Practicing Life

No Music

manji51 — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 05:40:10 +0000

I had to run without music today. It surprised me how much harder it was to drive myself to perform as well as usual. From the start, I could feel that I’d have to work harder at it. At the first mile, I was starting to doubt. At the second mile, I was starting to wear out. At the third mile, I was very concerned. At the fourth mile, I was dead.

I think I should have taken my shirt off at the second mile, not when I had about 1/4 mile left as that significantly increased surface area and cooled me off a lot. I think I should borrow Heather’s iPod and figure out how to get my music on it.

My music of choice right now is Peter Fox–a wonderful German artist. I’d say rapper, but it would make me try to peel the skin off of my fingertips.

cc: the world

manji51 — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 09:10:17 +0000

Since it seems I’ll probably never get this stuff out there, I’m going to “cc” an update e-mail to Master K. (note: I pulled out the stuff that really only applied to Master K. so if it seems to bounce around… that’s why.)

A lot’s happening and I’m actually really embarrassed at how poorly I’ve been communicating with the important groups. I have obtained a job in Knoxville, Tennessee which starts November second. It’s the culmination of a chain of events that desires a tangent here.

I moved to night shift because the shift differential should have enabled us to move out of the inlaw’s. It quickly turned out that this wouldn’t actually work, no matter how good the math was. It seems there is additional overhead in me working nightshift and not a) falling asleep all the time or b) go clinically insane.

Shortly after I moved to night shift, I became conversational with one of my co-workers and it slowly developed into a friendship. Let’s say a month ago, he started talking about how he was talking to management about a lateral shift to a tech support position in Knoxville, TN. That talk spurred me to send out a blast of applications to internal job openings within Elavon (the company I work for) and to step up the work on applying to jobs at home. I did not expect any success on any front.

Three weeks ago, I got an e-mail asking me to call a member of HR about one of the positions I applied to: Integration Specialist. I assumed she was talking about the Integration Analyst position that recently opened in the local office. I soon found out that it was a position in Knoxville in which I had applied on a whim. The requirements in the job posting significantly outstripped what I saw as my own capabilities. Surprising, the hiring manager I had a phone interview with was very enthusiastic and was of the opinion that my skillset was exactly what they were looking for. To be egotistical, the interview seemed as much her going through the steps yet trying to convince me I was exactly right for this position as it did me trying to convince her that I was the right person for the job. I really wish I recorded that interview because it was probably the most extroverted and assertive I’ve ever been.

The next work week after I interviewed, my friend Bill got the official job offer for his Knoxville job. His last day would be October 25 and his first day in Knoxville would be November 2. I got disheartened because, as is typical, I probably wouldn’t get my job and would lose this brand new friend. Very disheartening. Even though, I sent a thank-you e-mail as soon as I got back to work and got a very peculiar response, “…stay tuned. More to come for you.”

I waited two weeks and, right when I was really getting depressed, I got another e-mail from HR that culminated in an official job offer! Surprisingly, my last day here and my first day there perfectly syncs with my friend’s. On top of that, he has a small camper trailer that he’s OK with me borrowing so I have a place to habitat while looking for an apartment of my own!

The job pays a little better than I get now, even with shift differential figured in. Plus, Knoxville has a lower cost of living.

Running has been going really good. After the splints went away, I have run every work night except, I believe, three or four nights. I’m going about four miles each time at an average 12 minute pace. Not the best in the world, but that includes the beginning warm-up period and I’m not quite certain if people usually count that part. It is such a high when you’re running the last half of the run and the knee pain you felt while warming up is completely gone and you’re jogging like you could keep that pace up forever. A lovely side effect is that I have a much easier time staying awake on the nights I run over lunch.

Anyway. Life’s been really, unacceptably crazy of late and it looks like Taekwondo got sacrificed in the shuffle.

I just broke my durn phone as well. Gah! The last couple days have been particularly unkind on me.

Eckhart Tolle

manji51 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:41:08 +0000

“Your entire life unfolds in this constant Now. Even past or future moments only exist when you remember or anticipate them, and you do so by thinking about them in the only moment there is: this one.”

How my night started…

manji51 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:39:46 +0000

My day’s started on a really snappy note so far. About the time I hit McMullen, I realized I forgot my exercise gear. So no exercise; I don’t have time to turn around.

