I've been spending far too much time lately doing what other influences have been pushing me to do, and not enough time in my own head.  What does this look like?  Well, I took a Caribbean vacation at the beginning of December, and it feels like it just happened last week.  I feel as though no time has transpired between then and now because of how ( Read more... )

It's been a while since I last had the opportunity to get my thoughts down in written form.  My troubling need to spend every free moment immobile and listless has been crippling any such endeavor.  Last week I spent the entirety of Monday and Tuesday in San Francisco at a small group training.  I took the ferry to Oyster Point and walked a couple ( Read more... )

Fear is a horrible motivation for activity (or lack thereof, as the case may be).  Typically, I very much enjoy being scared.  My favorite movie is The Ring, and I have seen it probably 300 times.  I watch things like Ghost Adventures and The Walking Dead before going to sleep at night, loving the scared, uneasy feeling.  However, where the rubber ( Read more... )

There are a couple of things bothering me professionally at the moment.  One is that my retirement accounts seem to be plummeting with a fury that I have not seen since 2008 during the major economic downturn, and the other is that I have applied to the supervisor position in my department after Shane's untimely departure and it is very uncertain ( Read more... )

Here I am on the other side of another birthday.  Birthdays are tough for me, but special.  When I was growing up, I had to deal with the abuse which came doubly on birthdays.  Days which were supposed to be special turned out to be strange sources of dread, as my father couldn't handle anything out of the ordinary when it took the focus off of ( Read more... )

The concept of 'recovery' is a simple one, however it does not hold much significance without context.  I feel that I'm always recovering from something... a hard day, a big meal, treating myself terribly, an accident, driving erratically, an illness.  I can never just live.  Ironically, I continue to be alive.  I have this strange, aloof, ( Read more... )

Today is Ray B's memorial service. I have known him for so long. I met him my first week at Impax. He and I bonded over our love of equipment and he shared much of his knowledge with me over the past seven years. Changing companies was like losing a father. When I came back, he was one of the first people to greet me, telling me that he thought he ( Read more... )

I'm back from the holiday weekend. I was supposed to have Friday off, but worked from home almost the entire day. Not sure what that means from an accrued hours standpoint, but meh. Had to be done. Nothing really noteworthy happened over the holiday because I spent most of my time doing very introverted things like trying to finish up Myst IV and ( Read more... )

Last night I went swimming for the first time in a couple of weeks.  Summer swim session is over, and I was able to have an entire lane to myself.  It was wonderful.  I swam a mile, though my time has gotten worse for having that break.  It's one of the few things that makes me truly happy.  I will go again tomorrow night, and that will be the ( Read more... )

I took a trip back to the UC Berkeley campus last Saturday morning on the ten-year anniversary of my very first day.  During this trip, I remembered something very vividly: a specific experience during my first semester ( Read more... )