The Death card signals that one major phase in your life is ending, and a new one is going to start. You just need to close one door, so the new one will open. The past needs to be placed behind you, so you can focus your energy on what is ahead of you.
My dog died and I broke up with Maria
Theo was a good dog. Although he was not my first dog, he spent much of the most formative years of my life with me. He accompanied me on so many adventures, sat by my side during some of the hardest moments, and was always put a smile on my face. He will always hold a special place in my heart.
My parents and I got together the night he had to be put down and we buried him the next day. There wasn't a dry eye and even typing it out now I feel the water well up behind mine. It was all so sudden, he was acting like always had, until he stopped eating for a few days, and then on the last day vomited up blood and we knew something was serious. It turns out he had a massive tumor on his spleen. Even if it was operated on, it would only give him a few more weeks at most. He was about twelve years old, and we did our best to give him the best life we could. I just wish I had the chance to say goodbye to him.
When Maria's friend was in town, then next weekend, we did a tarot reading. Tarot readings have always rung true for me. I try not to do a reading unless I have something major on my mind, not liking to play with powers I don't understand unless I have a very good reason. In my spread I got the card of death, a card which implies there is a major change will occur. I do not remember the other cards I got, but I remember one including the phrase "buyer's remorse". Maria and I had been broken up for one night the previous week, I was so sure that that was finally going to be the end, but she promised she would change and we would work through everything. I took her back and it felt like things were going to be ok, but in the back of my mind there was a voice that said I was making a mistake. When I read the two cards I knew exactly what it was telling me: Maria and I's relationship was as good as dead.
Still, I held out hope. Maria is a great girl, and I don't want to drag her (pseudonymous) name through the mud, but there were problems with us. I was scared to make her mad, and she was quick to anger. I held back so much instead of being honest because it felt like it was the right thing to do for her. I should have learned that lesson with my first relationship, but I guess not, as it came to the same fate. As much as I could go on and dissect everything, I just want to focus on the future.
I do feel like there's something I've found again inside me, that sort of spark of inspiration. I feel more motivated to do things, to make plans, to start back up on projects. I finally the made the panel for my window manager update at a reasonable refresh rate, instead of once every 0.1 seconds, after who knows how many years. Still there are times where something feels wrong, or reminds me of the past and that bit of pain creeps in. It doesn't help that we've seen each other a few times since it happened. I have told her I need distance, but she ends up convincing me to talk to her, and I feel bad saying no. It feels weird, the paradigm of our relationship has totally changed but we still interact. I wasn't responding for a few days to create some distance. I also got out of town for a couple days.
My parents had rented an AirBNB in Fort Bragg for a weekend. We really liked the town, very homey but had a lot of things to do. I think they'll be moving up their sometime in the next few years unless something at their current house really changes. They've just had so many issues there and I think they want something a bit more coastal, in terms of weather and sensibilities.
I'm stepping into a new chapter
For the past few months I've been driving a 2015 Toyota Pius V
When I took my ill-fated trek to buy land, I took my mom's car. My old Saab 9-5 probably would have made the trip, but it would have easily been $100 more in gas. Plus, frankly, the 9-5 scared me every time I drove it. The now nearly twenty year-old plastic had been slowly breaking off piece by piece, the serpentine belt was due for a change, the front passenger-side tire was slowly leaking air. Every time I got in the thing I wondered if it was going to be the last. So taking the Prius just made me feel a lot safer. During the trip I ended up falling in love with it.
Something about it just clicked after the first hundred miles or so. I used to hate driving it, panged by the poor visibility, slow acceleration, and the general alien feel compared to all the other cars I had driven. It turns out when you properly adjust the seat the visibility issue mostly goes away in the V model. I test drove a traditional hatchback design and the rear-view mirror was as good as useless. The slow acceleration is not present at low speeds, due to the high torque on the electric motors, and it's pretty zippy when you put it into power mode. Once I got used to it, the alien feeling disappeared. I realized it wasn't a traditional car, and I shouldn't think of it as such. It was an efficiency powerhouse and should be treated as such.
