Lather, Rinse ... REPEAT

I’m sitting in my suite at the Larkspur Landing in a city by the name of Renton, Washington. Renton, Washington?  Never heard of the place; although it is now entered in on my Google Maps as my “home.”  Don’t think it’ll be too long before that changes – I wrote a check for $500 as a deposit on an apartment up in West Seattle earlier today.  I’m not one for wasting time and, the way things are with finding decent housing these days, I figured it best I claimed my stake before it disappeared.  All’s that’s left now is the application and – assuming I qualify with said application – delivery of my crap from Nevada.  No problem…

Interestingly enough, I’m not even 100% sure that I really have landed the contract job that all this “moving to Seattle” depends on.  However, I’m not about to let such a miniscule hitch slow me down.  Nope, I’m all-in.  I seem to have been dealt a solid “start hand” – it’s that flop that kills ya, though…  Curtis, the recruiter that landed me this job, is stopping by my hotel this afternoon to get the contract signed and whatever … maybe I’ll find out more then.  Haven’t heard “word one” from Boeing since being told that the PDF I created for the non-employee badge request was deemed sufficient and “preferred” to the FAX option that Curtis was asking me to do.  I was also informed that my badge is ready to be picked up although I still have no idea where this would be done nor where I am expecting to be working – an address would be nice … as would a start day and time.  Oh well, beggars, choosers – you know what they say…

I suppose this is just a case of déjà vu all over again.  Seems to me I’ve done this before.  It was a somewhat younger me and, at that time, the whole “not speaking the language of the locals” twist was thrown in as well.  I survived – thrived, actually.  Things have got to be easier this time.  It’s just that, at one time – and not too long ago, mind you – I believed I had put these adventures of jumping blindly into the deep end behind me.  An ill-advised detour seems to have brought me a substantial distance back, however.  Here we go again…

But hey, on the positive side, I am getting the opportunity to broaden my horizons.  I still have little to no idea what this next project will actually be requiring me to do.  I’m somewhat sure that it will require at least some of the skills I already know (well, knew at one time … let’s be honest, it’s been a while) although it sounds like the largest portion of work is going to be doing things I’ve never actually done before.  I’m thinking this will be mainly a learning experience.  Nothing wrong with learning new skills although I better learn quickly – getting paid to learn things just sounds so un-capitalistic to me and we all know that, in this country, capitalism rules.

I do get the opportunity to check out the Seattle lifestyle.  The apartment I just claimed seems like an ideal basecamp for such an endeavor as well.  It’s located just a short walk from the north end of Alki Beach as well as the Seacrest Ferry Dock.  I guess this basically translates to it being pretty much a short walk to downtown Seattle.  That could be good, I suppose.  I’m kind of hoping that, by its location alone, I will have much more desire to continue my adventures that I so enjoyed back in Santa Monica.  I tried walking through the old neighborhood a few times whilst back at the parent’s but that just wasn’t the same.  It’s a big plus to actually have something interesting to see.  I do hope it doesn’t rain too much…

bis später,

Coriolis

Breathing...

So, I’m now basically waiting to “possibly” be hearing more on three job possibilities sometime soon.  “Possibly” is the key word there as I’ve been here before – been a consistent state of my life for well over an entire year to be more precise.

Two of my current possibilities are through a couple recruiters; one of which I was able to obtain an interview with the client directly – had the interview exactly one week ago today.  I have since heard through correspondence with my recruiter that I was actually one of five that was deemed worthy of an interview and was told, during said interview, that the company was in the process of “staffing up.”  I took this, at the time, to mean that they would possibly be hiring more than one engineer which I was actually glad to hear and was hoping to be one of the hires.  (Granted, the job’s actually a one-year contract to start, but I can do one year and deal with what comes afterword when it arrives…)  I heard from my recruiter now that they have “passed” on three of the interviewees, “hired” one and are currently “still deliberating” about me.  It seems they are trying to figure how I would fit in on the current planned projects.  Is that good or bad?  I don’t know.  Hopefully I’ll hear something soon…

The other recruiter-based possibility is for a company that I had been attempting to land a job with through other connections in the past.  It is, however, a job that is directly related to the military defense industry and might even require obtaining some sort of security clearance.  This time, however, the recruiter that I am using is working with a company that specializes in placing professionals in military related industries.  Will this help?  I don’t know … but the recruiter seems to be quite professional and has been sending consistent weekly updates since initially contacting me mid-December of last year.  It does seem like he’s trying…

The third opportunity that I am considering “active” is with this smaller, third-party, design services company – sounds much like a company I used to work for some 20 years ago.  This, actually, is the one I have the most hope for as it seems to be a place that I would be able to quickly get in-step with as far as work goes.  Had an initial phone screening – described to me as a “technical discussion” – with an engineer a couple weeks ago that seemed to go rather well.  Sent an email to the HR representative that I was initially corresponding with about a week ago and was told to “hang tight” along with an apology for not getting back with me earlier.  The “door is not closed” although the process has been paused due to other issues currently being dealt with.  What are these other issues?  Will they remember me when the “other issues” have been dealt with?  Will I even hear anything more from these guys?  I have no idea…

You see, that’s just the way it is these days.  Those are just the three opportunities that I am currently considering “active.”  I’ve got somewhere around 250 other positions that I have applied for at somewhere around 140 other companies throughout this last year and have absolutely no idea where I stand on many of those.  I sometimes receive rejection emails, more rarely have some sort of phone interview that goes nowhere and quite often get phone calls and emails from recruiters (almost always from recruiters of Indian decent) for positions that I have already applied for.  It’s a bit maddening.  As a side note here, those recruiters are always a waste of time … seems to be a new cottage industry created in order to find Indian engineers sponsorship opportunities for H3 or H1b visas.  They’re obviously driven by nothing more than volume.  I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that they actually have quotas that need to be met.

The recruiters that I am working with for the couple active possibilities I wrote of above are, interestingly enough, not of the shotgun-approach, visa-seeking variety.  They are both much more professional recruiters working with what at least appear to be solid, well-established job placement corporations for professionals.  I’m hoping that not being immediately asked to fill out an obviously standardized questionnaire asking what my “hourly rate,” “date-of-birth,” and “current visa status” is might be a good thing.  You see, that’s what you always get from the Indian recruiters.  They’ll even go as far as asking for your social security number on some occasions – for reasons that they never are able to explain.  It’s all bullshit…  I’m hoping that using actual recruiting professionals might have better results.

Of course, if I do land a job soon, all that’s going to do is kick off a process that I’m beginning to wonder whether I’ll be able to successfully accomplish.  I’m going to have to move.  Now don’t get me wrong here, I want to move – oh yes, I most definitely want to get myself an apartment somewhere and finally complete this goddamn move that I started almost a year ago – but I seem to have lost the ambition required to do anything that has even a hint of challenge to it.  When I was younger, I never questioned anything.  For quite a few years I moved almost annually to new locations.  Hell, since graduating college I’ve moved to somewhere around 20 different addresses in five different states and even lived temporarily in yet one more state and another country.  This used to be easy for me.  Now, however, the thought of all the things I would need to do keeps me up at night.  It just seems like it’s almost undoable.

