Change of pace

Hey,

I plan on redesigning this blog and giving it a more updated look and it's own proper domain.  I will also be changing the focus.  I want to focus on the things I am doing now that keep my sanity rather than focus on when I am on the brink of losing my sanity.   I feel that venting no longer helps me and that I should instead be focusing on what I enjoy and makes me happy.  

Thank you for your time and hopefully you will continue reading in the near future.

Below are topics I plan on covering in future posts:

• Tech products and the whole tech industry
• Travel and leisure activities
• Maybe some finance stuff.
• Movies and books
• Food, I mean who doesn't love food?
• Maybe a few health and fitness stuff
• Self Improvement. 

Once again, thanks for occasionally reading my blog and hopefully you will stay tuned.

My Desert Rose

Shortly after 9/11 I was sent to Egypt for a military training exercise but at that point anything was possible, Egypt is definitely a lot closer to the hot spot of the world than Camp Pendleton. While there I would spend majority of my 12 hour guard shift by myself thinking about everything and everyone. I would imagine scenarios of me back home shooting the shit on the block, rocking out on stage with a guitar, anything to keep me from sleeping since I was on the graveyard shift (I preferred it, it wasn't as hot).  

Towards the end of my shift I would have the pleasure of seeing the sunrise in Egypt, and I have to tell you I have yet to see a sunrise that matches theirs!   The land of Moses, the Nile and countless years of ancient history. Every morning I would hear the call to prayer (Fajr) and then shortly thereafter the most exquisite sunrise I had ever seen.  It was a moment where I would not know whether the sun was going up or going down, sort of like purgatory.  I am not a religious person, but those were the moments I felt most at peace with myself and the world.  Odd how I was in a place a hopscotch away from one of the most conflict ridden areas in the world and yet I felt peace like I have never felt or felt since.   (pic below, not mine although I wish I had taken one)

After getting to my hootch, thats what Marines call sleeping quarters, I would pop in my Enya disc and would play the song below, since I was in Africa why not continually hear "Storms of Africa'.


One song I wish I had during my trip to Egypt was Desert Rose by Sting, I think it would have been perfect, since I do consider Egypt my Desert Rose.

The home I've only visited....

How do you visit a place and all of a sudden feel like the puzzle has been put together and is now complete?    Leaving home knowing it wasn't really your home only to find it later on in life on a whim holiday trip?     Can anyone answer me?  After X amount of years living in suburbia Orange County, I can definitely say, this is NOT the place.

During one of my walks around the Upper West Side, I was listening to Talking Heads song This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)  and it all connected and made sense and my gut for once in my life spoke to me and repeated the words, "This Must Be The Place"

I think Frank Sinatra said it best, "I want to be a part of it New York, New York"

I don't wear flip flops, I don't go to the beach.  I enjoy museums, opera, food, and most importantly diversity!!   I enjoy hearing Russian on my left, Spanish on my right, Mandarin in front of me and some language I have no clue where it's from behind me.  
I like the fact that reading isn't some weird thing, it's a thing that New Yorkers do, Whether its on the subway or on a sunny day in Central Park.

I know to some people Orange County is paradise, good for them!!!  I am glad they found their piece of paradise. Me on the other hand know it's in the concrete jungle.  It's just going to take a lil while to get there.
Finish school, move, and enjoy life.    Till then, I'll just watch as many New York movies as possible.

No new years resolution

Well 2013 ended not like as I would have liked, but it ended on a decent note now on to 2014.   I am pretty excited for what the new year will bring.  New adventures, self improvement, and perhaps some insight into life and what it's all about.

I ended the year in New York City to get away from the sun and laid-back casual California attitude.  Maybe it's my military background or perhaps I'm just a traditional/conservative (not politically) type person.  I prefer being well dressed versus cargo shorts, flip flops and a tank top.  ANYWAYS,  NYC was an eye opening experience.  The people, the culture, the food, and the energy within the city is just plain amazing and I can't wait to get back.