Hybrids just make sense. Internal combustion engines are bad at being efficient at low speeds, electric motors are bad at being efficient at high speeds, why not get the best of both worlds and have both and use them when it makes sense. I regularly get 40+ MPG on most trips I take and it only takes ~$35 to fill it up when I do need to refuel.
The real game changer was when I mastered the regenerative braking.
When you "shift" to the B option, you no longer coast, you slowly decelerate and charge the electric battery. This is perfect for going down moderate hills, getting on the off-ramp, or going through moderate to heavy traffic. It feels just like shifting to a lower gear with a traditional gearbox, except for the lack of increased acceleration. Once you get used to it, it becomes second nature to tap down on the shifter whenever it's needed and shift back to the normal drive mode whenever it's not.
Not to mention that these things are bulletproof. You see them going for hundreds of thousands of miles without a lick of maintenance. It's an entirely belt-less system so on the off chance something does go wrong on them, you just have to undo a few bolts and unplug a couple of connectors.
My only gripe is that I wish it was a bit dumber. I don't like it constantly nagging me about leaving the door open if it's in drive, or honking the horn whenever it thinks you locked the key inside it, even though the key is in your pocket and you just used the button on the door instead of the fob. Generally I wish it just had a traditional, twist key ignition instead of a push to start, but it is nice not having to fumble with anything when you get in and out.
It's a hell of a lot nicer than my dad's new Ford Maverick hybrid. That thing feels like a confused, puebescent teenager. It tells you it's a truck but it drives like a horribly lifted SUV, probably because it is sharing a body with a Ford Escape. Every corner feels like you're about to tip over, and it lulls you into thinking it's a lot lighter than it is, which you only realize when you need to come to a stop. Plus all the nannies suck, the pre-collision assist often mistakes slight hills as cars and ignores actual cars that you might hit. I do not care for carplay, but I failed to get their built in bluetooth to actually work so was stuck using it.
I can just imagine my dream car having a slightly beefier electric motor to get up to 25 MPH and then a 1.8 Turbo charged 4-banger for anything above that.And put it in a wagon, the boxier the better
After Working at the store I got a help desk support job at a local community college.
Most of my time there has been pretty confusing. I thought I would be met with some form of training as to how everything was generally structured, but have had to piece that together bit by bit. Expectations are never set out and after the semi-recent buyout of the colllege by a company that's attempting to build an online college platform (and frankly failing), the leadership, or lack their of, is flailing. Most nights I have a set of tasks to accomplish involving running updates or moving staff PCs and furniture around, but then am simultaneously supposed to be monitoring submitted tickets, as well as the various tech support chats in their proprietary learning platform, which is little more than a chat app than anything, and a bad one at that. I have notifications enabled on my phone, which works decently well with the submitted support tickets, but awful on their platform. When I am able to more actively respond to support requests, there's little more that I can do besides notifying someone higher up and pray they actually respond. The worst offender of this is Tom, who is the person I'm told to directly address with issues like these, but then rarely does, or finds issues with whatever attempts I made. Additionally since he's in Texas, he's long been asleep by the time I do send in requests. My main coworker Kai, is friendly but doesn't really like me. He puts on a friendly face, but I see the way he does the same with the students. Little comments here and there lets the mask slip.
The worst thing we have to deal with are these mobile hotspots with students with poor internet. Somehow these things fail at an alarming rate and there's little more we can do than ship out a replacement, which I can't controll. In fact I have no clue who manages them and whenever I bring it to Kai he just gets frustrated. Most of the time after I run through the procedural reboots and checking of updates, they stop responding to my messages and the ticket magically gets dealt with in the morning by Alex. I've only met him a couple of times, but he seems to take this job so seriously to the detrement to his mental well being. I don't want to throw it all on him, but he's the only one that gets things done when it comes to hotspots.
