Friday 5 - Packing

Haven't done a Friday 5 for a while. So here goes!

1. How far ahead of time do you begin packing for a weekend trip? If I don't start packing the night before, I'm guaranteed to forget something. I use the time between to check off the mental checklist.
   
2. What was your most recent purchase of a six-pack? Bitch Creek Extra Special Brown by the Grand Teton Brewing Company. Pretty good stuff.
   
3. What do you look for in a good everyday backpack? One without a boatload of 'extra' pockets. I have one now that has one large section, a mid-size and a small pocket. Plenty for me. This one also happens to be a 'rolling' bag, primarily for air traveling people. If I had to carry it much more on my recent trip, I probably would have used the rolling feature.
   
4. Among people you know, who’s the worst packrat? I have some very good friends in CA who have 4 kids. They keep everything. They have a 3 car garage they can't even fit one car in. They're lucky if there's a path to the door. (I love you G&D.)
   
5. How do you know when it’s time to pack it in each evening? When I don't want to be awake.
   

Where did they go?

Am I due for a blog revamp?

To my lovely regular readers, I love you and appreciate you hanging around, even through the crummy posts.

But were did everyone else go? If people read a post or two, why don’t they come back? If they’re still here, why don’t they comment?

When I started this, I told myself that I didn’t really care how many readers I had. I was kidding myself. It’s nice to be read.

What else do I have to offer? You’ve probably already gathered that I’m as boring as my posts are. Maybe not the most boring person you’ve ever met, but pretty close. I know that. I accept it. Not going to say I’m ok with it, but…

What about hobbies?

Would you read about gaming? I like to play. Not talk about it.

Maybe cooking? I’ve discovered that I hate cooking for myself. Cooking for other people is so much more enjoyable. That’s the only reason I would cook anything special. I’ve had PB&J and popcorn for dinner. It’s the fellowship I’m looking for. So until that fellowship is there, cooking probably isn’t going to happen.

Spiritual stuff? It would probably be a good idea to write about that, if only to get my thoughts in order, attempt to come to some conclusions for myself, and share them in hopes that others might glean something from it. I’ve never felt called to be an outspoken type, as far as ministry goes. I would hope my life choices would speak loud enough for someone to hear. Although at this point, that is probably unlikely.

Work? No.

My girlies? Now that’s something I could write about, but to be honest, I don’t really like reading a lot about other peoples kids. I enjoy it if it’s mixed in with other stuff, but I’ve come across a few blogs that were all about the kids. That’s not for me and I don’t think I could make a blog like that and expect other people to read it.

So what does that leave me? At this point, nothing. I don’t date. I don’t specialize in anything, work related or not.

NoRegrets talked about books she’s read. I should probably do more of that. Otherwise, I’ll keep thinking about it. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them!

Small victories...

are sometimes the best.

The stbx and I sat down this evening and discussed our time with the girls and how we're going to work holidays. She conceded to letting me have the girlies every Tuesday and every other Thursday.

I feel great.

I feel even better than I might have because I sat down with Bellie and she counted up to 20 all by herself. I don't want to miss these days with them. There is too much at stake and now I'm not going to miss as much.

Thank you Lord.

If I were a crying man, I'd be bawling right now.

I'm back.

In response to the last posts' comments;

laura - The trip was very uneventful, which in my book is good.

dmarks - I didn't! I swear! ....and I didn't even want to.

NoRegrets - I suppose that depends on your definition of crappy. So yeah, I did visit a crappy part. Tulare County is the poorest county in all of CA. I like Visalia, but the rest of it is meh.

This whole thinking for myself is proving to be more involved than I thought. I kicked myself at least twice on the trip back for not planning a little and actually doing things. The first was driving through St. George, Utah during sunset and thinking that I should have planning to be there about 2 hours earlier so that I could have been hiking in Zion National Park during sunset. If you haven't done that, I highly recommend it. Splendid doesn't begin to describe it.



The next was when driving through Provo Canyon, Utah. I think I've been to Bridal Veil Falls before, but it must have been as a very young kid. I had no idea where it actually was and when I drove past sometime in the middle of the night, I wish I'd planned to hike that too.