While I was there gearing up for New Years Eve I began pondering the prior year and what I had accomplished. There's no point in looking at the things i didn't accomplish so I didn't bother spending any time on it.  Goal wise 2014 is a year I am not too sure about. I have one main goal, Do awesome at school.  I have other small goals that I would like to accomplish but that's my main number #1 goal that i am putting all my attention on.  I have also begun to look at myself and how I can improve the things I dislike about myself, well more like the areas that I am not good at.  Things like public speaking, improving my social skills, and working on improving my overall attitude towards life.   I am always comparing myself to others and I know it is wrong.  There is no "life" yardstick that all of us are measured on.  We each have a yardstick made for each of us.  So my yardstick isn't the same as yours.  I want to improve the way I manage my time. Too many times I find myself spending hours watching Netflix or just watching movie trailers of upcoming theater releases, that's all time I could be spending doing something to improve myself.  So I want to set up time blocks with the goal of improving my time management and to use my time more efficiently.

I am not too worried about the people I am surrounded with, most of the negativity is gone,  the important ones are around and support me in my endeavors.  Of course I would like more friends that are into the same things as I am.  Things like Tech, Finance, films, and travel are things I enjoy and am looking for more people who enjoy those topics.  But I'm not actively searching for them, I am just going to do my thing and hopefully I'll meet people along the way.  

Coming down the line

This is going to be a very short post.  I haven't forgotten about you.  I am going to be busy this week with Finals but after that I am going to post some stuff up.  Here's a lil video from one of my favorite movies, The Paper Chase.  

New Beginnings.

Well it's about that time that a do a new blog entry, seems like i do one every couple of months. I should consider collecting all my tweets that I do in a week and just make one big blog entry, weekly entry is a little bit better than an "every few months" entry right?

Started a new school this Sept. which is going well.  I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel aside from the fact that i have two years left, I'm sure it'll go by quickly.  I have already laid out my road map on what classes to take and what not. No fun classes for me, all Finance and Accounting courses, not that i don't find Finance fun, I just wish I could squeeze in a class that catered to the left side of the brain.  I have begun doing more creative things in my free time to balance my brain. Occasional trips to places to practice my limited photography skills. I also have begun writing an outline for a story, not sure if it is a short story, novel or what, but it's coming out of me so thats good.

I think aside from my usual emotional rants and raves I do on this blog I am going to begin posting more stuff of my every day life, photos, and what not.  One more thing, I am going to occasional post photos from previous trips to showcase what i have been doing with myself.

Thanks for your time!! 

self f*ckin help

It's funny how I come on here and say I am going to start writing and posting more often and then I fall off the face of the earth.   Here is a smal recap since I last posted.

• Finishing up my A.A degree in Business Admin.
• Transferring to a four year school in Sept.
• Attempting to open up my horizons
• Increasing positivity and regulating my negativity
• Still working on losing weight
• Occasional drink here and there but so far so good, little to no interest in boozing.
• Traveling to China as a graduation present to myself

Ok, so it looks like I am doing fairly well right? Wrong!  As much as I try to look at the positive side of things and all the good things going in my life, I always resort to having negative thoughts about myself, my current life situation and what bad thing is going to happen to me, since whenever a good thing happens to me bad things happen along with it.    I remind myself that things are going well, and that I am moving forward but my mind instinctively telling me that I am wrong and that shit is about to hit the fan, which is my constant every day battle.

Sleep is still lackluster, I use benadryll and melatonin to get myslf to sleep, I am lucky if I get 4-6 hours of asleep, which makes it hard to wake up in the morning and the dreaded "I can't get out of bed" feeling has me chained to the bed and every morning it is a battle that I have to overcome.

The main thing I am working on is happiness.  I need to begin feeling comfortable and happy with myself.  I am never happy, atleast that is what my mind says. I can be Donald Trump rich, cruising the French Riviera in my badass yacht with a bottle of Champagne and you know what, I'll still be unhappy. So one of the things I want to work on this summer is letting myself be happy and content with myself.

