I was heading home from work one day when I noticed something. It wasn’t anything big, couldn’t hardly be called interesting, and would have come and gone if not for my notice that night. Would my life have been dramatically altered? Would I have “Gone down a different path” so to speak, had I not noticed it… It’s really too late to know.  But it got me thinking. Life is full of these moments. Only, most of the time they do go unnoticed.

You’re at work. It’s been a long week, and you’ve got your manager breathing down your neck about this weeks mess. Forget the fact that you’ve been slaving away trying to fix someone else’s mistake. It’s your project now, and it’s not  “To Par”. You finally find time to take lunch, and that girl from the office you keep meaning to talk to is in the break room talking about the movie she and her friends went out to see last night.

That’s it. There’s nothing special about that situation.  Heck, it’s a story that plays on repeat at every job across the world, and yet…

Let’s say you’ve seen that movie, though you’ve had a bad week, and you’re not feeling very sociable. You get your food, eat, and return to the mines. It was after all the only time you get in a day where “Most of the time” no one is yelling at you to fix yet another problem. Two years later you finally move on to another job, and hey, life’s better now right?

Rewind that. Bad week or not, you’ve been meaning to talk to this girl, so you do. Just a few words about how you (did/didn’t) enjoy that movie, and hey guess what, she agrees. You guys talk for a few more minutes, and shoot, it’s time to get back to work. Two years later you guys (dated/never talked again/flirted but it never went anywhere/married/who cares) afterwards, and would you look at that, a whole section of your life was (possibly) changed in a moment.

(Almost “Pandering” with the “Romance Example”, but it adds the “Confidence” angle to this “Moment in Time” piece.)

It’s little moments like that which make up  the stories we have to tell from our rockers many years hence. And in these moments, where is your head at? Me, I think I’ll keep my eyes just a little more open, if I can. And maybe have a camera ready. ;P

  I’ve equated it to programming code when trying to describe this to my friends. You can try and write code all day long, but if you don’t use the right functions (Disclaimer: The last thing I coded was in QBasic, so I may be butchering my analogy here. ;P ) you won’t get results. Typing “Make a Window with two panes.” won’t get you anywhere. As such hearing someone say, “Don’t be afraid to fail” doesn’t really cut it. For me that comes with an assumption that one’s reluctance to try harder/extend oneself is based one an internal concern over failure. That being untrue, I immediately discard the valid portion of the statement, “that you should extend yourself” (Subconsciously. What I really need is a “Code” to open “that” guy up… ) and in turn get nothing from it.

  Now this cute little quote though is something else altogether. It not only removes failure as an obstacle in it’s “Advice”, but actually includes it as a requirement in one’s actions. And that’s what I need. It’s kind of odd acknowledging a "Weakness" in being primarily successful at most of what you do… but think about it this way.

  If you’re constantly successful, that means that either you’re not working with stakes that balance your skillset well enough, or you’re some kind of luck master. Some people will tell you that "Careful Planning and Execution" is all it takes to be successful. Some people will also tell you that they can talk to your dead relatives and tell you things from beyond this life. What you choose to believe is entirely up to you. I don’t think my great grandparents can communicate with me any more than I think that "Careful Planning and Execution" is "All it takes". I feel that I’m living proof of that. I’ve always carefully planned, and executed with precision, and while I’ve not failed at the things I set out to do, I’ve not achieved something I’d call "Success" either.

  There you have the real root of it. What would you consider "Success"? That’s a personal question really. For some, success might be paying the bills, and raising a happy child. While other may not consider themselves successful until they’ve carved a place for themselves out of this world that will outlast them. My personal definition of success involves creation, be it written work, games, or something else. Thus far, I achieved what I’ve set out to achieve, but I’ve not really "Created" anything. At least not at a level that I would consider successful. I know that the main reason for this is my getting side tracked by "Conventional" definitions of success, but now it’s time to let go of that, and start failing.

NOTE: There are several threads that I’ve only lightly touched upon here, but this is more a rambling response piece upon hearing that quote. I could take several of these subjects out for a jaunt  in their own blog posts, and who knows, I might. ;P

  So we went out, had dinner, danced, and quickly fell back into seeing each other again for the same reasons we’d gone out before. I asked her why she looked me back up, and she said that she just remembered being happy with me before.