Oh well, if you’ve been reading my blog, you are well aware that I am the only person to blame for what my life has become.  I suppose I’m going to need to “man up” at some time and fix this fucking mess.  I sure hope landing a job will give me some direction – assuming I can ever pull that off.  I suppose all I can do is keep trying.  It’s getting to the point where that’s becoming difficult – this “breathing” thing that I’m continuing to do seems a bit pointless…

bis später,

Coriolis

Sot

So this happened…

Last Saturday I decided to head on up to Sports Haven – my ‘local bar’ of late.  Arrived somewhat early in the afternoon (approximately 3:00pm) and met up with Ron for some coneys and beers.  $1 coneys are always seen as a good deal by me and, since Sports Haven has ‘em three days each week and is a rather short walk from my parent’s, I take advantage of the deal on a somewhat regular basis.  Invited both Ron and Erik to join me this time.

Ron and I arrived pretty much simultaneously – he even yelled something at me as his car passed me walking although I couldn’t make out what he said and never bothered to find out … I’m sure it was something silly as that’s just the way we are…  He was exiting his vehicle as I arrived at the bar.

We entered the bar, grabbed a table and ordered up some coneys and a couple beers.  I also got myself an order of fries.  And this was the beginning – two coneys, an order of fries and beer #1 for me.  I won’t track what the others had as that information is inconsequential to my story.  For me, however, it’s two coneys, one order of fries and a beer at this point.

We were sitting there enjoying our food, sipping on our beers and chatting when Erik arrived.  He joined us at our table and ordered himself a coney and a beer.  I believe this was where I decided to grab myself another coney and beer as well.  Not quite sure if this was my second or third beer although it seems to me that it was merely my second.  Not sure what time it was when Erik arrived, but I do believe that both Ron and I had already eaten our coneys and consumed our first brews – must have been around 3:30.  This now brings my running total up to three coneys, an order of fries and two beers.

The three of us were sitting there contemplating solutions to the various problems we’re currently being faced with in this shitty world that we find ourselves living in … or perhaps we were just reminiscing over previous attempts we made at the same; either way, we were once again ticking away the moments that make up a dull day as we had so many times before.  It’s always a blast to get the opportunity to chat with these guys.  I’ve known both pretty much my entire life and, regardless of how long the time span is between meetings, the conversation picks up from where we left off effortlessly.  Once again, we were at it.

Ron, at some point, received a phone call from his son and invited him to join us.  He lives close by and joined the three of us soon thereafter.  This was when I ordered my third beer … must have been somewhere around 4:00.

I believe it was about an hour or so that all four of us sat there sharing stories before Erik, Ron and his son needed to leave.  Must have been close to 5:00 when they all did just that and I decided to stay at the bar by myself.  I had nothing else to do and figured I might as well waste away the rest of the day hanging out at the bar, having a few beers and watching some football or whatever.  It’s not like I needed to worry about driving home later or anything – my journey home was known to be merely a 15-minute walk as usual.  I go to that bar primarily because it’s only “stumbling distance” from my home avoiding the worry of perhaps drinking a bit too much.  No drive, no problem…

I remember basically burning through the remainder of that day.  I watched the Chiefs eliminate the Colts and the Rams take out the Cowboys; participated in your typical, bullshit small talk that consistently occurs between patrons in sports bars; ordered up some more fries and had a couple more coneys ($1-a-piece, why not?).  I was also, throughout the entire day, drinking beers.  I wasn’t really keeping track of how many beers I ordered however there were seven listed on the final tab I paid prior to leaving the bar.  It was slightly after 2:00am when I began my walk home – some 11 hours after arriving.

Thinking back on the evening/night later, I do not recall actually doing any “binge” drinking.  The seven beers on my tab actually seemed like too many when I received it and I remember saying the same to Coreen, the bartender.  Since they were on special (I think they were something like $1.75 each) and I didn’t really want to argue over something so petty, I just paid the tab.  She may have accidentally included the three beers I had already paid for from earlier in the day, but who really knows…?  I didn’t much care.

As to my condition, I felt fine – a little tipsy, but overall stable.  I distinctly remember the walk home as clear as a bell.  I remember entering my parent’s house, switching the light in the living room on, brushing my teeth, switching off the light in the living room and going to bed.  I remember all of that as being completely normal.  I felt completely sober.  I wasn’t stumbling or anything.  It was approximately 2:20 in the morning…

Next thing I vaguely remember was – oh, I’m not exactly sure how to describe this – “coming to” perhaps … somehow lying slumped in the corner of the bathroom and hearing this scale that my parents have (the electronic speaking type) sounding off that, “Your weight is twenty point zero pounds,” followed shortly by getting assisted up by my father in my bedroom where I apparently fell again.  I then headed back to my bed and lied there for some unknown amount of time (not long, though…) before getting up and noticing that my underarm deodorant had been knocked over on my dresser and wondered exactly what happened with that.  I don’t remember getting out of bed to begin with, heading into the bathroom nor returning to my bedroom between the two occurrences of “coming to.”  Not only that, but I distinctly remember hearing the scale read off a weight of exactly 20.0 pounds exactly one time … it usually states the weight twice followed by a “powering down” announcement.  All I heard was one announcement of 20.0 pounds with no notification of powering down – at least that’s all I remember.  I’m positive that more was said.  I found out later, from speaking with my parents, that all this madness occurred sometime around 6:30am – that’s somewhere around four hours after I went to bed.

I also felt like I had been in a fight or something.  I hadn’t … but it was later explained to me, by my parents again, that I had apparently passed out in the bathroom (and the newly bent towel rack in there is a strong sign of where, exactly, that was) as well as in my bedroom where I ended up slumped between a dresser and the door of the closet.  My back and upper right arm had a couple somewhat deep scratches and, as I would soon find out, my coccyx (tailbone) got bruised … again.  Been noticing that basically for the entire last week although it seems to be getting better now…

So my mom’s pissed now – I did mention the bent towel rack, right…? – and I’m confused.  What the hell happened?  It’s gotta, at least in some aspect, be related to what I drank the evening before; but I felt fine when I walked home.  I’m not just saying that as a joke – I’ve been drunk many times before and do know what being drunk feels like.  I was steady as a rock when I left the bar and walked home.  Although it is possible that I drank as many as ten beers that day – although I’m thinking the total was closer to seven – that was in the span of eleven hours.  Either way that’s less than one beer per hour … and the beers were of the ‘short’ variety – they were on special at $1.75 a piece, so they weren’t large.  And why would I be passing out some four hours after going to sleep?  I’m still wondering exactly what happened there…

