Again...but we just did that.

Almost comical, but it hurts(Yes really). And although they say it gets a bit easier each time, this time is harder because I know it's final, I can't allow it to happen again, I can't keep getting hurt. It's just such a yo-yo, over and over; and with the philosophical. To what end, mental exercise? We can't even get through a month anymore, how can we philosophize about things that aren't even on the horizon. This time has really hurt me, I feel like such a failure. I don't know how good I have to be, but it's never enough, I don't feel it will ever be enough.

Lost.

Ultimately I feel rather lost. I could apply this to just about every part of my life at this point in time, but the most immediate are work, relationships and to a general degree, the day to day. As far as the day to day is concerned I just don't feel like there is anything for me, anything that I really enjoy or get my needs met in. I really can't even imagine what my needs might be, so thats probably part of the problem, but I can tell what my needs aren't(I think). I know I enjoy snowboarding, I can't believe how much I enjoy it and how much I missed it so many years, but I want to do more than that, and there is only a limited amount of time unless I fly to the alps or something. I suppose the rest of the day to day I would enjoy, just don't exist for me here(where I live). This isn't a large metro with museums and boutiques and etc etc, just things that are part of the whole cultural experience of living. Where I live, I would describe at pretty sterile in terms of culture.

Work is my biggest rub at the moment because its pretty bleak and I don't really see any light at the end of the tunnel. Honestly my current position has made me seriously doubt my choice in careers(did I really choose it?) and consider some radically different avenues(Thanks Lo). I know that part of the problem is simply scheduling. It began with school killing my social and personal life, and now work. I'm pretty tired of the current situation, but its kind of a trap for me. What I do is ridiculously easy and not at all stimulating, and in the same breath it is utterly depressing and I have difficulty motivating myself to do anything about it. This, unfortunately, spills into the rest of my life, causing hardship in my social life and killing me on a personal level. My dissatisfaction makes me a downer, and who wants to be around a downer? Not me! With this dissatisfaction from work and me considering other options, it leads me to feel lost about my career choice in a general sort of way, or at least, out of place.

I often find myself thinking hard about other career options and certainly they all have their pluses and minuses, but which ones can I be the success, the contributer, and respectable at that will ultimately give me the satisfaction at the end of the day that I crave. Also, a day job that rarely comes home with me, that's flexible and can allow me to not feel held hostage, but feel like I'm the right person for the job would be nice.

Sigh...., relationships. This is probably the saddest part for me because it's so convoluted, my work schedule kills my social life, and I strive to be a good person and yet I still fail to maintain a successful relationship. I know part of my failures stem from choosing to engage in relationships that I either do not want to succeed in or that I know cannot succeed. Case in point; choosing to have a relationship with a person I knew was moving away, so I had a convienient excuse. Yes, at the time it seemed like a doable thing, I even thought maybe, but ultimately I submitted and allowed the move to be the excuse. No, I didn't want to hurt anyone, but I thought, if I'm clearly seeing this move as a roadblock to our relationship, then they must be also(they weren't, shame on me). Case 2; choosing to have a relationship that I know cannot succeed simply because a large part of me knew that she truly wasn't able or willing to do or engage in the kinds of things that help relationships work. I was so aware of this that I have been quoted as saying, to my mother(of all people), "Don't get attached, it won't last"(shame on me). Well, sometimes you write things down and they come true and sometimes you say things and they come true, so, no it didn't last, I don't believe that statement caused it, but it didn't help the case. But, other than that statement, I was a really good boyfriend, I did things in a relationship(affection-wise) that I'd never have been caught dead doing in years past. I put a lot of effort into meeting the stereotype of a good boyfriend and just tried to be good because I wanted to, and still it failed(like I knew it would). So, ultimately I'm feeling pretty lost in that regard also; I don't know what I should do to do it right, and I don't know where I'm going to meet anyone I'd even care to be good to, especially with my crummy work schedule.

Then, of course, is the whole thing of what do I want in a relationship? I know I can't really answer that directly, I know a lot of what I don't want, and a few of the things I do want. But, I swear it seems like everyone I meet either doesn't know what they want, already has it, just isn't what I want, or wants it 5 minutes ago... And here in this place it's just so desolate of people who might remotely share my agenda in a relationship, or at least be willing to give it a faithful try, that I feel I don't have any options.

Snowboard ish.

(portions of this post are copied from emails, if you were the recipient of one of those emails, I hope it doesn't bore you.)

Wednesday I went skiing with my sister and some of her friends. It was a bit nervous working to actually getting to go skiing. First I think everyone was late. Next my sister got a flat in the parking lot of a grocery store, then as we were leaving, we drove across an overpass and we could see the interstate was backed up for a couple miles. Wisely, we chose to drive through town a bit to the next freeway on ramp and had no problems from there. The weather wasn't exactly looking good though. It had been really warm the day before and we were expecting the snow to be really icy as it had thawed and refrozen. So, on the way up to the mountain we actually broke through and got above the clouds and fog, so it was actually sunny on the mountain, and the snow was pretty soft. It was almost like spring skiing. The day went pretty well, and overall was very good. everyone was pretty good skiers so we went on a lot of technical stuff and trees, so it was a bit more work for me on a board, but still good. We ended the day with a hike up to a peak without a chairlift up it and had a nice ride down some fairly untracked snow. It was nice.

