Habitualchaos

Considering some of the money Ive been saving here and there, my bud Marcs suggestion that we should go to WrestleMania sounded like a good idea. The fact that the event was at Madison Square Garden in New York just made the decision that much easier.

Ive never been to New York. In fact, Ive never benn much of anywhere. Ive been to Washington DC, even though it was on my 8th grade field trip; around 16 years ago. Ive been to Illinois a couple times to visit relatives, even though that was around the same couple years as the DC trip. Ive been to Florida twice, once in '92 for a family vacation... and the other was a missions trip for my church youth group; in '93. Ive been near Philadelphia for a job interview, almost three years ago; and to western Pennsylvania on numerous occasions, even though its like 30 minutes away.

But Ive never been to New York. I dont know anyone, least no one Ive kept in contact with who lives in New York. And because of, seemingly, not moving fast enough... I wont be going to New York in March like I was hoping.

There was a presale for WrestleMania tickets from 9am to 9pm last Friday, the day before they officially went on sale. You had to have a password to access the presale, that a wrestling news site graciously leaked; giving me (what I thought was) an avenue to nab some tickets early. Marc and I were planning on springing for the $200 dollar ringside seats; just a step down from the $750 ringside seats that you got to keep and take home with you.

I got to work at 8:30, a common thing now that work has started these Operations Meetings (long story). The meeting was over just before 9, so I rushed into the Graphics office and logged onto TicketMaster to grab me some tickets. Didnt quite work out that way though... as the presale sold out in only a few minutes.

Not having any luck with the presale, I hoped trying my luck when the tickets officially went on sale Saturday would go a little better. They went on sale at 10 that morning... so I actually got up at 9:30, started up my browser, logged onto TicketMaster; and continually refreshed the page to find tickets till the fields to enter to look came up. Soon as it came up, quickly typed in my criteria: Number of tickets: 3, Price Range: $204.50, Location: best available... and clicked the Search button.

Apparently, just as the day before, I must not have drank my superhuman speed potion... because again, my search came up empty; no tickets matching my criteria could be found.

That didnt stop the overflow of people who got tickets, putting them up on eBay; selling them for twice what theyre worth. It didnt stop the local brokers from grabbing a few tickets and having them up for 3 times what theyre worth. Fuckers.

Ive pretty much gotten over the disappointment since then, as it was last week. I am still bummed Im not going to New York now. It was just such a wonderful possibility, I was so excited... I even still have some residual excitement lingering here and there.

I still have California to go to, visiting my best friend John. This was New York Im talking about though, goddamnit. Fuckers.

Despite all thats happened in the past... despite that my life isnt where I want it to be right now... despite all the bitching, all the depression, all the fear, all the worry and all the anger... despite all that, there are still days that I thank God for everything I do have now.

Its tough sometimes for me to see the accomplishments Ive actually made in this time, especially when Im feeling particularly poopy... but just as many bad days I have, I have good ones too.

Ive been noticing here and there... some people who do journal sites, least some of the ones still read and/or view, seem to lose interest, or "take a break" from active posting for like a month or two; or three; or four; etc.

I never had the intention of doing that, although Ive noticed lately I havent kept up on my posts. The weekly thing seems to be my most consistent deal nowadays... although almost completely unintentional. I do have other things going on, although I wouldnt necessarily call myself busy. I might actually be busy, by some peoples standards... but it just doesnt seem that way to me yet.

Part of that little-bit-o-busy is that Im finally sitting down tonight and watching a couple movies through my VTC membership. Theres been more than a few things stopping me till now... its a combination of family stuff, friend stuff, little things that require my attention and money, freelance work, finally sitting down and pounding on my redesign; and even admittedly, a little laziness.

Actually, I got some movies to watch; the fuck am still typing here for...

Well well well... I have to make reference to a sentiment my fellow Quake players use every now and then; that being the infamous "AFT." That little tidbit being the initials for the phrase "about fucking time."

After a few months, many many hours of work... and still more hours of work ahead because of little bugs that need to be fixed; I present the site Id mentioned a couple weeks back as not only being an important part of my portfolio in a couple categories, but also the bane of my existence: The Evengelical Presbyterian Church; otherwise known as the EPC.