So now I’m thinking that I damn well better stop drinking completely.  That’s a bummer … it was nice to go have a few beers as a brief escape from this shit-show that my life has become every once in a while; but after that experience I’m thinking I better quit that.  I don’t know, is that possibly a sign of impending alcoholism?  Now that’s something I most definitely do not need.  Oh well, one more minor pleasure gone.  Life just continues to get shittier and shittier…

bis später,

Coriolis

Jukebox Zero

Decided to kill some time a few days ago by playing some guitar.  I have very vague memories of a time when I used to enjoy playing guitar; never was any good, although I have clocked in over 1,000 hours playing “Rocksmith” on my computer.  I suppose that must translate to me enjoying the process somewhat.  Now I’m sitting here with my upper left arm and shoulder in constant pain.  That, you see, is just the way life works for me these days.  Nothing ever has any positive results – nothing.  Everything I do just adds more to the pile of shit that my life has become.

The thing is, I don’t get it.  This is not the first time I’ve had debilitating pain that I’ve been able to trace back to playing guitar; however, the specifics of the sessions that caused the pain are anything but identical.  Hell, the pain wasn’t even in the same arm.  It’s kind of like life’s telling me that even if I somehow discover something that I might enjoy it’s not going to let that happen.  Nope … if it somehow doesn’t end in soul-crushing disappointment, it’s not something that I’ll be allowed to do…

The first time that playing guitar fucked me over was about 3½ years ago when I was living in Nevada.  On that occasion, it was triggered by playing my acoustic guitar on my sofa.  The result of this – for some reason – was that my right arm became sore early the next day with the pain slowly increasing for a couple days until I was unable to use the arm for anything.  I ended up going to a local doctor.  Got X-rayed, diagnosed with severe bursitis and prescribed a couple of drugs – one for the swelling (that I don’t remember having) and one for the pain.  My parents even flew down to help me although they didn’t arrive for a few days and the issue had pretty much resolved itself by then.  I still don’t know what the true issue was as I’ve played my acoustic many times since without incident; all I know was that it was very painful and ended up causing grief to my poor parents as well as me.  What I didn’t know was that, although the circumstances vary, this was going to become somewhat of a recurring issue.

According to what I’ve been able to decipher by searching my past postings on Facebook, the next time something similar happened was about a year later.  I was neither sitting on my sofa nor playing my acoustic guitar; however, the results were hauntingly familiar.  This time I was standing and playing the bass I recently acquired.  Upon waking the next morning, the pain began and consistently increased until my arm was useless.  Interestingly enough, it was my left arm this time – different arm, same bullshit.  Didn’t bother jumping through the hurdles required to see a doctor this time, though … just decided to wait out the pain.  For you see, being that this was after making my bone-head decision to become a professional poker player, I no longer had good medical insurance; that’s just the way it is in this capitalistic country – if you’re not either rich or in a current process of trying to become rich, you’re not worth keeping alive.  I was relying on the bronze-level, bullshit health insurance I had obtained through healthcare.gov.  This makes actually seeing doctors for any non-emergency, life-threatening purposes as difficult and expensive as they can legally get away with.  No sense making things worse by actually attempting to obtain any medical help.  When I did bother with this the last time, they pretty much proved to be quite useless when all was said and done…

As mentioned above, I have once again started this deja vu … three days ago.  This latest run-in began with me playing my Les Paul whilst standing for somewhere between an hour and a half to two hours.  The exact amount of time is unknown, although I do know I completed a 90-minute non-stop, random selection of songs as a single set followed by playing a couple songs that I selected afterwards.  The pain – my left arm/shoulder this time, same as the last one – started to arrive a couple days ago and has been, as before, consistently increasing in severity since.  So, as I stated at the start of this article, I am now sitting with constant pain.

What all this means now is that I apparently can no longer play my guitars unless I’m willing to risk losing the functionality of an arm (or even worse, possibly both arms) for a number of days afterwards … not to mention having to deal with the pain that is also associated with this.  So, it now looks like I won’t be playing my guitars to kill time.  One more joy gone…

It’s getting to where everything seems to be pointless.  I’m trying to land a job (pathetic as that process seems to be going…) so that I can once again be a contributing member of society; however, I’m having a harder and harder time explaining why I’m even bothering.  It’s gotten to the point where I actually don’t want to do anything.  That can’t be healthy…

bis später,

Coriolis

Mich-again

I’m back in Michigan.  Moved back in with the parents.  Last I posted, I had just started and ended my new job back in Santa Clara, California – all on the same day – and was just about to begin the cross-country drive.  Not really sure if I was clear enough about the ‘Route 66’ adventure not happening, however that trip did not happen.  There was – for a couple days – still a possibility of me driving back down to Santa Monica, meeting up with Craig as he flew in from Michigan and actually completing that adventure; however, it didn’t happen.  What ended up happening was me driving straight from Santa Clara (well, Fremont actually…) to Allen Park, Michigan all by myself – a quick, four-day drive down I-80.  Other than picking up a speeding ticket (102 in a 75 zone) in Nebraska, the trip was quite uneventful.  I arrived at my parent’s house on a Sunday, early in the afternoon … been living here since.

I think I actually am losing my sanity now.  Nothing seems to make sense to me lately.  It clearly now appears that I should have stuck with that crappy job I successfully landed in Santa Clara.  It most definitely would have been a nightmare – as far as jobs go – however it sure would have let me avoid many of the current situations that I find myself dealing with. First and foremost, I would have been employed.  I now have the pleasure of attempting to solve my lack of employment issue whilst living in Michigan.  This adds quite a bit of complication to a problem that I’ve been working on solving for well over a year already.

The thing is that backend, digital, ASIC, “place and route” – where my expertise is – is not something that is even done here in the Detroit Metropolitan area.  Everything – EVERYTHING – related to electrical engineering around here is directly tied to the auto industry.  It’s also 100% analog in nature.  There are jobs related to ASICs, however all of them appear to be incorporating ASICs designed elsewhere into PCB circuitry sold to auto manufacturers.  I know, “blah blah blah technical crap most people reading this could care less about” – sorry ‘bout that …  It’s just so frustrating to me.  I was hoping to perhaps find something in engineering that I could do around here, but I can’t.  My 20 years of learning more and more about less and less has made me far too specialized.  I don’t do analog circuitry – I don’t remember what I “learned” in college some 25 years ago.

