...you should watch something with me! I'm always up for watching a movie.
Another oh, Zebraman! As cheesy as the title is...it's a great film. It's directed by Takeshi Miike of Grudge fame here in the US. I found a terrific review of it that sums up about how people feel when I suggest films. :) The title is cheesy, the premise sounds like some sort of bad joke...a man who is a lousy teacher and crappy family man discovers that his love of an obscure costume superhero tv show from 1978 (canceled of course) is coming true and he's the titular hero...anyway...lots of good cinema out there from places other than Hollywood. You should try it...you might like it. :)
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Holy Crap! (Or, how I learned that I should write more often because I don't go crazy that way.)
I might actually need to schedule in blogging to my Google Calendar. Most of my life is run by Google these days. I had to schedule in my workouts at Lifetime into my work schedule after a couple of weeks of slacking.
My new summer schedule starts next week. I'm really excited for it to begin already. It'll be the first time I've worked all days since I started with Allina over 2 years ago. I can go to church every weekend, and my nights are almost exclusively free, despite working 7 days in a row. It may sound ridiculous, but I'm looking forward to going to bed at 9ish. I can't remember the last time I was in bed before 10 or 11pm...honest.
I'm moving out of my irresponsible dog owner infested apartment building in June. I'll have roommates for the first time in 6 years, which at nearly 28 will take a little getting used to. Not that I'm not totally pumped to live with these guys, who I've known for the better part of a decade now...but having to work with the comings and goings of 3 other people will be different after so many years of basically doing what I want, when I want...as loud as I want.
I'll be able to play my drums every day again, which will be so good for me. As much as I appreciate my dad loaning me the Roland rig, it'll be great to sit down behind a "real" drumkit after work and start to bring back my chops. I recently upgraded a few bits of my kit and I'm really looking forward to giving them the workout they need. Being able to lead worship in March was really what I needed to get me out of a slump. It had been about 6 months since I'd played out anywhere, and I was getting a little stir crazy. It's tough to look at the most consistent thing in your life for the last 20+ years cased up and stacked in a corner every day. I notice when I'm not doing things musically, my spiritual walk seems to falter as well. I know there's always been a tie between music and spirituality for me as far back as I can remember. I've been told the happiest I seem is playing my drums, and I feel like that's true. There's probably some scholarly analysis of that situation that wouldn't bode well for me as a "whole Christian", but that's for another day. :) Anyway...look for more frequent stuff from me in the coming weeks as summer rapidly approaches.
Oh, I'm totally enjoying Season 1 of Smallville, 7 years after it came out...nobody said I was quick on the uptake.
My new summer schedule starts next week. I'm really excited for it to begin already. It'll be the first time I've worked all days since I started with Allina over 2 years ago. I can go to church every weekend, and my nights are almost exclusively free, despite working 7 days in a row. It may sound ridiculous, but I'm looking forward to going to bed at 9ish. I can't remember the last time I was in bed before 10 or 11pm...honest.
I'm moving out of my irresponsible dog owner infested apartment building in June. I'll have roommates for the first time in 6 years, which at nearly 28 will take a little getting used to. Not that I'm not totally pumped to live with these guys, who I've known for the better part of a decade now...but having to work with the comings and goings of 3 other people will be different after so many years of basically doing what I want, when I want...as loud as I want.
I'll be able to play my drums every day again, which will be so good for me. As much as I appreciate my dad loaning me the Roland rig, it'll be great to sit down behind a "real" drumkit after work and start to bring back my chops. I recently upgraded a few bits of my kit and I'm really looking forward to giving them the workout they need. Being able to lead worship in March was really what I needed to get me out of a slump. It had been about 6 months since I'd played out anywhere, and I was getting a little stir crazy. It's tough to look at the most consistent thing in your life for the last 20+ years cased up and stacked in a corner every day. I notice when I'm not doing things musically, my spiritual walk seems to falter as well. I know there's always been a tie between music and spirituality for me as far back as I can remember. I've been told the happiest I seem is playing my drums, and I feel like that's true. There's probably some scholarly analysis of that situation that wouldn't bode well for me as a "whole Christian", but that's for another day. :) Anyway...look for more frequent stuff from me in the coming weeks as summer rapidly approaches.