I’m driving on 19 towards work and notice about 2 seconds too late that the construction getup has been removed from the highway and I just missed my turn to Bryan Dairy. Suck. I’ll take the turnaround, it’ll just make me a minute or two late. Seems I can’t do my turnaround because of construction there! Wow, uber-suck. I turn on the road where second edition used to be. Turns into residential hell with no streetlights to boot. Uber-suck times 50. I fumble around residential hell for maybe 10 minutes before getting onto a big road that I drive down and realize it was Bryan Dairy! But by the time I realize it, I’m passing under 19 and under-hwy construction will stop me from turning around. Can the suck get any worse? Alright. I take a detour and follow the detour until it starts going back West and then I go straight until I get to Ulmerton and can swing around on that road.

Yes, I didn’t get to work until 9:30 pm (My shift starts at 9:00 pm and I left the house at 8:35 pm). I was REALLY close to just coming home and continuing my screaming in frustration in the comfort of our own house (well, I wouldn’t have screamed in the house… turns out I can scream really loud if I put my throat into it).

Laptop power cord

manji51 — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 17:04:25 +0000

This item seems to have passed on about, oh, say a week ago. It is surprising how many time I seem to be turning to a computer and am met with a cold, inhospitable world of someone else’s environment.

Oh, how I miss my laptop.

I think this is more than enough justification to get a macbook pro. If only I could find some pirate treasure to go along with that justification.

NetBeans does PHP too?

manji51 — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 03:12:39 +0000

I forget how I stumbled against this knowledge.

No, it’s not occult or even hard to find, I just never really considered it the possibility.

But yea, it has a nice little plugin that handles it really well. It even handles FTP/SFTP of the files you’re working on to a remote server!

That, by the way, was something I was trying to figure out a solution for… the only other option is using the editors that GreenGeeks offers to edit directly on their server.

I love the thought that I’ll be able to stick with my skill in NetBeans to work on my PHP projects as well and be able to take advantage of all of the lovely features that I’m used to with my work in Java.

Negativity

manji51 — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 08:11:38 +0000

Ever since yesterday, I have been beset by an unacceptable level of negativity.

Yesterday, I have a significantly harder time keeping my tongue to myself about stupid things/people around me.

This morning (well, last evening, but my morning), I had a terribly hard time waking up. I actually broke into tears it was so hard–it was like my mind was not connecting with my body.

Today, at work, I am having a hard time not getting very angry with a number of things that have no reason to use up that much of my emotional energy.

Dream Path: Lost and Found

manji51 — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 05:59:25 +0000

Deeply rolling in slumber's mist
My dreams take a surreal twist
All I know is that something's lost
Memory's weight bore too much cost

It triggered in confusion's wake
What's lost now found for goodness sake
Right there it was in Plain Sight set
...
But what it was I now forget

End of Day

manji51 — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 04:52:12 +0000

Hotels usually have their end of day around, say, 2:00-5:00 am. It’s interesting that the calendar date won’t change until they tell it to, which requires an odd mentality when thinking about dates in ProtoBase or whatever software they happen to use. I’m going to use that mentality with my posts for a bit.

Except I won’t actually mess with the post dates in WordPress. That’d be mean.

I just have a wonderfully liberating run over lunch. For weeks, I have been confining myself to walking, because I developed what I diagnosed as shin splints in my left shin. Very painful and very frustrating. I couldn’t even do a spontaneous hop-jog for 2 steps without having to limp for a while.

A… almost two weeks ago, I worked up to purchasing a pair of shoes and, as a result, I had to endure much ridicule about owning the most shoes in the family. I purchased a pair of Asics… something with the word “Gell” in the name. They’re nice and squishy and slowly my shin stopped hurting.

Last work week, I figured I should have recovered enough to jog next work week. Last weekend, I successfully jogged for about half a block without splints. Tonight, I jogged (slight estimate) over lunch with absolutely no pain! Yay! (Well, some knee pain, twinge in the ankle here and there, etc. etc., but that’s normal.) Not only no pain, but I ran wonderfully! I ran out for 20 minutes (timed) and then ran back (untimed). I figure, total, it was about 28 minutes, meaning I was able to hold, on average, 2x my outgoing speed all the way back. Wow!

On my way home, I’m going to do an automobile clock of the distance so I can figure an average speed (total, outgoing, and returning).

Different Blogging Solutions

manji51 — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 09:22:53 +0000

Alright, so the move to blogger flopped. Seems I’m about as consistent as… a… very inconsistent thing.

Recently, I picked up a web host over at Green Geeks. They have blogging software that you can setup on your own domain and I’ve been trying to figure out how to implement a blogging solution that fits my perfectly ill-defined blogging needs.

I think I need to find a book about blogging if I’m ever going to feel satisfied about doing this blogging thing any way consistently.