My next plan at solving my lack of job issue was to just throw away my experience and change fields completely.  Didn’t really have an idea about what I wanted to do nor how I would get into it – still don’t.  I applied for a job with Guitar Center as something called an “Operations Associate” as the job posting made it appear that no experience was needed and that training would be provided.  Sent my resume along with a cover letter that I typed up explaining that I was trying to change careers as I figured they would wonder why someone with my resume was applying.  Never heard anything back from that…

Considered (and am still possibly considering) trying to get some sort of IT job but don’t really know what training I would need.  Seems like it’s all very specialized towards what is needed for the specific job one has.  Since, I have no specific job, this makes me hesitant to spend any money and time taking a class that may never be useful for me.  I don’t know … maybe I’m overthinking things…

I’m currently back to looking for a job in my field – as specialized as it is.  Translation – I am looking for a job somewhere other than here.  I’ve got a couple leads for contract positions in California and Texas although I have been applying to opportunities anywhere in the country – even applied to several positions in Canada though I have heard nothing back on those.  I’m basically back to what I was doing prior to landing the job in Santa Clara.  Now, however, I am doing it from Michigan rather than California.  Getting pretty much the same results though – had a few phone interviews resulting in me waiting to hear more and many applications sent resulting with no reply at all.  Sometimes I get rejection emails, but usually I get nothing.  It’s now well over 200 opportunities that I have applied for since deciding to give up on poker.

This decision to move back in with my parents has also introduced several issues that caught me a bit off guard – all related to my car.  Granted, some of these issues only exist because of my pride.  I do realize that, although I do like my car, it is just a car; however, it is a 2002 Firehawk.  It’s a limited edition (only 1501 were built) model with slightly more than 60k miles.  It’s rarely (very rarely) been driven in rain and never been driven in snow.  Although it was involved in a couple accidents in California, I made sure all repairs were completed by professionals.  I’ve done the best I could to take care of this car.  Now I’m back in Michigan.

Michigan, as many of you may already be aware, is pretty much the worst place for vehicles.  The roads are a freaking mess – more potholes than pavement – and when winter comes around things really become a nightmare.  They spray the roads with salt.  Salt doesn’t do good things to cars.  The whole idea of driving my over-powered, rear-wheel-drive car on the icy, salt-covered roads of southeast Michigan throughout the winter makes me cringe.  So … I’ve decided to put my Firehawk in storage.  Now I have no car (well, I “have” one … in storage).  I’ll be needing to purchase a vehicle if I stay here.  So there’s that now…

I was able to obtain a Michigan driver’s license without much hassle; however, was unable to register my car.  I did change my car insurance from California to Michigan; unfortunately, I could not complete a Michigan registration due to not having a title for my car.  I might “have” a title but, if I do, it would be located in my file cabinet.  My file cabinet just so happens to currently be residing in a storage unit somewhere in Nevada along with the rest of my possessions.  You see, apart from my car and few select things I decided to take with me to Santa Monica, everything I own was packed in a truck by the movers I hired in Henderson and taken to storage.  I’m supposed to get an apartment and give that address to the movers at some point to get my stuff delivered.  That’s a bridge I suppose I’ll be jumping off sometime in the future … assuming I ever get myself an apartment and who the hell knows if that’s ever going to happen…?  But, as usual, I digress … back to what I was talking about…

Now I’m working on obtaining a duplicate title for my vehicle – no easy task here…  My initial guess was to try the California DMV.  I filled out a California “Title Application” and sent it, along with a brief letter of explanation as well as a money order for $21 – the duplicate title fee, to the California DMV in Sacramento.  I “should” have taken the moment required to look at my current, still valid, California registration prior to doing this.  It clearly states that no title was issued for this registration.

Okay, so a bit of an explanation on what I have since discovered is in order here.  Apparently, in some states a vehicle can be registered without a title.  Not sure exactly which states are included in the complete list, however both California and Nevada allow this.  I now know this as I did exactly that in both California (twice, actually) and Nevada.  Michigan, however, does not allow this.  In Michigan the owner of a vehicle must possess a valid title to said vehicle in order to obtain registration and plates.  So that got me to wondering exactly how the hell I was going to get a copy of my title…

After looking into things a bit, I was able to discover that I had paid off my loan for this car back in 2008.  I was still “technically” living in Colorado then; although I was “actually” living in California.  For you see, I owned a house in Colorado where my car was stored.  It was apparently in 2008 that I decided to bring my car with me to California.  The reason I believe this is because I was able to discover from the California DMV that the first year my car was registered in California was 2009.  Interestingly enough, it was registered without a title…  This leads me to believe that I need to be going through the Colorado DMV in an attempt to get a duplicate title.  It does appear that it was registered as a Colorado vehicle when the loan was paid off.

I called the Colorado DMV to see if they’d be able to help me with this and basically discovered that, in Colorado, bureaucracy rules.  They told me that I needed to fill out and send in a “Record Search Request” (form DR2489a) to see if a title for my vehicle is in their system and then, if it is, I should fill out and send in a “Duplicate Title Request” (form DR2539a) to request a duplicate title be sent to me.  I then asked if they might be able to save me some time and let me know if the title was in their records over the phone and was told that they couldn’t do that because there was no way to prove I was who I was claiming to be.  What I ended up doing was sending in the “Search Request” followed by the “Title Request” a few days later.  The way I figure it is, if the “Title Request” comes back to me requesting some kind of missing information, I should have the information by then from the “Search Request” I filed.  If I’m lucky, the information I put in the “Duplicate Title Request” will be sufficient and I’ll get my title…

Oh yeah, and to add to this, I’m also a bit in the dark on whether or not the title – should it be found in the Colorado DMV records – will be in my name.  There is still somewhat of a possibility that the lien from the loan was never removed in Colorado.  That was supposed to have been done when I registered my car after paying off the loan … but I don’t think I registered the car in Colorado again after the loan was paid off.  I suppose the lien may still be on my car’s title.  I was able to get a lien release document from the credit union … just in case.  I’m still waiting for this mess to sort itself out…

The latest twist in this pathetic story that is my life is that Ray, one of my oldest friends, is basically offering me a job whilst I continue to look for work.  Yeah, it’s as strange as it sounds and that’s what’s bothering me the most about it.  He’s offering me a chance to work at his company in pretty much a secretarial role as a way for me to earn some money and possibly move out of my parent’s place.  I really do appreciate the offer however I don’t think I could do that.  If I took the job, I would need to get a vehicle.  I suppose that’s not too big a deal, I’m pretty sure I could pick up something half-way decent for a few grand.  What happens, however, if I then land one of the jobs I am trying to get?  I suppose I could sell the vehicle I purchased, but how much of a pain would that be?  Remember now that the jobs I am trying to land all require me to be moving most likely quite far from Michigan.

