As I’d wrote before, I’ve returned to the job I left many months ago. Why in the world would I do such a silly thing? Well, with the direction that the economy is going, its nice to have a reliable job and a steady paycheck. But why else would I want to go back, I can find a paycheck in many places that’s steady and constant, right? Sure, but where is the fun in not working with people that are some of the best around? Besides, with the work that I’d done in the past 8 months I’d hoped that I’d be able to bring some of my experience with various technologies, issues, and people in to Blackboard and help to transform the environment in to a more effective and support friendly environment. Additionally, I wanted to pick up and hone my sys admin skills.

What I’ve found since returning however makes me disheartened. Paul, ever still involved in what probably would be considered micro managing things is yet again blocking the direction that I am aspiring toward. Reasons run from being too people oriented (in his opinion), to not believing that I will like it, and considering it too open ended for me to be productive. The fact that all of our sys admins want me as a sys admin student and the sys admin students ask when I’ll start working with them is irrelevant.

Since it seems that my destiny has been chosen for me already, at least at UC. I will put in my 4~5 good quarters of service and not worry about things outside of work. Come graduation, I will be moving on out and up to better places of employment, places where my growth will not be hindered by management’s chiseled in stone opinions.

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So I’ve been working a congressional campaign in Ohio for an independent. Its been a long road to haul. I’m at the 4 month mark and know that its not what I want to do, working in politics. There are enough politics in the day to day bits without needing to work in it 24/7. I’m tired and ready for something different yet again. People aren’t sure about me but think I should be checked for ADHD or Bi-polar. I don’t know what to say to this, perhaps I am a lovely mix of all of this or none. I’ve been too busy with other things like work and school to really worry about what all this means for me. I’ve got to start making better decisions about relationships, I’ve been saying this for a while but it doesn’t seem to be getting much traction. I guess you can call it a failed execution on my part. I’m stuck in an endless loop, looks like some bad programming somewhere, I think a code re-write is needed.

I believe that I have an abrasive personality, this is either a recent development or a product of my current environment. That needs to change. I finally figured out why my photo gallery won’t work. Someone forgot to move the photos and other data. Just causes a *minor* problem there. I’ve gone back to my old job at school. Funny how much has not changed since 8 months ago when I left, at the same time funny how much has changed. I think its a better place than when I left. There are a number of very positive people there making it a much more positive environment. I’ve been given a choice of what I get to do pretty much and the ability to make changes has been granted, so my first project there will be a lot of changes as the ticketing system is brought up to date and features are used.

Fall has finally arrived here. Its taken long enough to get here. Just this past week, we were still seeing temperatures in the 70’s and lows in the 50’s and 60’s. I can’t wait for the election to get here and to be able to go out and take photos of the fall.

Speaking of photos, a funny thing happened the other day. Looked at something on my phone calendar and there was my ex during spring break of this year out on the beach at Lake Michigan. It really is funny how things ended (it was me and I vaguely remember reasons why at this point) and ask where would we be?

Dave of sillypanda.net fame drops a nice note about his own happenings and its gives me hope in the area of things that I’ve not always had great success with recently. Along with that, a shout out to him and his significant other.

I don’t think I’ve got much else to add to this loverly post this evening other than to bid farewell.

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Life is too short for silly things. I am alive for the time being. Working a campaign of the political type is a pain in the ass. More when I can. there are lots of updates and will be done in segments. Or I’d like to try and go that way with them.

Tags: college,craziness,friends,home,i-don't-like-tags-tags-don't-like-me,reality,updates,website,work
Categories: Life, Politics
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So school has started so soon (well it was only a week’s break I guess). And I’m finding myself still running to catch the train. Spring Break was spent on the road. Cincinnati is no longer home. I’m yet again feeling nomadic. I don’t know what this means other than I will be getting down to business and getting out of school ASAP and moving on to the next leg of life. I kind of feel like I’ve stayed just a bit too long at school.

