Mobile Blogger

Here is new blog from another friend of mine, it's called Mobile Blogger. He just started it, so bear with him while he gets his reins. A permanent link to his blog will be collected in the sidebar with other friends who maintain sites that you will find on the right =>.

Sometimes it's hard to keep going on, writing how you feel, and exposing yourself to the world, but it feel exhilarating and liberating at the same time. It allows you to keep a digital diary of where you where in your life at that particular time and place. I encourage anyone who has thought of starting a blog to just start it. But don't just start it, and then walk away. Keep up at it, let the words flow from your fingertips, let others know they are not alone in this crazy world. There are others out there just like yourself, and you will connect in one way or another. But you will never know unless you put yourself out there.

To all of my friends who participate in this blogging experience, I wish you luck and hope that you attain all that you seek. As for myself, I think part of the reason I want to blog, other than to vent, is so that my children can someday find this blog and maybe have a little more insight into who their father was. Hopefully they understand me more through my words as I poured them out week after week.

I know I have been lacking in writing anything lately, but in my defense, it has been a tough couple of weeks mentally. I feel myself getting back on course, and I hope you all can bare with me as I work life out.

Sorry Been Busy

"Sorry, been busy." My usual mantra. Busy, busy, busy. I never have time; always busy. That's how I roll.

Not lately. ~ Eah ~ Sorta true. I have had busy spouts, where I'm busy for a few hours, but then I get distracted, and find myself doing something else. I know my blog so far, if you've been following, has been that I generally stay pretty busy. But the last few weeks I've really calmed down. I've been slowing down and trying to enjoy myself for a bit.

I expect that I'll resume my rampant pace very shortly, but for now, I just need a moment to breath.

It's time for me to stop for a minute and evaluate my life. I know I'm working on too much, and other area's have been faltering because of it. I haven't been spending as much time with my family, or my friends. For the last few months it's been nose to the grindstone, and a million projects all at once.

I've been working on dmotivated.com, writing articles for PawTucket, trying to keep up with this blog, going to school, working a full time job, and in between, teaching myself new stuff as much as I can and working on stuff for other people. I wake up 7 or 8 every morning, and go to bed between 2 and 4 every evening. On the weekends I have to make myself go to bed even at those times, or I'll try and pull an all-nighter. I go to work Monday through Friday, 9 to 7, 8, 9 - whenever, and then come home and get right back to work. When I get up in the morning I get right on the laptop, and work right up until I go to work. Then When I get home, I'll grab some chow, and say hey to the kids if they're still awake, then get right back to work right up until the wee hours of the morning.

On the weekends, I get home Friday night I'll stay up until 4 or 5, sleep until 9 or 10, then wake up, grab a cup of coffee and my laptop, then head out onto the porch for  pretty much the remainder of the day. I take small breaks here and there to do what I need to do, but most of the time I spend working. And I do this until Monday morning.

What is work?

Well my day job, I'm overseeing branch activities and working in a vault. A position I've come to despise. I was being vetted for branch manager, but that didn't pan out. So now I am the vault supervisor. I take care of day to day operations, and see to the place when the boss is out --which is frequent to say the least. It has literally become just a place that generates an income until my other endeavors start to pay out or until I can find another job; the later is preferred, but beggars can't be choosers.

After the day job is when the magic happens. That's when I'm doing what I do love to do, coding, reading, learning, and writing. I come home, check the media outlets as most people do, promote my main site with it's fan page on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. I spend about an hour doing that, then I'll divvy my night up with school work, coding, reading anything I can get my hands on about web development and programming, and writing articles. I don't publish every article I write. They'll get published eventually, but I just draft them out and have them ready to go until I have time to polish them up and publish.

This is what I want to do with my life, but I'd like to work less hours, and actually get paid for it. That is my goal, and I'd like to accomplish it within this year. That's why I keep busting my own ass, trying to stay on top of everything, keeping busy, no time for anything but progress. It takes me a few days to get most stuff done, but that is because of my pile of stuff called a to-do list. I try to break it all up, and do a little here, a little there.

Lately, the last few weeks, as I was originally saying, I've been a bad boy. I've stumbled a bit, and have been finding solace in video games. It used to be a very bad habit, and if I don't watch myself, may become one again. They help me escape reality just for a little bit, and let me immerse myself in another world. When I get stressed, I play more games; it's like running away, but without actually running. Sometimes, it's a nice change of pace from my day to day. Usually I can go a few months without even turning on a system. But lately, I've been play for a couple hours a day. I need to get back to work and stay focused, but the appeal has been too strong.