As for moving out of my parent’s house, I would love to.  Once again though, what happens if I land a job?  I don’t know … I suppose I could always break the lease of any apartment I got although I would need to once again have my possessions (assuming I ended up getting them delivered from Nevada) moved again to wherever the job I landed was.  Getting an apartment of my own would probably be the smart thing to do though as the office for Ray’s company is actually located down in Toledo, Ohio.  I don’t think driving daily between Allen Park and Toledo makes too much sense – heck, the gas cost alone would make the whole endeavor somewhat pointless…

Besides, I can’t screw over my buddy like that.  I fully realize he’s going out of his way to offer me assistance, but what kind of worker would I be if my main goal was finding work elsewhere?  I need to be able to open my schedule for any interviewing that may be required on my job search and I have absolutely no idea how frequently time off would be needed for that.  Heck, there’s been four days in the last couple weeks that I would have needed to be away from work for interviews.  I’m hoping that my interviewing may soon become even more frequent and who knows if I may be needing to travel somewhere for an interview…?  It just seems to me that this whole looking for a job these days is a job of its own.  If I agree to work with Ray’s company, I would feel obligated to do that job as well as I could.  Right now, I just feel that this job hunt I am currently on would get in the way…

I suppose another option here would be to take the job with Ray as a change in career.  It wouldn’t pay even close to what I expect to be able to get should I land a job in my current (“former,” I suppose, when the whole poker bullshit is taken into account) career however that’s assuming I am ever able to actually land a job.  I don’t know … seems like the last few phone interviews I had went decently but you never know these days – will they end up like all the other interviews I’ve had this last year?  I sure hope not…

Oh well … I’m planning on meeting up with Ray tomorrow down in Toledo.  Maybe talking with him will give me some direction…

bis später,

Coriolis

... On the Other Side

This morning I had a doctor’s appointment. It was scheduled for 8:00 with this dermatologist that I’ve seen a couple of times before. I initially saw him to try to figure out what was wrong with a rather vital organ that had recently broken out with somewhat painful, rather itchy sores. First inclination – VD, right? Luckily for me, all the tests came back negative … and we tested for everything – communicable diseases were ruled out. The doc said it appeared to be an allergic reaction.

But what was I allergic too? Was it possibly one of the condoms that I had purchased when I was back in Greece? Although the packages were sealed, the condoms were well over a year old. My dermatologist seemed convinced that it was these condoms when I mentioned them … unfortunately that doesn’t explain the reoccurrence of the symptoms months later when the use of any condoms had been abandoned. I ended up getting treated for psoriasis although I soon discovered that the best treatment for my condition was abstinence. The pills and creams that were prescribed for me did nothing compared to just not having sex. That’s just my luck though … I finally find myself a girlfriend and, lo and behold, I’m allergic to her.

I cancelled the appointment this morning. Something tells me that my issue won’t be returning anytime soon. You see yesterday was a big day. It was our (Nini and me) five month anniversary from when we started “officially” dating. It also ended up being the last day that we were “officially” dating. So I guess the question of how long someone can put up with my crap has finally been answered – five months…

Not that this was much of a surprise to me – hell, I’ve seen this train coming for a while now – to be completely honest, it’s actually a bit of a relief. Now let’s not take that last statement the wrong way – Nini really is pretty much the nicest person I’ve ever met and I have absolutely no disparaging remarks to make about her. We were just unable to discover a way to mesh no matter how hard we tried. Add to that the allergic reactions I was having and aforementioned technique required for solace and you’ve got a classic “crash and burn” in the making…

So I guess as of today I am, once again, back to my old self. I reluctantly return to that lone soul trudging through life looking for a purpose. It’s familiar territory so the learning curve should be a breeze… Remember, Cori – “The grass is ALWAYS greener…”

bis später,

Coriolis

It's All Good

Well, in case anybody was wondering, I am still alive. I do realize that it’s been quite a while since I posted anything on my blog; and I apologize to anyone that might have been expecting some interesting reading. Of course, my writing again may not be of any solace – I’ve never guaranteed any intrigue … I will, however, continue to write about life a bit – basically mine…

As the title for this post suggests, my life is going pretty darn well as of late. It’s funny how – usually when you least expect it – life has a way of surprising you. A lot of times these surprises take the form of a negative – money woes, problems with your automobile, the loss of something or someone special, your standard bad days… We deal with these downturns and continue to trudge through life with the hope that something better is on its way. There are, however, the rare occasions where life hits you straight in the face with an unexpected BINGO! This is when the time spent getting through the downturns pays off – it makes the pain vanish and reminds us why we’re alive. The latter of the two aforementioned scenarios has happened to me recently and I must admit that I’m feeling pretty good…

A couple weeks ago I headed back to my home in Colorado. I decided that driving the Pussy Wagon around southern California was something that I needed to stop. Heck, I own a couple other cars that were left in Colorado when I headed out here and one – Precious, my ’02 Trans Am Firehawk – seemed like an ideal car for cruising southern California in. I decided that I would fly back home, participate in the Denver Poker Tour semi-finals (I didn’t make the finals), get a crown (dental work, that is) and drive back to Cali in Precious with my buddy Todd. And, since I didn’t make the finals at the DPT, we could spend a couple days in Vegas on the way back. It was a good plan…

The part that I didn’t plan was meeting my soul mate. It’s a complicated story and I really can’t get into the details for reasons that I can’t explain right now; however I will say that I have met someone – here in California – that has pretty much reminded me what life is all about. The interesting (well, to me anyway…) part about it is what I have learned in such a short period of time. Granted these lessons are pretty much self-evident; but in all my years of being by myself, I’ve forgotten them. Not so much “forgotten” as lost faith in their existence. Please bear with me for a bit whilst I pontificate on some ideals that I beg you, the reader, to never lose faith in – no matter how hard the current day society attempts to eradicate them…

First and foremost is the fact that there is always somebody out there in the void that will appreciate you for who you are. I mean, that pretty much goes without saying when you consider the number of people that exist on this planet; however the point I want to make here is that there is never a valid reason to pretend to be somebody you aren’t in order to win somebody else’s affection. And I do realize that many people constantly play the game of wearing a façade in public with the intention of getting the one thing that they’ve fooled themselves into believing they desire most – sex; however you must be careful if you start playing this game. Play it too much and you risk becoming what you are portraying. You risk losing your desire for actual happiness to the far more materialistic desire of the sexual act. You risk losing your humanity… The whole attempt at becoming what the media is portraying as desirable leads many to abandon their true selves. This, my friends, is not only unnecessary but, in my opinion, very dangerous.

Another thing that I have recently discovered … realized … remembered … is that even the mundane tasks that life is filled with become so much more enjoyable when they are shared with the right person. Even when we can’t be together, I find that I am much more willing to complete these trivial tasks quickly and efficiently in an effort to gain more time that can be shared when we are together. The interesting side effect of wanting to make time has actually turned me into a much more productive person. Who’d of figured…?