  Anywho, Fast Forward to now and she and her fourteen year old son (He’s a teenager. I think every parent who’s raised a teenager understands that statement. ;P ) have moved in with me and my roommates (We have a Four Bedroom House, and there are four adults, one teenager, and a baby. It’s not crowded, but it’s certainly never empty. ;P ), and we’ve definitely had some growing pains along the way.

   For one, I’d not say we were “Lazy” (It’s such a mean sounding word. >.>) but we’ve always been Veeerrryyy laid back about getting things done around the house.

   Now, I used to be a neat freak. We’re talking daily vacuuming, frequent dusting, and keeping the entire house nice and clean. This was while I still lived with my Father, and I couldn’t have been happier. But then I moved out, and started living with my friends… let’s just say they weren’t the neatest… Don’t get me wrong, they were awesome people, and I loved living with them. Paid their bills on time, were fun to hang out with, etc. but you’d swear that they were allergic to cleaning. Anywho, I kept up with the house at first. Cleaned up after people, got on to them about cleaning, and so forth.

   Well, I was out of work for a couple of months (I don’t remember it being that long, but I’ve been told it was. Bills were still paid, but I was starting to get behind when I went back to work. ;?) and of course I just took it upon myself to do everything around the house so that at the least I was still contributing. This is where they broke me. It’s bad enough getting on to people about their cleanliness. It worse when you are daily doing nothing but cleaning up after them, and they don’t seem to care. So I stopped caring. Wasn’t easy at first, but you get used to it. (Sad but true.) Hey, I was a lot less stressed at least.

   Yeah, since then I’ve been far more lax on my cleanliness. I don’t leave foodstuff laying around (That’s still something I can’t stand.), and I tend to keep my clutter to my own areas, but I’m certainly not a neat freak, and my new roommates are the same. (A mite worse in that they do leave foodstuff out, partially due to there being a baby, but better in that they don’t have quite as much clutter.) So when she moved in, we agreed to keep things cleaner around the house… and let’s just say that while there have been improvements, things still aren’t as clean as she’d like them (Nor up to the level that was agreed upon during a sit down household meeting), and that’s wearing on her .

   Also, her son, while a good kid, is listless in life. He doesn’t care about school, life, or anything really. And it’s frustrating because we try to engage him, to find what may catch his interest, but he just doesn’t care (Or he’s acting like he doesn’t). There’s a lot more to him than I’ll go into here, and we’re definitely working on all that, but yeah. ;? (Again, he “is” a teenager, but it’s definitely more than that.)

   These minor “growing pains” aside, I’m really happy that she’s back in my life though. For one, it could be said that I’m not really good at taking care of myself. It could also be said that I’m thoughtless and insensitive. These things are true to varying degrees, and she offsets these traits rather admirably. She’s very Empathetic, and is quick to let me know when I’m behaving in a thoughtless or inconsiderate manner. This is a good thing.

   She’s also gotten on to me about taking care of my teeth. Let’s just say my mouth isn’t in “Great” condition. I went into the Dentist and needed a Root Canal, and will need several (21) Cavities filled. Most of it’s due to not flossing, as I was brushing my teeth, but that apparently wasn’t enough (And I definitely didn’t brush my teeth as often as I should have when I was younger. ). I wouldn’t have done this without her urging.

   She’s even brought more than just a higher level of cleanliness to the household however. We used to have “Cooking Nights” where certain people were responsible for making or providing a meal for the household. This lasted for a little over a month, and then died. Since she was used to cooking all the time anywho, working out an arrangement where everyone took a night to cook (And she took two) was awesome for her, and it’s gotten us back into a much better eating routine.

   There are countless other ways in which she enriches, and adds to my life, and I’m thankful for every one of them. To be honest, I sometimes wonder why she still cares for me when it seems she does far more for me than I do for her, but I’m glad that she does. I do try on my end to show her that I care, help with her son, and other things… but I just don’t feel it’s enough sometimes. I guess it’s a good thing I’m not the one making that decision though. ;P

   Well, that’s definitely the biggest change in my life as of recently. I’m trying to get myself back onto the Bandwagon, and start with my Blogging again, so maybe we’ll see an update around here… this month… or something.