As far as booze goes, there are times when I want to drown myself in whiskey, but you know what I have recognized that I can't do that anymore and I look at the good things in my life and let the "self destruction" feeling drift away, especially since I know that the booze will not give me the knowledge and progress I have achieved since stopping the booze. 

So what now?  Well I am going to work on decreasing the negativity, increasing my positivity but still keep my cynicism and sarcasm intact since that is who I am anyways.  So guess f*ckin what, "Here's Ralph"

 

Happy Birthday to me....

Usually either birthdays rock or birthdays suck!  You are either happy and celebrating or just plain piss angry but still want to party it up and forget that you are one year closer to collecting Social Security and or qualifying for Med-Care.

Most people who know me know I'm not too happy about my birthday.  It's a day I prefer to just skip, but since I can't I just go through the day hoping no one will bring it up.  It's not a "normal" way of thinking I guess maybe it could be due to my odd upbringing.

I am definitely not going to bore you with childhood stories, but I will say it was just different.  Seriously though, perhaps it is a self confidence or self identity issue. (break) After writing that last sentence I GOOGLE'd "Why I don't like my birthday" AND one topic that popped up was "Avoidant Personality Disorder" (APD).  I am not some hypochondriac who has WebMD open up when I click on my Web Browser icon but I did read the symptoms of AVP and It sounds like I fit the bill.   Sooo Happy F*ckin Birthday to Mr. possibly Avoidant Personality disorder guy.

Avoidant personality Disorder for more info.

Troubles of Sobriety

FYI: This was written a few months before the last post.

You're at the bar it's 1:30Am with your friends. The bartender screams "Last Call", you are rushing to order your last round of drinks before the bartender stops serving alcohol due to this f*ckin ridiculous law. "Why can't Cali be more like Vegas, where you can drink 24'7. Seriously, "they just don't want me to party" This was my scenario all the time back in the day except it wasn't 1:30AM it was 1:30PM and I was alone. Yep, I was drinking like it was last call and more often than not I was completely alone, mainly due to the fact that my friends had jobs and I was living off the G.I Bill.

I am for the most part sober now, I don't really drink as often and definitely not like I used to. Certain experiences brought me to reality and no a woman did not save me and show me the light(thats usually only in the movies). Although....

Every now and then, when I isten to certain music or when I pass by a local dive bar and see everyone outside smoking, I get all nostalgic and my throat starts yearning for the sweet taste of Bourbon. Normally I chuckle, think about the old days and remember how it feels to just let lose. THEN i think about the lack of control, the horrible morning afters with the splitting headaches while I'm hovering over a toilet bowl, and unfortunately the only way to feel better is one of two ways: 1)drink more, which will make you feel better in no time OR 2)sleep, which will probably take atleast all day. So why not just take the easy way out and drink more right?

So, now I just pass by the bar and try to associate negative things with drinking and bars as a deterrent. But we're all human and mistakes do happen...sometimes.

off the wagon

We all have our weaknesses. It might be delicious twinkies, or maybe cheesy pop songs, but my main weakness and ultimate demon is booze. For better or worse, booze is it for me.

No other thing on this planet has brought me as much pleasure and destruction as booze. AND to make things worse, I'm a lonely asshole, but once I drink, I'm the lonely asshole surrounded by people. It's odd how things work. You choose sobriety and you are alone like as if you were in the vacuum of space. Start drinking and you have friends ready to party it up. Where was I on this social spectrum?

Obviously I wasn't sober from the get-go, but I cut my drinking drastically. Had a drink maybe once a month or so and when I did it was one or two beers. Fast forward to this past week and I gotta be honest, I drank more this week than I have combined the previous year. So where does that leave us?

I won't sugarcoat things. I will probably drink again, more than likely this friday when I go to a Comedy show I got free tickets for. But I'm going to work on not drinking as much, maybe I might not drink at all, but you know me better than that.

Am I addicted?