I apologize if I’m sounding preachy or arrogant with this posting – after all, who am I to tell others how they should behave? All I know is that my life has been broadsided by a completely unexpected greatness that I am positive I would have dodged had I seen it coming. As some of you already know, I had just begun to play “the game” and even went as far as studying the playbook (I’m now on David DeAngelo’s mailing list…); however I must admit that it is a relief to discover that playing the game is, at best, unnecessary… When all is said and done, the people playing the game are usually not even who they appear to be … how are you expected to have an honest relationship with a façade…?

bis später,

Coriolis

A Rude Awakening

Okay, so yesterday’s post was – as T-Cam so quickly pointed out to everyone – nothing more than a completely silly, extremely absurd April Fools post. The Grecian name used translates to “April Fool” although I doubt anybody bothered to translate it and, by no means whatsoever, was I offered ten grand and a stretch limo for the Pussy Wagon. It would have been nice, but it never actually happened…

So please, people, stop sending me emails questioning the validity of that story … oh wait, nobody ever sends me correspondence to my blog postings no matter how unbelievable. I guess my desire to write these things up as nothing more than self-entertainment is proving to be fulfilled. That’s coo… A few people seem to read them and I suppose it’s not the worst method I could use to waste time. Might as well fill up a small portion of the Internet with my nonsense…

Today’s nonsense will be a long overdue story from back in the day. The reason that it is long overdue is because I alluded to the possibility of writing up some stories from my college years a while back in my The College Years posting. Since that was posted well over a year and a half ago, I guess it’s about time I followed through. It was the spring of 1989. My fellow pledges and I had been busy with a plethora of assigned tasks at the house, without any sleep, since arriving there the day before. It was now the Saturday evening of our Hell Weekend…

Most of the active brothers were at the house this evening – they had all been through the same experience when they pledged and the opportunity to take part in passing the torch onto the latest batch of brothers-to-be was considered a duty as well as a privilege. This night was to be our (the pledges) final test of character, one more method for building camaraderie amongst our pledge class and an experience that every brother could point to as a shared rite of passage. That being said, we were a college fraternity; when fun was to be had, we’d have it…

There was a party-like atmosphere at the house throughout this weekend and it was basically the pledges that were entertaining the brothers. Our “little sisters” – a group of sorority girls who, for one reason or another, decided that the Theta Tau guys were cool enough to hang with and accepted the completely informal designation as “little sisters” – were there as well but no outsiders were allowed in. Not that there wasn’t fun to be had if you were a pledge; whether or not a pledge had fun was a decision that each pledge needed to make for himself. I can’t really get into too many details; but, for the pledge class, the real fun began when we received a piece of paper with a clue on it – a riddle. We were told that the solution to this riddle would lead us to the next clue and so on, and so on. How many clues there were was an unknown and where, exactly, they would lead us was also an unknown. It was then that we left the house and began our journey…

There were three in the pledge class that semester – Logic, Sponge Pile and myself, Coriolis. There used to be four however the fourth pledge didn’t make it through Pledge Court – an earlier event. Our task now was to solve this first riddle and find the next clue. It was rather impressive to see the intricacy that was put into the clues and the amount of ground that one needed to cover in order to complete the game. I remember that the initial riddles led us to various places on or near the Wayne State University campus and, without fail, we would discover the next clue waiting. As the game went on, we needed to head further and further out until the final clue was retrieved. It was taped to the butt of the “Spirit of Detroit” statue in Detroit’s Hart Plaza. To our surprise, this final clue was not a riddle. What it ended up being was a rather long list of “things” with instructions for us to return back to the house…

Upon returning we noticed that much of the crowd had already left. Pretty much the only people at the house were those that lived there and our pledge master and it was he who gave us our instructions. We were told to return to the house the next morning with no less than half of the items represented on the list we had obtained. We were given a time (I think it was 9 or 10 in the morning) and told that we could obtain said items by any means other than purchasing them. If we decided to do something stupid like steal an item and were then unfortunate enough to get caught by an authority figure, the fraternity would disavow all knowledge of our actions and we would have to face the charges on our own. This scavenger hunt would become our final riddle…

Now bear in mind that we had been awake for quite a while at this point. Depending on what time we got up the morning before this and seeing as it was now approaching midnight, all of us had been without sleep for a minimum of at least 36 hours. That being the case, we had quite a few items to retrieve before reporting back to the house the next morning. We headed out in search of some interesting items…

We started with the easy things … things that we could just get from our houses. We stopped by Logic’s place and picked up a box of Cap’n Crunch with Crunch Berries, a pair of panties (“borrowed” from his sister) and a few other items; headed to my parent’s house to get a couple more items – what, exactly, I do not remember – although I don’t remember stopping by Sponge Pile’s – either he had nothing on the list or his house was too far out of the way … I don’t remember. I doubt it was the latter as we covered a lot of ground that night. After stopping by my parent’s, we headed west on I-94 toward Detroit Metro Airport. One of the items was an international airline ticket…

Luckily for us, the international terminal was still open. All of the domestic terminals were shut down for the night but the international terminal was still operational. We ran into a couple young ladies that were waiting for a ride and asked if they, in the name of higher education, would be willing to let us have their tickets. After explaining that we were pledging a fraternity and currently involved in a scavenger hunt they were more than happy to help us out. Bingo – international airline tickets! They were already used, but nothing on the list said they needed to be unused… We were also able to obtain a urinal cake from one of the terminal’s bathrooms. Why? Because it was on the list…

I remember obtaining a railroad crossing sign – not round – from a somewhat desolate road in Ypsilanti where poor Logic needed to get down on all fours and let me climb on his back to be able to reach the bolts which I then removed. We stopped off at this XXX theater on Michigan Avenue to get a dildo (listed as a “huya” on the item list), a pocket pussy and an adult theater ticket stub – nice guy working there … gave us the ticket for free. I believe his words were, “Anything to help higher education.” I’ll have to admit that we cheated a bit and actually purchased the dildo and pocket pussy but what good are rules if you can’t bend them a bit? We even stopped off at a police station at one point. I don’t know what we obtained there, if anything, but I definitely remember stopping by.

I think it was around 6 or 7 in the morning when, for reasons that elude me now, we made our way over to Belle Isle. I was driving. Logic was in the passenger seat … sleeping. Sponge Pile was in the back seat and, as I noticed through my rear-view mirror, also sleeping. A short while later I was awakened by a loud thud and some rather violent motion. Strange thing was I was still driving. Granted half of my car was now on the sidewalk and headed directly toward one of those wire-framed garbage cans, the fact of the matter was that I, in the strictest definition of the term, was driving.

Now granted, I’m not what most people would refer to as a “morning person” – far from it. Most of the time the first thing I want to do after waking up is get a few more winks. When you wake up behind the wheel of a vehicle – one that’s currently being utilized for exactly what it was designed – you need to quickly come to terms with your situation. Me? I floored it.