I got home around noon today and promptly went to bed. Slept until 4. Since the only thing I ate the whole trip was at a Mandalay Bay buffet yesterday (why the heck do I go to those things?), a bag of sour worms, and a couple of McD's breakfast sandwiches this morning, I'm hungry and am trying to decide where I want to eat.

About the buffets, I don't eat nearly enough to justify paying for a 'good' buffet in Vegas. $25! I ate my fill and it was decent food, but not that decent. I'm sure dinner would have been a little closer to a good value, but brunch wasn't. The people that may have got their moneys worth were going through the crab legs like candy. Sat near a guy who finished off at least 3 plates worth while I was there. And considering the bored expression of his wife, I think they had been there for a while. He was still going when I left. While I like crab legs too, they are very much a dinner food for me. Not 10am food.

Then I lost some money at the blackjack table. Shoulda looked for a $5 table instead of the $10, which seems to be the cheapest at Mandalay Bay. Forgot to hit the slots before I left Vegas though. They've paid for my gas before and I was going to try again. Guess that shows how much I really think about gambling.

There is a new resort/casino further south along the strip. It might be the Summer Bay resort but I'm not sure. Then there building another one about midway. I suppose they can justify it because it was pretty busy being Halloween and all. A little disappointed at the lack of costumes though. There were a few waitresses that may have been in costume but they may have been in their regular uniform too.

The flight to Vegas was full and I sat next to a couple of very non-chatty young guys from Portugal. That's the only word I heard from them, "Portugal." The leg to Fresno was about half full and I buried my head in a book and finished it as the plane was descending.

I love people watching. Airports are a fantastic place to people watch. And of the handful of conversations I overheard, not one of them was in English.

I miss CA girls though. That is one true stereotype, CA has a disproportionate share of the attractive ladies. There are cute girls here too, but odds are a whole lot better than Vegas that they smoke. Not that I mind if someone smokes occasionally, but they reek of it. No thanks.

So the blackjack games were interesting. The dealer was nice and helpful, but even then I made a couple of dumb calls. But he played so. stinking. fast. That hour+ I spent last time I was in Vegas was probably around the same # of hands as this one...in about half the time. He did this little pause before he picked up our chips when he won, like he was giving us time to check, but sheesh, gimme a break. By "little pause" I mean he slowed his hand down to 1/2 speed between when he dropped the last card and when he picked up the first losers chips. Which was still too fast.

And I even tipped him when I won!

That's it in a nutshell. I'm going to eat and hopefully I'll get around to reading blogs later this evening. or tomorrow.

I'm off!

I'm unplugging, flying off to CA tonight and driving back on Monday. I ain't even going to check my voicemail.

Have a good weekend everyone!




Ok, I lied about the voicemail thing...but I will not check my email!

100th blog post day

I've spent the last 4 days trying to come up with some awesome topic for my 100th blog post and am not having any luck. This will be a brainstorming post.

In the last post, I mentioned something about being more content than I used to be. As true as that is, I've been wondering how content I really am. 'More' is a relative term so being more content than not content at all isn't much of a stretch.

My living situation is probably the thing I'm most content with. A lot of that is probably because I'm very easily pleased in that area. It's warm, quiet, close to work, and easy to clean.

What about myself? I am not very content with my physical state. I'm not overweight or have any real health issues, praise the Lord! but I got winded during warmup at basketball the other weekend. Not to mention the actual games. I have a bit of a belly, which isn't nearly as bad as a lot of other men my age, but as tall and skinny as the rest of me is, it really shows. If my father is any indication, I need to nip it in the bud and quickly.

Then there's the mental state. Or rather, intellectual state. My brain is becoming stagnant. Work is boring far more often than not. Performing my duties is not an issue, it's just that it's so repetitive that my brain is having a hard time sticking with it. The good thing is that I do have a lot of opportunity to do different things any given day, but when it's slow...it's really slow. Outside of work, there's very little intellectual stimulation right now.

My spiritual state isn't fantastic either. Participating in a marriage and focusing on your kids provides a lot of opportunity to express love to someone else, which in turns takes the focus off yourself. Being by myself so much now is very different. I'm finding it difficult to get out of my own thoughts, so to speak.

Then there's the financial state. It's getting better. A lot better. But there are still things to get done that I've been putting off for far too long. A bankruptcy, divorce, and car repair to name the big ones.