Like I said life has been crazy busy. I’m helping to co-ordinate the General Conference witness for MoSAIC and some of the behind the scenes technical help with setting up such things as internet for Common Witness folk and helping to run the media presence for MoSAIC through part of General Conference. Yeah and I’m also being a student, a boyfriend and and entrepreneur.

Anyway its been far too long since I’ve written a good summary of whats going on in my life!

Right now I’m working through a back log of email that began finals week and ran over during spring break. Spring Break was my sabbath which is kinda hard to believe given everything that happened during it. I made the great road trip to Stevens Point, Wisconsin to visit a good friend of mine and have some adventures there. We went bike riding in 34 degree weather (thats Fahrenheit not Celsius) and at least I was totally unprepared for the cold weather. My friend Becky took me around the campus at University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point. They are almost 100% self sustainable on the campus. I found the campus quite amazing and it makes me wish I would have looked at other schools before I committed to in state at Cincinnati. But my being at Cincinnati hasn’t been without its benefits.

After spending what proved to be a renewing Holy Week on the road I celebrated Easter at Stevens Point United Methodist Church. The church was gorgeous with a refreshing service and message that took shape as a drama.

I spent the rest of my spring break in Chicagoland nearer the Wisconsin border than the city actually, but anyway. I spent my time there with my significant other, meeting family, and getting to see where she grew up. This was exciting for me because I’ve dragged her all over Southwest Ohio to show her where I hung out at and grew up, etc. So to have the chance to get to do the same but from her perspective was also refreshing and enjoyable.

Now for the other fun happenings. To keep things brief. I’ve found myself the co-chair of the General Conference workgroup for MoSAIC. Needless to say I’ve been just a little busy balancing this and school and the rest of life though I’d like to think that I’ve done a pretty fair job so far. In two weeks things will begin to slow down for me as General Conference will be drawing to a close and my life will return to normal. At that point I’m going to start looking for a part-time job. Something that isn’t life consuming but I can enjoy and that is flexible with my schedule and will have lots of hours over the summer.

So long for now…

Tags: break,Chicago,church,family,friends,MoSAIC,Stevens Point,weather,work
Categories: Life, travels
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Happy March all! Its been quite the past month. Changes in jobs. Readjustments in how I lead my daily life. Just minor things to report. I’m sitting in what is roughly my number 2 favorite coffee shop. Just depends on the day and the servers. Its roughly 2 months before General Conference. Two weeks before the end of the quarter and two days before the primary election here in Cincinnati. We had quite the event last Friday. Barack Obama came to the University for a rally. The Shoemaker Center (known now as 5/3 Arena) was filled with about 12,000-13,000 people. That was a pretty rocking event. I have some pictures from my phone that I need to upload. I actually need to go through and clean up my photo album.

I can’t wait for spring break. I’ll be making the road trip to Chicago land to visit with family and my significant other’s family. It’s only for a couple of days but it should be a ball and then after that back to start the last of my schooling. The official word from my academic advisor is that I only have 5 quarters of school left (including spring quarter).

Tags: family,friends,girlfriend,MoSAIC,springbreak,travels
Categories: Life, Politics
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[This post is seriously taken about 3 weeks of progress]

So its the fourth week of the quarter and life is happening. I’m really enjoying my schedule this quarter. Its nice and relaxing. Having class at 1pm is much happier than 8am. I’ve been working most morning though (8am until sometime in the afternoon) so its not been all that great. A couple weeks back I stumbled, and (yes I mean stumbled as I should have and was fully aware would happen just not soo soon) found someone who liked me for me. Well something like that. But point being that yeah. There is someone amazing out there. I won’t go on to boast about how amazing she is and all of that cheesy business, but I realize now what I was missing in a mature, equal relationship. Its young though (the relationship) so we’ll see how it goes. Even if it doesn’t make it far. Its brought me very far. So its basically me doing something I’ve never really done or rather done very well which is to sit back and let things proceed naturally with as little intervention as possible (if that makes any sense). Anyway enough of that business.