As I was returning to the road and watching the newly deformed garbage can land behind us I must admit that the sudden rush of adrenaline brought on by recent events woke me up rather quickly. I then needed to explain the situation to a very confused Logic and Sponge Pile. After all, they had just woken up as well…

All kidding aside, things could have been much worse. It was early Sunday morning on Belle Isle and there were quite a few people – apparently much better at dealing with mornings than I – jogging or riding bikes around the island. I’m lucky I didn’t kill anybody. This would then have been a tragically different story. Luckily though, the only casualties of this story were one badly dented rim and one newly mangled garbage can.

So I guess the lesson to be learned from this story is to be careful where you decide to sleep. Try to keep it some place where no life or death decisions need to be made mere nanoseconds after waking up. Whilst driving an automobile is just about the worst place I can think of…

bis später,

Coriolis

Chaotic Boredom

So I guess I’m a superstar! Yeah, right … it’s funny what one will do when a whole lot of boredom gets mixed with just the right amount of alcohol… Last night was the last time that I would be able to hang out with Chris until after the holidays so we decided to go a bit crazy and take part in the awe-inspiring excitement that is Camarillo on a Tuesday night.

In Chris’ defense, he was all for heading up to Ventura to check out some live music. I, unfortunately, was feeling a bit under the weather (still am … but the Zicam should take care of that – I hope…) and didn’t feel too much like attempting to tackle the Ventura Main Street scene when not firing on all cylinders. So we ended up hitting jj Brewsky’s and Outlaws Grill & Saloon in Camarillo (had a short stop at the Lamplighter in-between for some foosball and pinball, but didn’t stay long – not enough “scenery”…).

There weren’t too many women out last night (neither kittens nor cougars) but, seeing as it was a Tuesday, that was kind of expected. Probably a good thing in hind-sight – my karaoke recitals of Pink Floyd’s Time and Metallica’s (well, it’s actually Queen’s; but the version I butchered last night was Metallica’s) Stone Cold Crazy may have actually lowered my already damn near non-existent chance at ever getting any action. I did, however, have the balls to get up on stage (in front of quite a few strangers) and make a spectacle of myself – that’s got to be worth something, right? Chris opted out…

Hence the satirical “superstar” remark at the beginning of this post. A complete stranger (just some dude) complimented me on my performance of Time and Chris was nice enough to say that I did well; but I “know” the truth – although I do appreciate the kindness. There’s no better way to prolong a hysterical drunken display than to praise it and I’m positive that what I did last night was little more than a hysterical drunken display…

Exciting, huh? Just one more karaoke story (nothing new there – who hasn’t done that…?). I guess it exemplifies the boredom that my life has become of late – although boredom ain’t so bad – sure beats the hell out of many other possible scenarios… I guess this means that I’m finally coming to terms with my latest “living away from home” situation. Things are currently proceeding smoothly enough that I can afford to get bored. I wonder how long this’ll last…?

I’m thinking “not very” from the way the Pussy Wagon (oh yeah, I finally decided on a name for the Corolla…) started this morning. I was quickly reminded of the Thanksgiving Day disaster when I turned the ignition only to hear the engine “attempt” to start – several times... After hopping out, opening the hood and pretending that I might be able to do something useful (disconnecting and re-connecting a few wires here and there…) she finally decided to start with a coughing, whining sound approximating the lungs of a life-long, multiple-pack-a-day smoker. I was able to get to work this morning; however the difficulty that this vehicle often displays whilst shifting through the lower gears appears to be getting worse and I’m a bit worried about my ability to return home this evening. Something tells me that little more than the 161,000+ miles already achieved will soon need to be engraved into this classic Toyota’s headstone – “She retires from service leaving behind fond memories of adventure and one rather pissed and somewhat screwed dude … rest in peace, Pussy Wagon…” I do so hope that I’m mistaken here…

And the worst part about all this is that Chris – my highest probability for a ride home should the Pussy Wagon not start – took off to spend Christmas with his family today. He won’t be returning until early January. I’m actually scheduled to be flying out of LAX in a few days to spend Christmas back in Colorado myself – assuming I can get to the airport… If the Pussy Wagon does start (and continues to run for the next few days…) I’m going to be getting a little preview of what life will be like after poor Chris ships out to Afghanistan. You see, things are now a bit different than I reported earlier. Chris has decided to keep his house. Not only that but he is going to let me continue living there whilst he is away on duty. This means that I should now have a place to stay for the entire duration of my job out here – although this length of time is still unknown…

My initial contract (the one that started on October 15th and was scheduled to go for three months or 520 hours – whichever came last) should be finishing sometime in mid-January. I say “should” here because the whole “whichever comes last” aspect of the contract throws a bit of a monkey-wrench into the figuring. Add to that the time of year as well as the fact that I do not get paid anything for hours not worked (and this includes any time that this office is closed for any holiday vacations) then it quickly becomes apparent that the 520 hours will be “coming last”. It is now looking like I’m going to have approximately 137 hours left when I return from the Christmas break on the 2nd of January. That’s actually about three and a half weeks (assuming little to no overtime) which works out pretty well with my initially scheduled flight to return home of February 1st. So my guess at a return date was pretty good – except…

The contract has been extended. They’ve added another “3 month / 520 hour” (whichever comes last) term to my job. I guess I need to purchase another round-trip flight to head back out – perhaps on the 3rd or 4th of February. The flight home seems a bit silly now; however the final tournament for the Denver Poker Tour (the tournament that I won four certificates to play in) is scheduled to run on the 1st of February. If all goes well, I’ll be flying home on the 1st, participating in the tournament and then flying back out to California a few days later.

Unfortunately the DPT is the DPT. I just went to their website to check on the current status of this tournament and was a bit shocked (okay, I wasn’t the least bit shocked; but I’ll say that for its pure sarcastic nature…) to see that all mention of this tournament has been removed. Oh well, screw it… I’ll jump off that bridge when I come to it, I guess…

Once again, I’m rambling. I doubt that anybody’s read this far although I must give props to those that have. I’m going to head out now and see if the Pussy Wagon’s going to start. Wish me luck, I guess…

bis später,

Coriolis

What's the point?

Did ya ever have one of those lives? You know … one of those lives where, no matter what you do to change things, the pointlessness of it keeps slapping you in the face? As much as I hate to admit it, that’s pretty much the definition of my life – absolutely pointless… It’s actually rather funny (not so much funny, “ ha ha,” as funny, “interesting…”) in a way. I mean I’m trying – oh my god how I’m trying – to find some point to my existence but all I seem to be able to find is more and more pointlessness.

Now don’t get me wrong here … it’s not like I’m giving up all hope or anything. I’m just curious as to when the hell it’s going to be “my” time? Or perhaps I’m mistaken in thinking that others in this world have somehow discovered reasons for their existence. Is it possible that all of us are walking around feeling as useless as me? I doubt that… It seems to me that most people have something (a family, a job, friends, a bloated sense of self importance, etc…) that keeps them chugging along. What, exactly, is it that keeps me going? Is it the challenge of making the best out of the endless bad circumstances that I, myself, seem to be getting in to? No – there’s no fun in that … take my word for it… What is the “light at the end of the tunnel” that I am trying to get to? Is there even an end to this tunnel…?