It doesn't help that our students, or at least the ones that send in requests, are frankly severly unskilled. I don't want to be mean, but when they fail to be able to send a coherent message in a support request, it seriously makes me question their ability to succeed to any amount of academic rigor. Some of them do seem to have some ability, but would be much better off at a traditional community college. The way the company is set up seems to be predatory, targeting low income students with the promise of a future career, while maintaining a tuition just below what would be covered by a Pell grant, so that there's little actual cost to the student. And at the end of it all, being only an associates degree, from a no-name, for-profit, online school, I doubt will carry much actual return on investment, something that they could have gotten from a local community college.
I guess I just gotta scroll indeed again and tough it out through it all.
Do you know what grinds my gears? When shows with a large fan-base start their seasons off with a whole episode of "remember these characters"?
I've started watching the show "The Boys", which started its second season with a solid chunk of the first episode just with reminding the audience how the main characters of the show were a tight-nit bunch that bumped heads but at the end of the day would have each other's backs. It certainly got the story started off quickly enough but it was noticeable as someone who is watching it without the gap in time between seasons. With "Stranger Things" season four it felt like the story didn't start until the third episode, which I watched with the gap, and even then it felt unwarranted. Now that seasons of big shows are getting shorter and shorter it is frustrating that anything would be cut in order to stuff in more "memberberries".
It just feels cheap and lazy
I went on a trip this weekend.
Since I was a young boy I wanted to go out, build shelters, and survive off only my own hands. I have a vivid memory of begging my parents to let me camp out overnight in the woods near my school when I was six. As I've grown older it's stuck with me, strengthened by all those years at summer camp, hiking, backpacking, learning valuable skills for being self reliant.
Some time around when I got my first job, I looked up "land" on ebay to find that there were a number of affordable listings, still out of my budget, but only just nearly out of reach. Later on when I was working for my parents, I got to experience the joy of working with my hands and improving land. The eudaimonic rush of sitting down after a hard day of work and seeing all of what I had accomplished.
This summer I've discovered the wonders of reclaimed wood. Being able to take what was once mere trash and repurposing it into something useful once again. Sawing through pallets and scavenging the piles of trash that line the streets for sections of plywood or half-rotted 2x4s fills me with joy and lights that spark of creativity within me. I've built a couple planter boxes and used parts for my new desk, but it has made me ache to build something larger, a structure of some sort.
A few weeks ago on a whim, I looked up "land" once again on ebay and was met with the realization that I was fully capable of affording a small acre plot in a beautiful remote part of north-eastern California. I impulsively bid on one of the numerous auctions and won. Within a few days this distant dream suddenly was tangible.
Yesterday was my first time driving up to finally see it and get started. I packed just about every tool I could possibly need and six deconstructed pallets, along with camping supplies and headed off on my grand journey. The five and a half hour drive took me through the beautiful landscape of northern California, through winding mountain passes, over roaring rivers, past towns whose population size would drop from the triple, to the double, to the single digits. Periodically I'd put on a Marty Robbins' cowboy ballad as I rode into my new west.
Finally I had arrived down the gravel road to the coordinates and bore witness to the beauty of my humble lot that I had dreamed of. A neighbor spotted me from his porch and helped me to find it, as the lot markers had long rusted away or been damaged by the snow. Over the course of our conversation he mentioned how a lot of people had done as I did, only to turn back when they made the realization that they couldn't start anything without the required septic and well systems installed. This sounded odd to me as my reading through of the bylaws made no mention of such a requirement. Once he returned to his home I pulled up the property owners association website once again and realized that I had made a mistake. The "Unit 3" marker was not the same as "Lot 3" label, and that lot 3 was part of the subdivided unit 3 of the property owners association, which came with a long list of required permits and rules I would be subject to in order to build anything as simple as a fence. As I read each line, my plans were smashed one by one through my head. I found myself once again surrounded by the system I had traveled so far in order to escape.