First off, I wrote a rough draft about an upcoming blog entry, but was too lazy to edit and post it and then I decided to come on here and check stuff out, but felt I needed an immediate release so here I am. Am I addicted? I don't think I ever asked myself that really. Even when I blew 16 grand that I made while being overseas on boozing it up at the bar and a few Vegas trips that included 48 or 72 drinking marathons. Or how about when I was destroying things, like when I was intoxicated and smashed my guitar like I was Paul Simonon on the Clash's London Calling album cover. So when do we ask ourselves the big question? Unfortunately it's after we have hit rock-bottom and have squandered away our finances, hurt and pushed our loved ones away and are all alone with our thoughts and memories to haunt us.

I push people away...

yes,it's another Friday night and I am alone watching a movie about loneliness and solitude. the film's narration attempting to drown out the narration of my life that is going on my head. Why am I here? Why are you here? What is the whole point of this? I'm not being suicidal or anything these ae just questions everyone thinks about, sort of.

Am I in the same league as Socrates and Jung? The great thinkers of this world? Perhaps they are not so great, since we ponder the same thing(past tense for the). I seem to always complain about being alone but I am also the one who puts space between myself and human beings, as soon as they get close I begin to push away. Do you do the same thing?

As you can see my this blog and all other blog entries are all over the place! Not because I can't formulate a perfect sentence or know where to put a period or comma, I have two reasons for this. Reason(1)My mind is all over the place. If you had a ship and could travel my mind, you would lose your f*ckin mind trying to navigate it. And reason(2) I am lazy.

Have a great day!!!!!

Are you depressed?

Who doesn't love hearing that question! I like to respond with, "No I'm not f*ckin depressed, I'm f*ckin fantastic how about you". If you haven't noticed I am slightly sarcastic, just a tad. But yea, every now and then I get in these depressive states and sometimes they will last a day, a week or a month or two, it just depends on who knows what.

I don't see a therapist, I have in the past but it seems like all they do is just make things worse. I've been medicated by a doctor which didn't turn out so well (ask my ex). So I've just learned to Cope with it. When I get in my depressive state, I'll close myself off from the world and when I'm good and ready I emerge from my shell.

I don't exactly know what my triggers are, I do tend to avoid Iraq war stuff but that's about it really. Perhaps I'm all depressed because of survivor guilt. I found out someone I worked with in the past was killed overseas. That could be why I'm all messed up now. Oh well, just gotta keep on f*ckin truckin!!!!

If your in the dumps and don't want to deal with the world, and you want to lock yourself away for a bit, that's fine and it's probably healthy for you and the world, but eventually you are going to face the day. So if you are going to face the day, start it off with something you like, a favorite song, a favorite meal or favorite activity. Remember it's all about baby steps.

The home is a temple

For the most part home is our safety net, whether we live on our own, with parents, or with roommates. We all come home after a tough day of work or running errands to lovely abode. Think about it, it's our holy temple, we eat, sleep, laugh, cry, make love, fight, and for some of us, pray. So when you have people over for long periods of time it's definitely an issue.

When visitors or a construction crew invade your temple and are there for a long period of time you can't help but feel threatened and sort of on edge. Which is my current dilemma, my parent's home is going through a mini remodel, kitchen stuff, some bathroom stuff, and some backyard stuff. This is a pain in the ass for me!! I can't park in the driveway because the construction people use it to load/unload equipment and I dont want to have to move my car every few minutes. I can't hangout and relax in the living room, I can't even cook myself some damn eggs AND i hate eating fast food so I have to go eat at a cafe or something. It's like my sanity is gone and I can't be spiritually in peace because I'll either here whistling, the drill or people talking.

Yes, I am anti-social and don't like being around people at times, that is why I come home, to regain my senses, to regain my social energy so that when I go out into the world im not as big as an asshole as I normally am. END OF RANT

How to be alone

When I was alone and had nobody to turn to, I of course turned to the Internet like most people do. I found this video on youtube by chance and I really enjoyed and found it inspirational, perhaps you will too.

Bukowski and Hemingway had women...

*warning* I was under the influence of alcohol when I wrote this.