Oh, I'm totally enjoying Season 1 of Smallville, 7 years after it came out...nobody said I was quick on the uptake.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Has it really been 2 months?
Seriously, have I been away from blogging that long? I've had lots of things to write about, but really have just been processing things internally as of late.
I joined Lifetime Fitness about a month ago and have gone most nights since that time, despite being sick for the better part of the last month. They've been exceedingly helpful with planning out meals and setting up exercise routines. I've managed to lose 5 pounds in 2 weeks...only 45 more to go! (By August...) My trainer has been really cool, she even started coming to Upper Room.
As for being sick, I'm not really sure what it is that I have, but it's annoying. I've had (in no particular order) a fever, nausea/vomiting, a sore throat, the brief loss of my voice, lots of coughing, a runny nose, headaches and just a general feeling of fatigue. I missed work again today after making it through just fine on Monday and Tuesday. I woke up today and felt like someone had hit me with a bus, and backed over me to make sure they got the job done...then I puked. All in all, great way to start out the morning.
I sometimes wonder if it's stress related, I've been under quite a bit of it as of late. It seems like everything sort of collapsed in on me in the last couple of weeks and I'm finally climbing out of the wreckage. I've been going to meal group for the first time this session. I wound up with a really neat collection of people from different life stages. Plus, it's given me a chance to get out of the house for something other than buying food and going to the gym while I've been sick. Oh, and one of them worked with an ex-girlfriend...so it's been interesting getting to talk through stuff with her and her husband.
I picked up a book recently called When Bad Christians Happen to Good People by Dave Burchett (ISBN-10: 1578564905) I've run into a lot of people at work whose only real exposure to a Christian was a guy who was a real Bible thumping proselytizing holier-than-thou who worked here until he was fired for gross sexual misconduct with patients... Anyway, there are about 4-5 Christians that I know of at work, and by Christians I mean the kind that go to church on days other than Christmas and Easter, and are willing to discuss Faith matters openly. So there's a big void there...and a lot of mixed animosity/apathy towards Christians in general because of this guy. Granted, there are quite a few homosexuals at my workplace as well, and traditionally, they mix like water and oil with Christians. So, I figured it would be a good idea to have a place to start at least opening dialogs with people about what they think of the whole "Jesus Stuff". It's been relatively easy so far, people are really willing to talk about what they believe when they're comfortable that you're not trying to convert them...so we'll see where that goes in the future. I'm hoping to gain some new insight into how to breach the subject more successfully through reading. (Imagine that, me trying to learn more from a book...go figure.)
I'm also experimenting what life is like without a regular TV. Mine was tragically destroyed in an incident about a week ago where my building leaked and shorted out both the TV and the cable box. I had the cable box replaced (I can't miss LOST...) but the TV is still sitting on the floor until such a time as the dumpster in the garage is empty enough for me to toss it in. (My building generates a disproportionate amount of large items it seems.)
In the mean time, I've been using my 10" portable DVD player as a monitor to watch stuff on cable. It's tiny, but I can at least keep up with all my shows/movies that I've been recording. I've been saving a lot of classics as of late, as well as several shows on PBS. I suppose at some point I'll get rid of cable entirely and just record the network shows I like...but I'm not ready for that yet.
Oh, dating...no dates in over 2 months, and I'm okay with that. My eHarmony membership lapses next week...after a year and only minor success, I was ready to pack it in. I turned off matching in January, and shut down everything else shortly after that. It was an eye opening year for me personally, of which I'll probably have to write an entry about in the next few days...
Anyway, life's been interesting in the last few months that I've "been away" from here...more to come in the near future...I promise.
