Well that was nice

OK, so 2013 saw a lot of high hopes, and an almost equal amount of said hopes never leaving the ground. I went into 2014 with a "I just hope it doesn't suck" attitude, and let me tell you...

It works!

I'm taking this whole "graduated and trying to find a place in the world" a bit more slowly, more methodically, and I'm not stressing about it anymore. I realized that I can't change the outcome of 90% of the things I deal with, and my stress levels have gone down accordingly. I also realized that 90% of my stress was coming from just one thing.

My old job.

Sounds bad? It does. The job was more boring than anything. Expectations were low, but I wasn't empowered to really fix anything. "Armed with an apology" is the best way I can sum it up. That and it was a real dead end. The guy that hired me was there for 10 years before he got bumped up to that seat. It was a combination of boredom and fatalism. Sure, my co workers were awesome (If you've managed to find my blog: I miss you guys)

So yea, the one big thing that changed was my employment, and everything around my life adjusted accordingly. Met some new people, made some new friends, and my sons discovered Lego.

...that last one is huge.

Waybackwhen

Dig back about 13 years, and you'll find that I used to live in the middle of Utah. (I know, I know) I was a week away from my 20th birthday, and I had yet to do anything with my life. I wasn't going to college, or even had a job lined up. I was invited by a friend to spend a few days, and discovered the rent was really cheap.

It felt more like running away from home than moving out, but that's another story.

I did a lot of swing dancing. A lot as in the group I found that officially danced every Saturday would also gather several times during the week at other appointed times and do likewise. I make no claim to being good at Lindy Hop, but I enjoyed myself immensely. I also met a lot of people. Made a lot of friends.

I only lived out there for 15 months. The start of one summer to the end of the next. I didn't think I would be back in NY for very long, expecting to return within a few months. Didn't happen. I wasn't expecting to lose touch with, well, almost everyone. It was years later (about 7 or so) that I started to find a few here and there on facebook. Some others, though, not so much.

It's a somewhat melancholy thought, that there are people I may never see again.

Ok then.

I admit, blogging has slipped pretty far down the priorities list. I do too much "real life" stuff that gets in the way. I may still do a lot of pointless rambling, but it's been mostly toward my wife while I stare at the ceiling.

She is an incredibly patient woman.

Obligatory New Years day post

I like routine, until I get bored. Then I like excitement and change, until I get overwhelmed. Then I go back to liking routine. It's a cycle that finds itself exacerbated in the final weeks of the year. I used to look forward to ringing in the new year, now I'm just glad that the seemingly endless reasons to decorate are over.

December 26 is typically the day I want my house devoid of any seasonal decorations. Gone, out, packed up. I once wanted to decorate a tree with simple, newly made paper ornaments and only light it with colored spotlights. That way I could have it taken down and out in mere seconds.

It never came down very quickly when I was a kid. I remember one year the tree was still up in February. That was the real problem with having a fake tree, it could stay. A real one would die, dry up, present itself as a fire hazard that forced people to remove it. But a deep green polymer pine standing in the living room could be there so long the residents forget to even notice it. It just hides in the room, taking up half the space and turning into the night light of the house. Such was the case when I was a kid, it just lived there. It would be there so long it blended in with the natural order, such that trying to remove ornaments in a pretense to its disappearance was disturbing such order to such a degree that my attempts were thwarted.

I once suggested an old, old, incredibly old school Christmas decorating time frame by setting up our tree on Christmas Eve, and taking it down on Epiphany (Jan 6). My wife replied with the kind of stare that could freeze oil.

I've resigned myself to the fact that stores have valentines displays out already.

Well then...

Short answer: I didn't have anything worth writing about. That doesn't make for much of an excuse for not rambling in a blog, no, but at least it saved you from having to slog through a giant wall of text only to find there wasn't any substance to it.

You're welcome.

2013... I could talk about how I graduated, but that's been done. Instead I'll talk about how I personally revoked one of my favorite pastimes: making fun of people that gave their kid goofy names.