My day job hours have gotten unpredictable again, and my absent minded boss is literally absent more often.   But the bad part is he's still there, bugging me on the phone and over email. Most of my stress is caused by this job, and yet, I can't seem to get away, and can't afford to. I'll pull myself together, it's just taking a little longer than usual. I need to snap out of this, and get back to being productive; but at the same time I feel like I've earned a little bit of a breather. I feel like there is something lurking around the corner; something pretty big. I'm feeling that it's going to be a good change and hope I'm not just being optimistic.

To my friends and family, I hope you understand. I'm not ignoring you, I truly am not. I am just in one of those periods in my life where I know what I want, I'm just in the process of trying to get it. Please have faith and bear with me while I chase my dreams.

Good Friends & Good Times

Recently I have had a grand opportunity to reconnect with some people that I haven't had the pleasure of connecting with in quite some time; it feels amazing. We've talked quite extensively about our past adventures (and trust me, some of them most certainly were adventures), and have spent a lot of time just filling each other in about our lives since our paths diverged. Just the act of reconnecting has been a learning experience for me.

My whole life has been about never looking back. It's not that I have spent my whole life running from anything, it's just that I don't like to dwell on the past, I never really had a great one. I'm not an emo, or a cry baby, but I certainly, even from the outside, didn't have the greatest one. I wasn't abused, or have bad parents, I wasn't adopted or anything of that magnitude. I just didn't fit in. Even today, I still have a hard time relating to my peers. I just don't "get" people. I can read people, and I can understand them, but most of the time, I feel like an observer. I just don't belong here. If you don't understand, that's understandable. It's hard to explain.

But life, as always, works in mysterious ways.

I don't play games online very much, and I reach out to others even less often. I'm just not very social. I have very few friends and actually prefer it that way. I have been that way my whole life; socially awkward. But for some reason, a blip from my past swam into my radar, and wanted to connect.

I was amused, curious, and a bit apprehensive, and I think he was as well. We hadn't spoken in over a decade and didn't really know what to expect. At one time, he was my best friend, and only friend in the world. I had a few people I knew and hung out with occasionally, but this guy was was different. He was my friend, and then one day he wasn't, or so I thought. A series of events happened in rapid succession that changed our course and caused some simple misunderstandings.

With me, it's always focus on the present, as the past is immutable, you don't know if you're going to be here tomorrow.

Fast forward.

A few months ago, I start playing online games with another friend of mine very heavily, almost daily. We have playful banter and go online to have playful banter with others. I find it amusing and quite humorous most of the time. I think I posted something on facebook or maybe a friend of a friend told him where I could be found. He reached out to me, and we started playing together.

At first, it was a little awkward, what can I say, what should I say, do I have to act different, what should I do? In the end, I just did what I always do, and was just myself. I figured why try to be different when the real me is going to expose himself anyway. I don't normally put that much thought into situations like that, and usually end up on my default setting anyway, but this felt different.

We had a blast.

We've been playing together now for several months, and in that time, we've actually grown quite close again. We've spent a lot of time reminiscing about past exploits, and our personal lives, things we've done, places we've gone; and most importantly, made each other laugh. It's been an amazing adventure for me, and for him as well.

This whole experience has made me realize always pushing forward may not be the only way to go, and that sometimes, I need to stop and realize where I've been. My favorite mantra has always been, "my past has made me who I am." Maybe it's time I actually stand toe to toe with it and think about how it wasn't always bad.

Thank You.

Close friends

I've always been the type of person to have few friends. I've always had many associates, but only a few friends. I don't count how popular I am with the amount of friends I possess, but on the quality of friends that I possess.
For me, life isn't about being famous or rich. I don't wish for either, and never have. When you pass, those qualities won't mean anything wherever it is you go. No, I prefer to live my life to the best of my ability. I don't surround myself with superficial people whom I share no interests with, but people I can count on and who can count on me. 
All of my life I have retained few friends, but those friends I imagine I will have until one of us leave this planet. And for that, I remain humbled and grateful by my association with them. They are truly amazing individuals, and each with a personality of their own.
As the sun goes down this evening, I take a moment and think of these individuals, and thank them for all that they have done for me, and hopefully I've done just as much for them. I thank them for coming into my life, usually at times when it seemed like fate, and helping me to become the man that I am today.

Two such individuals have begun blogs for themselves, and you can meet them for yourself. I can personally vouch for both of these men, and hopefully you can take something away yourself when you've been informally introduced through their words.
Eros Helios can be found at View From the Sun and Bear can be found at Bear's Den.
I encourage you to check them both out.