I cried in my car for a while, before accepting my fate and deciding to make the most of what I could with the night. I sat around the small fire I had built, the tendrils of impermanence tearing deep to my soul. I found myself scrolling through listings once again, waiting for each page to load over the single bar of signal, that fire within me still smoldering through the bucket of water that was poured upon it.
This was a setback, but not one I can't recover from. I'm able to back out of the deal and will only be out $200, not my most costly mistake. I'll keep looking and saving, but I'm not giving up on this dream, and not wasting my youth to live a slave to a system I so despise.
I will have my dream, and it will be beautiful.
Let me start off with the, unfortunately mandatory, throat clearing.
I am not nor have I ever been a fan of Donald Trump. I am not conservative nor a member of any Republican organizations. I got my political origins as a left-Democrat, became a hardcore communist through much of my teenage years, and now am now largely politically homeless, with no firm ideology. Though, I am very critical of both parties, I am often more critical of the left, because I want it to be better.
That being said, When I heard the guilty verdict on Donald Trump's first trial, my stomach dropped, and when I saw the celebrations by Liberals, it sank further. This is a clear political prosecution, why else would would they have waited three whole years until the next election for them to hold this trial? Why else would a misdemeanor be escalated to a felony using a roundabout interpretation of the law, counting the same crime as two separate ones? Now the Democrats, and the media outlets loyal to them, revel in their adding the "convicted felon" moniker whenever possible following the conviction. With the divisive times we are living in, Donald Trump could never get a fair jury trial, from either side.
It's evident this did not have a major impact on the popularity of Trump, it's still the case that, as of June 18th Biden and Trump are neck and neck, with Trump leading in key swing states. Trump's constituents have a distrust in the system and this only strengthens their prior opinion. What worries me is what comes next, of which I can only see a few outcomes:
#1, Biden wins
If Biden wins, a major section of the Republican party will say the election was fraudulent or rigged in some manner, as it did with the 2020 election. The flames of deep political divisiveness will be stoked yet again and the can of discontent will be kicked down the road, to hopefully another Trump campaign in 2028. I say hopefully because I worry of what figure will fill the void of Trump's exit from politics. While there are moderate conservatives who are a part of the Trump movement, a major faction of the MAGA movement is what was referred to until recently as the alt-right, who have already adopted a by-any-means-necessary mindset. It wouldn't take much for another charismatic leader to rise, one that may not be as moderate as Trump. At the end of the day Trump's first term didn't differ much from the conservative status quo, with the exception of the lack of starting any new wars. A new representative of this ever-growing political cleavage could lean into the xenophobia, as did Trump in 2016. This likely would spark heightened targeting of "domestic terrorism", the needs of Americans will continue to not be met, tensions will build, and the stop-watch towards the beginning of the second American civil war will creep ever-closer.
#2, Trump wins and is back for blood.
Trump never prosecuted Clinton, as he had promised in his campaign, which is probably a good thing. This time however, he has precedent of prosecuting political rivals on his side, he too will be able to dig up dirt on either Biden or other DNC operatives, and prosecute them. This will throw gas on the flames, the wolf-calling of the Democrats will cause this to fall on deaf ears, and when it is listened to, people will point to Trumps trial. Politics will cease to hold up the veil of trying to represent people, merely trying to beat out the opposition through law-fare, things will continue to get worse, people will be jailed and pardoned from one administration to the next, particular political allegiances will be de-facto criminalized, and we will live in a increasingly authoritarian society.
#3, Trump wins, and does the same thing he did in his first term.
He will continue to make outlandish statements, he might make a few executive orders that makes life harder in America for a handful of marginalized identities, but nothing will fundamentally change. The bad actors that stick around from administration to administration will continue to push the agenda of the wealthy elite. We will fund coups overseas, further gut the middle class, push opiates onto the poor, and allow for controlled opposition. People will continue in their radicalization or apathy until there is a revolution, either political or bloody.