I had my third child this year. Another boy, which makes it easier in the short term. We have all the clothes, and we can toss them all in the same room if we're low on space. But back to the matter at hand: we named him Zefram.

Are you done looking it up? You're right, it's from Star Trek. No, he wasn't named after the character. It just happens to be where I first heard it. The episode where the character was introduced aired 13 years before I was born. That doesn't stop the name from raising a few brows, but it does offer a distinction from more modern, "unique" names.

And it doesn't rhyme with -aiden.

I admit, the name did take some getting used to (we all just call him Z for short. I suppose if we went to Canada he would be called 'Zed' or something, but I digress), though when I look at what's happening to baby names, I figure by the time he's old enough for people to ask him about his own name, they'll probably think he's Jewish. (Unless *they're* Jewish, then I have some explaining to do)

So yea, in giving my son an unusual (or is it just uncommon?) name, I feel like I've lost the right to mock people who give their kids unusual names. Someone else will have to mock the parents of Brandolyn, McKaty, and Laken. I know you're up to the task, folks, don't let me down.

At least his middle name is Alan.

Twitch

Somewhere around the middle of this past spring, my eye started twitching. At first, it just felt like a tiny, itty little spasm. Weeks later, it was frequent enough to become a mild concern. Later still, it was actually impairing the vision in my left eye. Couldn't figure out what was causing it. Lack of sleep, poor diet, stress, something I can't pronounce? No idea.

It's been over two months since I walked out of my last undergraduate classroom.

I wanted to go to graduate school in Alaska. Yea, Alaska. Four thousand miles away, 5 time zones, 59th parallel and all that. Wanted to study Remote Sensing, figured I'd become one of those climate scientists the politicos are always claiming not to be. I was getting good vibes from up north, all signs pointed to go and all that. Of course, the phrase: "Yea, you know how we said we fund all our graduate students? That's not actually true" wasn't verbatim, but it was close enough.

When I started that endeavor, one of the professors that I asked for a letter of recommendation from said that she hadn't really thought I would head in that direction. I forget her exact wording, it was awhile ago. What hit me was the way she said it; it was like she was disappointed. I don't know, I have a hard time reading people. I should have asked her what she though I would have done. I never realized how much I valued her opinion.

So yea, grad school didn't happen. I more or less put all my eggs in one basket on that one, but that was just my optimism taking over. (I need an actual pair of rose tinted glasses, it would just work)

Then there was the idea of just getting a job. Since I was looking in a completely different direction the entire time, I wasn't really prepared for the fact that my degree isn't worth much without either several years experience, multiple technical certifications, or a masters degree.

...crap.

Ah yes, my student loans are about to come crashing down on me, I have no employment but a poorly paying gig to say the least, and a steep climb to make my degree useful. I'm not fishing for pity or advice. I'm just trying to say that the twitch in my eye clearly knew its welcome was worn out. It disappeared the other day and didn't leave so much as a whiff of it's cologne.

Coming up for air

It was my last semester. A quiet one. Kind of a lonely one, too. The money ended somewhat abruptly, and with little notice, in the middle of last fall. It was fortunate that I really only needed one more course to graduate, so this past spring, I only had the one.

Two days a week. One course. I never lived on campus (having started this endeavor with a wife, that would have been awkward), so the most social interaction I had with my friends on campus was in class and, of course, the various times we gathered to study.

I got a part time job to cover the cost of that last course, and quickly found myself disliking the entire situation. There were my final moments in college? Barely seeing any of the classmates and faculty that have become friends? Spending my evenings in a quiet, depressing button-down under a fluorescent light?

I spent more time alone this spring than I had any other semester since I got here. I attended my graduation ceremony yesterday. It was a satisfying experience that, perhaps, may have been more so had it been attended by more than just those who were graduating.

I didn't start college right out of high school. I spent years in dead end employment, feeling slowly crushed by the supposed reality that I could never do better than that. When I started college, I was overwhelmed. I had no idea what I was doing.

I'm not the same person I was when I started this.