Over MKL weekend I attended the MoSAIC/OnFire leadership retreat in Maryland. AMAZING. Besides an interesting car ride there with two incredible people. There was the retreat itself which wasn’t too bad. Actually I felt like i needed another 3 days there with people as we planned for General Conference. Which is what has been keeping me fairly busy over the last few weeks. After coming back, I put in my two week notice to Blackboard so that I can do what I really enjoy and want to do with my life. Which is working in a consulting role with non-profits and small businesses to provide technical solutions that meet their needs or the other way to read that is helping the little people implement technology to meet their needs. My last day at Blackboard was February 4. Thats right. I’ve finally left the hell that is Blackboard. Four and a half years I’ve worked at Blackboard. Times, they are a changing.

Tags: friends,MoSAIC,relationships,RMN,updates,work
Categories: Life, Projects, Social Justice
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Break for me has been very relaxing for the most part with a flair up here and there with a few mostly stupid things. Just after Christmas I went out with Dave of silly panda fame for dinner, a movie, and playing catch up. It was a good time. I’ve missed hanging around with Dave and since he’s not in Clifton anymore and works a crazy number of hours at On Location Lighting Systems. That and I kinda fell off the earth round about the beginning of November for a number of reasons. Anyway it was nice to get to catch up with Dave. Also got to visit and have coffee with a friend that I went to school with from kindergarten all the way through high school graduation. It had been a long time and it was nice to hear what had been going on in his life and where he’d been and all. There were a couple of other friends from college that I had the chance to hang out with (they’ve since graduated and moved on with their life. I’m working that way. One step at a time.). There again was more conversation and catching up. Seems like thats a theme now as I’m thinking on it. Catching up on a lot of things. New Year’s Eve was spent with good friends in a low key evening. I was also babysitting my mom’s kitten. I want to steal the thing because its a great sys admin kitty. Betsy was very helpful when reviewing log files and working on design things. Though she liked to try to take control a lot of the time which became troublesome because I don’t think we were wanting to work on the same things. In honor of my family’s German heritage we had sauerkraut and a pork roast New Year’s day for good luck. I love sauerkraut.

The downside to break. Things have finally reached a point that where I live isn’t going to be homey anymore for various reasons. As far as I know right now, I’m on the way out and should be out of there before the end of January. On a related note to that. If anyone is looking for a place to live for the next 6 months let me know. There is a room open in my house. And yep, I’m on the look out for place as well. I’d like for it to be around Clifton and cheap. I’ll take an efficiency if i have to.

Anyway…more happenings have been happening so hopefully in the not too distant future there will be another.

Tags: break,college,family,friends,love,moving,new year,work
Categories: Life
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Its that time of year again where I’d like to take a moment (all though this will be rather brief compared to last year). This year has seen its fair share of ups and downs. More downs than ups I’d say. But anyway, it has been quite the year. A great dept of gratitude goes out to all my friends who have been with me through much of the crap that I’ve gone through this year. They’ve kept me sane, and cool, relatively speaking. This past year has seen me grow a lot as a person. Moving forward in several fronts, some expected others unexpected. At the same time I’ve stepped back here and there to places not so happy. Though I can say that I’ll being sending 2007 out with a bang because I’m not sick nor am I sitting at home alone this year. And even if I was sick I wouldn’t sit at home alone…last year was just that crappy.

Things that I’m happy with from the last year.

- Learned to love again.
- Reconnecting to old friends.
- Learning to be honest with myself.

Things that I want to do in the new year.

- Settle down kinda (yeah sorta what that means, at least something serious for more than a few months )
- Learn guitar and keyboard.
- Take time to read for fun.
- Take pictures.
- Learn PHP, PERL, BASH scripting.
- Travel.
- Get closer to graduation

I hope that this next year sees all doing much better than the last. For all.

—-
Someone

I want you.
Not you.
But you.

I want someone to sing
Jack Johnson to.
I want someone that can play
a musical instrument.
Even if it is just the kazoo.
I want someone with a passion
that burns bright in the night.
Lighting the way.
I want someone who is open
so I can be open
I want love.

Tags: friends,love,music,new beginnings,new year,travel
Categories: Life
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