There are no good outcomes.
The weaponization of the courts will further put into question the justice of our legal system. "Is the conviction fair, or was it because of the political leanings of the judge?" will become a question that will continue to be raised again and again. While I am not one to aggrandize the perfection of the American system of government, separating the judicial branch was done for a reason. Elections ought to be decided by the populace, not by lawsuits and electioneering.
And before anyone says "But Hunter Biden was also found guilty"
This was also a political plot, being able to point to Hunter's conviction does nothing but serve as a justification of Trumps. Let's not forget that gate io app I'll be surprised if Hunter ever sees more than a few days behind bars in a cushy jail, if he even gets that.
I am deeply worried for the future of this country and the conviction of Donald Trump sets a sickening precedent of political prosecution.
I've tried just about every alternative browser under the sun
The options for viable web-browsers seems to shrink more and more every year, that is if you don't count chromium spin-offs. Time after time I find myself itching for something a bit more lean, something with a different vision for how one should interact with the web. However, each time I would find myself making my way back to firefox, because nothing rivaled it's mix of speed and feature-set, occasionally running chromium for those one-off problematic sites.
I've come to accept that I am going to have to run something relatively mainstream for my primary web-browser, but have found a gap that these alternatives can occupy: surfing small websites. I'm subscribed to indieseek.xyz's new listing feed and normally start from there in my rss feed reader. Then I have it set to open up pages in one of these alternative browsers, and surf away from there, being linked from page to page all over the independent web. Before I would use qutebrowser, but have found that I'm too trained to traditional, single-modal web-browsers and would forget to enter insert mode whenever typing in a text field. Though their type-to-follow link feature is really cool and wish other browsers had it. I've found that badwolf has been perfect for my use-case.
Saying it is lightweight is putting it too mildly, it doesn't even have search by default, but since I merely follow links, that isn't a feature I need. It has javascript disabled by default, which hasn't been an issue for small sites, and if it ever does, there is an easy toggle-button right at the top. In fact it's made the occasional link to the mainstream web quite nice, due to ads not being able to load. Also due to its small feature-set it loads nearly instantly, even on my moto g4 play running postmarket OS. It's no replacement for a full-featured browser, but it's the perfect blog reader.
Check it out
Last weekend me and my father went morel hunting!
It being our first time we went with a group, led by a charismatic 30-something wielding a wooden staff with a carved morel at the top. We all met up at a trailhead in the Sly Park area, and then continued up the road to one of the spots our fearless leader had picked out.
He told us to look for a few things
- Look in areas ~1000 ft under the snow melt line
- Look in areas that had some recent burn, within the past few years
- Look under conifers, except cedars
- Look around saplings that are less than 2 ft tall
- Look in places with a layer of old needles covering the ground
- Look in places with damp soil
- Look for other fungi growing in the area, specifically violet cups because they like similar areas
When we arrived at our first location, he pointed out a few areas of interest, and then had us scatter and begin looking. It took about 20 minutes until they found the first one, and everyone was called up to see it. The leader was sure to stand next to it, but not point directly to it, in order for us to see how difficult it is to spot them. Sure enough it was just a little bump in the ground that took a few seconds to find, even when you were staring right at it. We searched for another 45 minutes in the area and were on our way back to the cars when someone in the group found another couple, though they were the only ones.
We took a little break for lunch, which I regretfully didn't bring, but it gave the leader a chance to show off the fungi to look out for.
This is the violet cup that he said often grow right next to morels.
I forget the name he called this one, but he said they are an indicator that you are in the right general area, but to look under a different tree.