Continued Testing:
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Whoo Hoo! Tis a Success! Yes, you can Wash you Keyboard in a Dishwasher (In case you bought it, like I did, at say Goodwill, since it was an Ergonomic and you were using a Keyboard that came packaged new with Windows 98…) to get out the Gunkus you don’t even want to know is in there. ^,^

Observations:

The keys are a little stiff… as I did buy this used, and I’ve never used it before, I cannot be sure if that’s just this keyboard, or if it’s some side effect. I’m going with it’s just the Keyboard. Also, I can’t use it with my Keyboard tray in… since it’s like twice as thick as my old one, and there’s not enough room in there for it, and my hands. Finally, I now have Multimedia Buttons… I don’t know that’s I’ll ever use them (I had them once before on a Wireless Keyboard, and they didn’t really get used. ) but they’re there. (Also, the "Media" key links to a dead file… somewhat’s amiss in my File associations… I’ll fix that later.)

  That’s enough of a post in an of itself, as it’s a warning that my Blogs are about to be spammed by me once more… but I’ll go further. ;P

  I simply adored PAX. This isn’t the Blog where I’ll be detailing that Love, you’d have to look over That Way to find that(When I get around to posting them)… but I will say that I’ve not had as much fun working myself to the Core as I had at PAX. This only reinforced my knowledge that Games are my Passion, and not just an interest with me, further reminding me that I should probably work on moving into at least a mildly relevant field… >.>

  I am a dope. I have an account set up at Buxfer (They are really quite awesome. I’d definitely recommend using them if you’ve been looking for some easy streamlined method for tracking your spending and IOU’s. They were great but mildly broken when I first signed up, but they’ve come a good ways, and now continue to impress me. ^.^ ) to track my Bills/Debt(Specifically with my roomies, which it excels in)/Money, and it even has a feature to remind you when you need to dump your Bank Statement so that it can stay up to date… Well I like an idiot ignored the reminder, and had to insert a weeks worth of Transactions manually… That wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t rely solely on my Cards for everything… Though it did give me a chance to play with their newer bulk entries function, and I must say, it made if faaaar less painful.

  Hey look! A paragraph that doesn’t start with I! ;P Remember, the point of my constant Blog/Babble is to improve my writing, so forgive these follies (And Ream me if you wish, though if you’ve got a problem with my Capitalization’s, get in line, as they are an oddity I wish to retain in my Informal Writings. ;P ) and remember, it can only get better from here… Right? O.o

Finally, this weekend promises to be Interesting if nothing else… I’d already scheduled a day on the town with a friend of the Female Persuasion on Sunday, and then last night I got a call from someone I’d not seen in a little over a year, to meet up and have lunch Saturday… I was really looking forward to having this weekend to recoup and get a few things done around the house… well thus do the best laid plans fall to ruins. ;P

  SIDE NOTE: Jeez… it just keeps getting easier to ramble out a few hundred words… If I keep this up, I should actually be able to do NaNoWriMo for real this year! ^.^ (Hehehehe, trust me, you’ll here plenty more on that later. ;P )

Okay, so I’m editing this to have at least a fake imitation of Blogging content. I don’t want to cheat anymore than I absolutely have to. Let’s see… the next day after posting that blog about Toilet Paper I ended up at a friends house where he’d left the empty roll on the holder and had just set the new one on the counter. I cracked up, and had to explain why walking into his restroom sent me into peals of laughter. Then, to top that off, I was back at his place today and used the other restroom… No toilet paper at all this time. Now that’s funny in and of itself, though it pales in comparison to the kicker… It had been a month since the last time I’d been over (The previous day aside) and he was living in another place the last time. I went into his restroom then and guess what, No Toilet Paper… It was just too funny. I just can’t win at his place. The next time I head over there, I’m going to have to remember to check the rolls for him… cause who knows who does it when I’m not around… >.>

(I promise to write about something non toiletry related next time. Probably… <.< )

  It comes in rolls, and you replace the empty roll with a nice new one just brimming with Soft Goodness… at least you would… if you’re one of the elite few people in the world that actually does that. See, I’d love to just grump at my roommates for forgetting to replace the roll in the Public Bathroom, but it’s not just them. It seems like replacing the Toilet Paper is one of the most difficult tasks known to humankind, and that lucky there are a few souls gifted with the ability to do so, otherwise Cardboard would just rot off the holders, leaving them barren forevermore.