Those close to me will recognize that name, as the source of many a day of frustration; as well as pride and accomplishment. Undoubtedly the largest site, in terms of content volume, I have ever worked on by myself. Well, mostly by myself... 90% by myself. I must give some credit to my good bud Marc for programming work he did at my request. I must also give her due to an intern named Laura whos been working in the office, for her assistance in putting some pages together when I was rushed. Couldnt have done it without them!

Everything else though, is mine. The design, albeit not cutting edge, project management, the structure and almost all the production was done by me (ie. the reason this site is important to me). It was a very nice test for me, one I wasnt sure I wanted to take (fear will do that)... but also one I needed to, to grow; even just a little.

Still got a couple headaches to weed out, alas something that comes with the territory... but shes on her way.

I was gonna have a brand-spanking new pic journal (the first new one in 5 months) to go along with this post; this post that was gonna be about the great time I had last night with my friends in Pittsburgh.

I was gonna be able to show you the antics from last night. I was gonna show you the funny picture of my bud Marc humorously eating his salad with a pair of tongs. I was gonna show you the pic of my bud Matt trying to feed a bottle of olive oil to Nyers (whos birthday we were celebrating btw). I was gonna show you the pic of Devon humorously eating his dessert with the over-sized serving spoon they gave us with dessert. I was gonna show you a couple pics of the place we had dinner at, etc.

I was gonna be able to provide some imagery to go along with my story of last night, the great time we all had at the restaurant celebrating Nyers birthday; and Devons birthday a couple weeks ago... sitting around eating good food, having a good time, (because of the layout of the table) Marc and I crawling under the table to accompany Nyers and Matt out for a smoke, Marcs wife getting plastered (and thats not an exxageration) on half a White Russian and Devons elderly mom (who was also drunk) making sure we all go poop before we left to go home,

I was gonna show you all that, with this post... before the built-in CF card reader that came with my recently-purchased new motherboard, just fucking ate all the pic of last night; rendering the card useless and needing to be reformatted so I can use it again.

Goddamnit.

Yesterday, I felt like taking a walk. For a reason still unknown to me now, yesterday afternoon (round 3pm), I just felt like taking a walk. Maybe it was the nice day out (even though admitting that will undoubtedly get me a local forcast of what its like in Sacremento), maybe it was just that I didnt wanna be cooped up in the house all day, maybe its because I had nothing better to do.

Actually, I almost would have preferred going for a bike ride... but my desire to take my camera with me, made the walk a much better decision. I already once spent $200 to fix my old Coolpix 950, when I dropped it on the concrete floor of a bar my bud Miller and his band were playing at (months and months ago)... I wasnt about to take my bike out and risk dropping my Coolpix 4500.

Was a nice hour-long walk just going over the dirt road in the woods behind my parents house, taking pictures... a road I havent walked along since I was a kid. Just felt good to be out, felt good to be doing something un-computer related (even though I had my computerized digital camera)... the only thing that would have made it better would be a nice girl to have accompanied me; but hey, we cant have everything we want.

Even though I have pictures I meant to use for my 2nd photoseries, photos I always meant to use, but are a little outdated now... I decided to make the shots I got on my walk my 2nd photoseries. Theyre a little "the-local-photographer-went-out-to-shoot-for-the-latest-sappy-Fall-calendar"... but they were a part of a genuine quiet and refreshingly slow good afternoon.

My Dad got this in an email this week... such a weird, almost unbelievable story; I had to share it. Enjoy...

Service Call Of the Month:
This is almost unbelievable. PPL received a call from a customer saying: "My power is out. When you come to fix it be sure to bring a truck with a tall enough bucket to remove the deer." The customer service rep prudently trying to gather helpful information to help diagnose the problem asked, "What deer"? The customer replied "There is a deer on top of one of the electric poles on Wilkes Rd about 1/2 mile west of Perimeter Rd." The customer service rep tried desperately to pull herself together and not laugh in front of the customer and replied, "We will dispatch someone right away to investigate the power outage. Thank you for the call."

Upon completion of the call, the customer service rep proceeded to share the funny story with her coworkers in the office and they all had a good laugh.

Well, low and behold, the serviceman who repaired the problem stopped by the customer service office the following day with the attached pictures. Sure enough, the poor deer had been hit by a train and landed on top of a distribution feeder pole.

The guy actually took two, much closer pics of the deer; but my intentions not to gross out anyone; just share this weird story.