I joined Lifetime Fitness about a month ago and have gone most nights since that time, despite being sick for the better part of the last month. They've been exceedingly helpful with planning out meals and setting up exercise routines. I've managed to lose 5 pounds in 2 weeks...only 45 more to go! (By August...) My trainer has been really cool, she even started coming to Upper Room.
As for being sick, I'm not really sure what it is that I have, but it's annoying. I've had (in no particular order) a fever, nausea/vomiting, a sore throat, the brief loss of my voice, lots of coughing, a runny nose, headaches and just a general feeling of fatigue. I missed work again today after making it through just fine on Monday and Tuesday. I woke up today and felt like someone had hit me with a bus, and backed over me to make sure they got the job done...then I puked. All in all, great way to start out the morning.
I sometimes wonder if it's stress related, I've been under quite a bit of it as of late. It seems like everything sort of collapsed in on me in the last couple of weeks and I'm finally climbing out of the wreckage. I've been going to meal group for the first time this session. I wound up with a really neat collection of people from different life stages. Plus, it's given me a chance to get out of the house for something other than buying food and going to the gym while I've been sick. Oh, and one of them worked with an ex-girlfriend...so it's been interesting getting to talk through stuff with her and her husband.
I picked up a book recently called When Bad Christians Happen to Good People by Dave Burchett (ISBN-10: 1578564905) I've run into a lot of people at work whose only real exposure to a Christian was a guy who was a real Bible thumping proselytizing holier-than-thou who worked here until he was fired for gross sexual misconduct with patients... Anyway, there are about 4-5 Christians that I know of at work, and by Christians I mean the kind that go to church on days other than Christmas and Easter, and are willing to discuss Faith matters openly. So there's a big void there...and a lot of mixed animosity/apathy towards Christians in general because of this guy. Granted, there are quite a few homosexuals at my workplace as well, and traditionally, they mix like water and oil with Christians. So, I figured it would be a good idea to have a place to start at least opening dialogs with people about what they think of the whole "Jesus Stuff". It's been relatively easy so far, people are really willing to talk about what they believe when they're comfortable that you're not trying to convert them...so we'll see where that goes in the future. I'm hoping to gain some new insight into how to breach the subject more successfully through reading. (Imagine that, me trying to learn more from a book...go figure.)
I'm also experimenting what life is like without a regular TV. Mine was tragically destroyed in an incident about a week ago where my building leaked and shorted out both the TV and the cable box. I had the cable box replaced (I can't miss LOST...) but the TV is still sitting on the floor until such a time as the dumpster in the garage is empty enough for me to toss it in. (My building generates a disproportionate amount of large items it seems.)
In the mean time, I've been using my 10" portable DVD player as a monitor to watch stuff on cable. It's tiny, but I can at least keep up with all my shows/movies that I've been recording. I've been saving a lot of classics as of late, as well as several shows on PBS. I suppose at some point I'll get rid of cable entirely and just record the network shows I like...but I'm not ready for that yet.
Oh, dating...no dates in over 2 months, and I'm okay with that. My eHarmony membership lapses next week...after a year and only minor success, I was ready to pack it in. I turned off matching in January, and shut down everything else shortly after that. It was an eye opening year for me personally, of which I'll probably have to write an entry about in the next few days...
Anyway, life's been interesting in the last few months that I've "been away" from here...more to come in the near future...I promise.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
...what if I don't want to put a title here?
I've been extremely lax on blogging over the last couple of months. (Something different, right?) It's been a big transition back to being an independent adult again. I'm moving the last of the furniture and stuff this weekend, so that'll be fun. As alluded to in my previous (albeit short) post, I broke up with my girlfriend after about a month. This is a proven track record for me, I last about a month and then I fall apart and can't deal with dating anymore.