  I am one of those lucky souls… Gifted with the ability to disengage the old roll… bring about the change and rebirth that comes with the replacing of the rolls. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone into other people’s homes, and changed their Rolls for them. I mean, it’d be different if I was the last one to use it. Then the change is natural… but no. I come in, look around, and there it is. All the soft comforting goodness of the roll, left sitting dejectedly on a counter/the back of the toilet/on one those weird bathroom rack things. Setting apart from the place where it would be complete… little by little being bled of what makes it what it is until finally you’ve nothing left but the hollow empty husk… There are times when I walk into a restroom… and the horror of sooo many empty husks, just lying there having never tasted the simple sweetness of the replacing… having never experienced the true unity, and wholeness of being one with the holder… like a battlefield with only the innocent as victims of a careless disregard for the natural order of thing… it’s all I can do to keep my eyes clear as I take care of what needs to be done…

  Wow, it’s harder than I thought it would be to Make myself post daily. I seriously don’t frequently have information that I wish to share/preserve… so why write? I know it’s to assist me in making a Habit and I’ll thank myself in the long run… but for now I’m just kinda meh on the whole thing. Hrmm… I’ve already “Cheated” by putting up a notice of intent in the places that would need such.. so now it’s “Go Time”…

  Let’s see… I finally Kinda fixed an issue we were having at the job. We’ve got these two machines to make designs for us, and one of them has a broken USB port, making Serial (Or Parallel… but we aren’t going that retro. ;P ) the only other option. So we buy this card from our IT guys (Now They’re a good blog for sometime… ) with two serial ports, and it doesn’t work. So I played around with it a couple days ago, even going so far as to get the Machine’s Tech Support on the phone in case it was something up with it, but to no avail. Well tonight, I go in and Re-Install it (Physically as well as Software) and after some playing around with it, I got one of the ports to work. ^.^ I was quite pleased with my accomplishment… though now I have to figure out why the other one’s still giving me issues. Heh, no matter. We can now use both Machines from the same computer, and That was the whole point anywho. (There’ are actually a few other Oddities I need to look into, but Meh… that’s the way of Computers. For every one thing you fix, you’ve got three conflicts to fix as a result. ;P )

  Booyah… there’s a quite respectable blog post… at random… and without impulse. Maybe not the most interesting thing I’ve ever written… but I did it. ^.^ Now I’ve got two reasons to be pleased tonight. ;P (If I can keep this up long enough, I’ll eventually have to start writing After and not Before I get to sleep. >.> ) Not that I want to keep a daily journal (Though That’s an idea… hrm…. ) but I need to find a way to get into the habit of writing. I’d love to do it more, and so if I can force myself to blog needlessly, I can eventually force myself to Really write as well… at least that’s the plan. O.o

  You know… I’m seriously considering a Journal… Diary… thing… Digitally of course.. but it would solve my problem of not wanting to spam up the sites people may at some time actually frequent, and would let there be a place I could write needlessly. Then if anyone was interested in my Day to Day activities, I could direct them there… (Stalkers! ) and leave these other places open for things that are a the least Interesting… you know, like the High Points… Hrmmm indeed. ;P

This year like the last I’ve decided to start Blogging daily, (Though I fully intend on blacking out for PAX this time. I’m not crazy… completely… all the time anyway. ;P ) and like I’ve mentioned on my MySpace, having multiple places to do so will assist me in actually sticking to it, as I can dilute the flood of Bleah. Hehehe. Anywho, just popping in to clean out some cobwebs, so’s it’s not as dingy around here. >.>