So, what am I going to do about it?

I'll keep playing basketball when I can, which isn't often enough so I'm planning on signing up at a local fitness club. It's only $25 a month for Fitness One, but their machines are really crammed in there. Too small a building for too many machines. The only other option is the YMCA. I haven't seen the facilities, but membership includes a lot of the classes and access to the pool. A little more expensive though.

Not sure what to do about my intellectual state though. I would really like to go back to graduate school. The local state university has a 'high value' MBA program. $26,000 may seem like a lot, but comparably, it's pretty cheap. They have a full online program too. The university itself is only about 45 minutes away, but quite often bad weather makes it too difficult to get there. Another option is the local community college. The only part of that I'm really interested in is a few classes in their 'workforce development' program. It's cheap, but doesn't provide much in the way of 'attractors' in regards to future employment. At this point, I'm beyond the trade school level.

The spiritual state is going to take some work. I've just recently begun participating in a class facilitated by one of our pastors called the Dead Theologians Society. We're going through a series of books highlighting the lives and struggles of theologians. To be honest, it's not terribly engaging. I find the author to be pretty dry. I know it's about theology, which is inherently dry, but still... Never been much of a theologian myself. What I need to do is look for opportunities to help others. So I've signed up to be part of our churches 'Helping Hands' ministry. Their focus is to help people with moving, light home repair, and other stuff. I've also signed up to attend a small group Bible study, which focuses on the Bible (duh) rather than theology.

The financial state is going to keep on how ever it will, but I will focus on saving. During the move, I found the penny bank I had as a kid. Now it's setting on my desk and already has about $8 in it. I intended to take pictures of it, but my 'new' camera has died already. Might be the battery. I'm not going to fix it, but save up some money for a new, higher-resolution, P&S digital camera. Maybe a Cybershot or Lumix. Or maybe get real ambitious and find a DSLR. Anyway... I'll certainly focus on saving more than that penny bank can hold. Even now I have more in my checking account than I've had for years. (For all you single moms out there, yes I will be helping out more with the girlies expenses.)

So there there are. All my brainstorming laid out in a few paragraphs. The underlying theme being "what am I going to do with myself?"

Don't want to forget the other stuff either. Like learning to play the guitar, taking a writing class to become a better blog writer, getting my piano back so I can pick that up again, cooking classes, taking more pictures, using all of these things to cut back on my gaming, and probably other things I've thought of that don't come to mind at the moment.

And about other stuff... I'm on Team Foxtrot for the Cap League. Here's the avatar I made for it:

Milestones

This is my 99th official post.

(I say "official" because I don't know how many I deleted...)

It was posted on 4/8/09. Over a year and a half ago.

A year and a half ago I only had 1 girl in school. Now I have 2 in school, one in 2nd and one in 1st. Now my 1st grader says she has 4 boyfriends. One of which is Justin Bieber.

A year and a half ago President Obama did a surprise visit to Iraq and had recently finished his first year in office.

A year and a half ago, the company I work for was loosing 80% more than we are now. Over the last year and a half we've cut expenses almost 50% and gained some ground on prices.

A year and a half ago, a lady was recovering from wounds sustained after jumping into a polar bear pen at the Berlin Zoo.

A year and a half ago, I was still trying to save my marriage.

A year and a half ago, piracy was still pretty big in the news. Not sure if it still is or not.

A year and a half ago, it was commonplace to have about 10% of what I have in the bank account right now. Not to say that there's much in there now, but it's nice to be able to buy groceries.

A year and a half ago, the whole 'stimulus' debacle was in full force and big companies were under the microscope.

A year and a half ago, I was more angry and far less content than I am now.

This picture was taken around a year and a half ago.

A year and a half ago, I didn't know the wonderful people I've met in blogland since then. Thank you all so much for your support.

So what about the next year and half? April, 2012. (Uh-oh, according to the Aztecs, there will be no 2013.) All 3 girlies will be in school. (With fewer boyfriends between all of them, hopefully.) Obama's reelection campaign will be in full force. We'll either be making money, I'll have a different job, or be unemployed. My marriage will probably be officially over. There will still be pirates. (And 'Talk Like a Pirate Day'.) I'll have saved more money and have a goal for home ownership soon. I'll be even more content.

How about your next 1-1/2 years?