After a long talk the other night, I have reasserted the conclusion that I have issues. (duh) Mostly dealing with my fears of rejection and abandonment. I have a long standing insecurity with myself when it comes to the women I'm dating. I always have this feeling like they're going to bail out on me, or find out I'm not as cool as they think I am...and leave me for some other guy. So I put on a front of being pretty much the best boyfriend in the world...until I get tired of playing the part for days on end...and the cracks in my armor start to show...and then it all comes busting out and they get a good healthy dose of what I like to call "crazy Joe"...who breaks up with them (or they break up with me) and I move on...lamenting all the way about how I could have done this or that better. Never do I really sit back and say, "Hey...you're putting on a show, how about letting her see how you really are?" because that would be frightening to me, to let someone know that I'm super anxious and nervous around groups of people, but have a really good game face to put on when the time comes. They'd see I'm really quite shy, and not that good with words when I'm talking to someone I like. And that would probably be okay, but I don't like letting people see that I'm not made of adamantium, just plastic knock off claws.
I use the internet to find dates, because it's easier to talk to people via email and IM than it is to walk up to a girl at church and tell her that I'm interested and would like to ask her out on a date some time. Nooo...that's too hard. Granted, every girl I know would love a guy to walk up to her and ask her out. They lament over how timid guys at church are all the time...and how they're so frustrated with waiting for a guy to ask them out. For me, it's not so much the actual asking out part...it's the waiting for a reply part...the fear of rejection is so strong in me that I'd rather sit back and watch woman after woman start dating someone else...and get married, rather than buck up and ask them out myself.
Anyway, I'm planning on going to see a counselor this week or next to talk about stuff...it's been a long time since I did that. I can't keep living the way I am...it's not healthy for me, or the people I encounter who I don't give a chance to get to know the "real me". It's time to put away the armor and hang up the claws...there's no room in the inn for superheros, just regular Joe's.
After a long talk the other night, I have reasserted the conclusion that I have issues. (duh) Mostly dealing with my fears of rejection and abandonment. I have a long standing insecurity with myself when it comes to the women I'm dating. I always have this feeling like they're going to bail out on me, or find out I'm not as cool as they think I am...and leave me for some other guy. So I put on a front of being pretty much the best boyfriend in the world...until I get tired of playing the part for days on end...and the cracks in my armor start to show...and then it all comes busting out and they get a good healthy dose of what I like to call "crazy Joe"...who breaks up with them (or they break up with me) and I move on...lamenting all the way about how I could have done this or that better. Never do I really sit back and say, "Hey...you're putting on a show, how about letting her see how you really are?" because that would be frightening to me, to let someone know that I'm super anxious and nervous around groups of people, but have a really good game face to put on when the time comes. They'd see I'm really quite shy, and not that good with words when I'm talking to someone I like. And that would probably be okay, but I don't like letting people see that I'm not made of adamantium, just plastic knock off claws.
I use the internet to find dates, because it's easier to talk to people via email and IM than it is to walk up to a girl at church and tell her that I'm interested and would like to ask her out on a date some time. Nooo...that's too hard. Granted, every girl I know would love a guy to walk up to her and ask her out. They lament over how timid guys at church are all the time...and how they're so frustrated with waiting for a guy to ask them out. For me, it's not so much the actual asking out part...it's the waiting for a reply part...the fear of rejection is so strong in me that I'd rather sit back and watch woman after woman start dating someone else...and get married, rather than buck up and ask them out myself.
Anyway, I'm planning on going to see a counselor this week or next to talk about stuff...it's been a long time since I did that. I can't keep living the way I am...it's not healthy for me, or the people I encounter who I don't give a chance to get to know the "real me". It's time to put away the armor and hang up the claws...there's no room in the inn for superheros, just regular Joe's.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Suddenly...
...it was over as quickly as it began. *sigh*
Does anyone have anything for me to do this weekend so I don't go crazy by myself? Seriously...
Does anyone have anything for me to do this weekend so I don't go crazy by myself? Seriously...
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