Let me back up a bit and explain how I got to contemplating my existence. I’m not going to reiterate everything from my past (unless you are new to reading this blog, you already know that most of that was covered on here about a year ago…) however I feel that I need to update you a bit on my present. Here’s a brief (well, how “brief” it will end up being is currently unknown … I’ve been known to ramble at times…) synopsis of my California trip…

I came to California in mid October for money – nothing else, just money. You see, if you’re going to live in a capitalistic society, you need to be making capital. Unfortunately for me, I have been unable to find work in Colorado for the last couple of years and have therefore been forced to take contract jobs abroad in order to earn enough money to support my extravagant lifestyle. And by “extravagant lifestyle” I’m referring to plain old survival… I’ve acquired a few “things” in my life thus far (a house, a few cars, a few computer systems, home theater equipment, etc…) and I’m in the standard position of supporting these purchases now. This, of course, makes it necessary for me to make money and my latest quest for this needed money has landed me in California – not by choice, mind you, but by pure need…

The job I landed is in Thousand Oaks. I therefore found my initial housing at a furnished apartment in Thousand Oaks. My idea was to pull this contract job off “European Style” and try to accomplish what I did in Germany – no car … transportation by foot (and possibly public transport) alone. I figured I’d save some money and hassle by not needing to rent a car and get some good exercise as well. My plan lasted about a week and a half. Survival in southern California is far different than Europe – a car is mandatory. I ended up purchasing a rather run-down 1990 Toyota Corolla from some guy on craigslist for $750…

So I bought the car which made my next move finding more reasonable housing. The furnished apartment that I was in was not cheap. In fact the phrase that best describes it would be “outrageously overpriced”! They were charging me $89 (I actually talked them down from the $110 they wanted to charge) a day!! This, of course, comes out to about $2700 a month!!! Now, for a guy that is out here for nothing more than the money, paying $2700 a month for lodging is not going to work. That cuts into my profits enough to make this trip damn near pointless. Once I bought the car and was able to find housing a bit further from the office, I began my search for more reasonable accommodations. I headed back to craigslist to see who was looking for a roommate…

That’s the great thing about craigslist – you can find anything on it, and I do mean anything. For this task, I was looking for reasonably priced temporary housing in Ventura County and quite a few prospects were available. There were listings for furnished and unfurnished apartments, condos, town houses and guest houses; however I quickly realized that finding a place of my own wasn’t going to be cheap so I chose to look for shared housing instead. I responded to many postings where people were looking to rent a room with mixed results. I am, after all, a male that smokes and you’re far better off being a female non-smoker if you’re planning on moving in with others. I had a close call with one lady in the city of Ventura but missed out on that when she cancelled our initial meeting a mere few hours before I headed up there – I guess she decided against having a guy move in at the last minute. There was also a room in Moorpark (another female looking to rent out a spare bedroom) that fell through at the last minute – she decided to rent it out to a non-smoking female instead… It wasn’t looking good for me. Luckily, I was able to find a guy living on the CSUCI campus that didn’t let the fact that I am a male that smokes sour the deal. I moved out of the overpriced apartment and onto the CSUCI campus last Friday…

So I’ve found myself temporary housing that will be saving me a couple grand per month. This is good. It goes a long way in helping me out with why I’m here – the money – and the dude I moved in with seems to be cool enough. Of course I haven’t actually “lived” with him yet as he was gone for the entire weekend. I basically spent the weekend in his house by myself which, I must admit, felt a bit strange… It did, however, give me an opportunity to explore my new surroundings alone and pretty much got me to questioning my life a bit…

You see, I am now living on the CSUCI (as some call, the “C-Sucky”) campus about a mile and a half outside of Camarillo, CA. It’s about a 20 minute drive from here to my job in Thousand Oaks. Unfortunately that’s pretty much the only good thing I can say about my new location. CSUCI (California State University Channel Islands) is a rather new campus – about 5 years old from what I’ve been able to gather. Before that, it used to be the Camarillo State Hospital – the home for some of California’s most mentally insane. From 1936 until 1997 – when the hospital’s doors were closed for good – this place was home to thousands and thousands of alcoholics, pedophiles, and people with mental illness and retardation. Apparently the place is said to be haunted and the back entrance to the campus seems to be quite the magnet for unexplained phenomena as it has hosted numerous unexplained car accidents – one that apparently claimed the life of one individual whose autopsy showed an otherwise healthy woman who just happened to suffer a freak brain embolism.

So that’s where I’m living now and the “haunted” aspect isn’t even the worst part about it. This campus and the nearest city (Camarillo) are best described as “dead”. I moved in on a Friday evening and decided to scope the place out a bit. Nothing was happening on the actual campus. I think I noticed a total of something like five students walking around but there appears to be absolutely no place to “hang out” on the campus. And all this time I thought Wayne State was bad … I’d take it over CSUCI any day of the week now… Well, the lack of anything happening on campus lead me to drive into Camarillo to see what was happening there. I ended up stopping at this sport’s bar for a beer however didn’t stay long. There was a decent live band; however the 5 to 1 ratio of guys to gals didn’t really make the place all that inviting to me. I actually ended up heading back over to the TGI Friday’s in Thousand Oaks. At least I kind of “know” a few of the bartenders there…

This brings me to the “social” aspects of my California life – or, more to the point, the lack there of… You see when I was living in Thousand Oaks the social events were a bit of a roller coaster ride. I came out here hoping to experiment a bit with breaking out of my shell – I’ve never been a very socially proficient dude and it’s always been a problem that I’ve been hoping to solve – and I think I was able to make a little progress. I think… Of course I suppose when looking at the events on more of the macro scale, no progress was actually made. I got a fake email address from one girl, crashed a costume party in Santa Monica with these guys I met, got an actual number from this really cute 21-year old who has since apparently decided that I was no longer worth communicating with and became pretty much a regular at the TGI Friday’s in Thousand Oaks. There is more to most of those stories, but that pretty much sums up the big picture. Bottom line is that I’m living out here as a friendless dude that hangs out at the TGI Friday’s bar quite a bit and getting to that outcome didn’t require any progress.

So … I’ve been wondering just exactly what all this is about… What am I trying to do? Where am I trying to get? Anywhere…? I mean what the heck is the purpose of all this? It’s not like I’m out here panning for more golden life stories to astound others with … nobody’s interested in hearing them anyway… No … I’m just, as always, alone on yet another journey. Heck, if I’m lucky, I’ll even be able to make enough money to pay my taxes…

bis später,

Coriolis