On the drive back it was VERY foggy and we pretty much had to drive by the paint on the road. It wasn't to bad, but there were a few spots that the fog was so thick I don't even think we had 10 ft of visibility. My sister and I got to talking, during the drive, about a ski trip she is doing in March that is back country. It turns out one of the group has dropped out, so there is a spot for me!!! I'm stoked, but It's troublsome cause its a backcountry experience which is really rare and a great opportunity, but in this case it's a tellemarking trip. Me being a boarder just means I need to firgure out a way I can telli through the backcountry and then board down this gorgeous untouched snow. There are options to just telli and haul my board, but then I'd constanly have a huge mast on my back; I could snow-shoe(I'm leaning toward this) but I'm concerned about how well I could keep up with the group which will be on telli; there are split snowboards that split to skis for telli then you have to put it back together for boarding, but then again I'm worried about the time it takes to put together and take it apart, also this is an expensive option, but maybe I could rent; finally is a collapsable ski but that is super rare, expensive, but then agian is possibly rentable, but first looks are bleak. Hopefully I can work something out on this, soon.

As you may or may not be aware I've been picking up a lot of nice newish snowboard crap off ebay. So first thing I ordered was new (DUB)boots . I got them, they are super nice, but don't fit my old bindings (I wanted new ones anyway, right!?!?). Then I started looking on the eBay for bindings and came across some ridiculously cheap, but very nice (SP)bindings. I won them and then I started to get nervous about the boot to binding fit aspect. The new boots I had gotten are quite a bit different from my older boots, much more bulky mostly; so I was thinking "crap if these boots don't fit the new bindings, I got a super deal on something I'm not going to be able to use." So the box arrived today and I anxiously unwrapped the bindings and although a little tight the new boots fit! That was a relief. Then, as I investigated the little puppies I noticed, pretty obvious actually, how much more advanced they are than my old bindings. I'm thoroughly impressed with the amount of different adjustments I'm able to make on the new bindings, especially when compared with the limited amount of adjustments that the old bindings accommodated. This is really great since I've been playing with my stance a bit, tweaking it to get a good control and well balanced trick stance. Hopefully I can get something dialed in nicely. Especially since I've basically never adjusted the bindings on my board since day one.

My digital strife...ahem, I mean life

It's been a goal of mine for the past year or so to integrate as much of my lifestyle/possessions into digital format and storage. A person needs to understand that I am a bit of a collector, I come by it honestly, and so I've got a few rather large collections. But really what I want to do is get as much of my stuff, that can be digitized(which I think is most), into a digital format and stored in a portable device(read: computer). My collections include my music(probably the largest collection), my photos(probably the most important/tedious to me), and then a variety of art and paperwork that I value or just don't want to keep the paper floating about.

I've been pretty diligent about keeping up with the whole paper thing, I mean, that is kind of a no-brainer; just saving everything I type(those that are important to me) and things like school papers(now old), and things like receipts and statements. Most of the Statement stuff is easy as I don't think there is a company now which doesn't offer the option to do everything online, which necessitates digital information rather than paper. The receipts have been a bit of a pain tho, it's amazing how much paper people use, and there is no standardization in the world of receipts. It's been super helpful to have all the receipts digital in one place, bookkeeping has benefited.

I've really hit a milestone with the music portion of this whole project; I recently got every last one of my CD's into iTunes at 320kbps, 48Hz. All nicely organized, with covers(whether automatic or made) with as much meta information as possible. This has necessitated the purchase of a 300GB hard-drive, dedicated to music. Thankfully that isn't full, but then again, that isn't all my music. I've got a few tapes that I do want ripped, and a few I've already done, so that is a bit of a time consuming process, and of course my huge record collection is a bear in itself. I've hoped to cut that portion down now that I can accurately cross reference my collection with my iTunes so that should prevent me from having go through the process of getting each record on iTunes. Still, that is going to be a long project, which I work on off and on. Thank you to all the record labels that have gone to iTunes or one of the other digital download sites; Red Light, Moving Shadow, Renegade Hardware, Cause 4 Concern, A Touch Of Class, Breastfed, etc etc.

Now I'm moving onto the photo portion of the project, which I've offered to incorporate with some of my families photos in exchange for some of the hardware. My father has offered to finance a nice flatbed scanner to do the project with, and I'm searching for a Minolta Dimage Scan II Elite 5400 film scanner so I can scan directly from the tons of negative I have. This I know is going to take a lot of time, but I really feel it's important to me to do all this so I don't have so many things, that are difficult to move, to move. Anyhow, the tedium continues, now how can I make it fun, as if.