For one of the first times in my life I have felt the need for companionship. Maybe it was due to the two couples I was hanging out with that were literally spooning on the couches AT THE BAR and the fact that I had no single friends to talk to.

I usually can handle couples, Ive been doing it for a loong loong time and im used to being the lone single guy of the group but this time I actually felt a need for companionship. Someone I can share my awesomeness with, someone I can share my drink with and someone I can Karoake duet with(we'll sing f*cked up songs like Whiskey Lullaby).

I've always felt the need for solitude and never desired being tied down. I preferred being the lonely guy but im starting to feel that I am closing myself off to life. After all, Bukoski and Hemingway had women in their lives, perhaps I should too!!

Bucket List and what not

The Bucket list movie with Nicholsan and Freeman was not that great but it brought about the idea into the limelight that we all do and should have lists of things we want to do before we kick the bucket. I am going to talk a little bit of a few of the things I have on my dead list.

*Stand up Comedy-Prolly at the top, who doesn't wanna go on stage and make fun of every day life, people, politicians and the crowd watching that night. I'm not looking to make a career of it, I just think it would be something fun to do! Plus it takes majore balls to go up in front of random strangers and make an ass of yourself. To be honest I find this more exhilerating thant bungee jumping or sky diving.

*Climb Mt. Everest-no explaining needed. Have you not seen Cliffhanger with Sly Stallone, not only is that movie freakin AWESOME but it's a pretty decent suspenful movie!! The acting isn't great and sometimes the scenes look like soundstages but it's ok, the movie rocks!! But yea back to Everest, it's a man VS wild thing, overcoming mother nature, basically make her my f*ckin b*tch!!

Thats about it for now, unfortunately I dont have many things on my bucketlist, I mean I've experienced a good amount now in the 30 years I've been on this earth. From game winning goals in hockey to participating in the invasion of a small country and I won't even get into the party/drinking scene, I'll save that for next time!!

Off and on off and on and being alone

I am completely afraid to look at my previous posts to count the times I have said that I will start posting more often or that I will set a schedule for me to do it. Les just get out it out in the air, I AM A FLAKE! Well no completely, just when it comes to this. Ok so here's my actual blog on being alone.

I have no issue being alone. I was the youngest in my household and there was/is a HUGE age gap between me and my three older brothers, i was the baby of the family. So part of my childhood I felt like an only child because I was the only child living in the house, everyone else were adults. I would go off in my imaginary world and do things alone. Don't get me wrong I played with the kids in the neighborhood, but they weren't like me and didn't think like me (no, I'm not gay). The only way I could explain it was that I maybe had a conscious, or I could think outside of myself, maybe I had self realization at an early age. Also, because I was always around older people I matured more quickly.

Fast forward to now, I am sort of well rounded. I have "friends". Although there are very few I would call for help if I was stranded somewhere. In general I enjoy being alone with m thoughts. I'll occasionally go out with people but then I have to recharge my social juices and spend some time isolated from everyone else. Some people can't handle solitude and isolation, me on the other hand, I thrive in it!!!

I'm not like weird awkward antisocial, I'm more like weird, talented, artist, don't talk to me because I got stuff going on antisocial.

It's been a while.....

NO NO NO, I'm not talking about the Staind song, (god forbid I do). It's been quite sometime since I've posted on here and I should post here sooner to clear my soul up. So here it goes.

Im still working graveyard at the homeless shelter in LA. I recently went to Vegas and Laughlin, which were quite relaxing trips. I haven't really been drinking too much. I am slowly regaining control of my financess, unfortunately dental work and is eating up alot of dough.

Still single, not dating anyone, and really just trying to focus on ME. It's weird I've been on one of those "self realization" movie kicks lately, Sorta like Stranger Than Fiction with Will Ferrel, one saying that sticks out is "You're never too old for space camp", that right there says it all!!!

I have a summer class (College Algebra for Business Calculus) coming up next work, I am not too excited about it especially since it's my worst subject. Wish me luck!!!