Then we set off for our second location. Almost immediately someone found a small grouping as we made our way down the steep hillside. For the first hour or so me and my father didn't find anything, just zig-zagging back and forth. This area was a lot more in line with what he described than the first. As we made our way down we could hear little excited yelps of "Found one", which kept us motivated. Eventually we came across a little section that looked ripe and away from the other spots the rest of the group had already trodden through. I saw a little bundle of young firs, and just had a strong feeling deep in my gut I'd find something there. Sure enough as I pushed away a small branch I looked down and right there before me was my first find of the day.
It was a small grouping of two, but it threw gas on the fire that was our hunt. We combed through the area, finding one every five minutes or so. Eventually we reached the end of the little section of woods and decided we were happy with our little haul of five beautiful morels. We made the trek back up the hill, back through the little patch hoping we missed one, though to no avail. We were both pretty tired and hungry, and decided to call it a day, though the rest of the group headed to another final location.
This was really a wonderful experience and I'm excited to do it more often, though it is almost the end of the season this year. I love being outdoors, but having a purpose behind it makes it all the better. I remember in a talk or podcast episode, the bigfooter Cliff Barackman saying something along the lines of, "Even if you don't find anything, bigfooting gives you a purpose for being outside". While morels are a lot easier to find than elusive apes, it's a similar rush, an eagerness to explore with purpose.
I can't wait to go out again!
To brown and to yellow they fade
And then they have to die
Trapped within the circle time parade
Of changes
- Changes, Phil Ochs
I recently left my job at the hardware store.
It was a bittersweet ending. It felt like that store was part of who I was, the place I found my true self, the place where so many of my happiest memories of the past year and a half had orbited around. I knew it was never going to be a place I worked forever, but I wished it ended on a happier note.
About a month before I left, the resident jackass of the store, Chuck, blew up at Maria for not doing the closing chores, which she had completed. She won't let people walk all over her, a trait which I love about her, and she made sure to escalate the incident to the store manager, Mike. At first things were looking hopeful, this was far from the first time Chuck overstepped while power-tripping, and rumor around the store was that he was going to be demoted. Finally some justice was to be had, after one of his blow-ups being no small part in Roomie's departure from the store, and countless other times he had hurt my friends. Though, a week later when it was evident he was just getting another slap on the wrist and nothing would be done, my faith in the store died. Maria put in her resignation that day, and mine came in a couple weeks later once I had found another job. Those last few days were tortuous, my body ached with malice, the overwhelming urge to knock over every shelf was hard to hold back. I had sacrificed so many weekends, so many holidays, so many hours, because somewhere inside I though it would in some way pay off, that by putting in my all, it would pay off in some way. Sure, I'd see it in the customers' faces when I'd go above and beyond trying to find a solution to their problem, even getting pretty banged up a number of times making brackets for people. In the end it turned out not to really reward me, but in a way that lesson is it's own reward.
No longer working together has only positively impacted Maria and I's relationship. We were somewhat worried we would struggle to find the time to be together, no longer having a guaranteed sixteen and a half hours together every week with our shifts together, but it has not been an issue. The time we do spend together now is more rewarding, not having to put on a professional face, getting to enjoy our time with outings and little activities instead of unpacking the daily drama in the parking lot. I feel closer to her than ever before, and it grows every day. Her coming into my life is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. I met her mother for the first time this weekend and it felt good, being a part of her family, taking that next step.
The first job I got accepted for, which led to me quitting the store, was short lived. I was a sales representative for Intel, which I was initially excited about, being able to work somewhat in the computer industry. However after the first day, I realized it was not a good fit for me. I did not have any real direction, just to push Intel products and Norton anti-virus. Intel makes good processors, but when I was standing in the store and looking at the offerings by AMD, I realized I was going to have to push inferior products, which did not sit well with me. I sent in my letter of resignation, and decided to just do Doordash until I found something else.
Fortunately I never ended up having to Doordash, quickly finding an IT position at a local community college which was urgently hiring. Not only did it pay better than both the store and the sales rep position, it had better hours and was truly in the computing field. My first day was a couple weeks ago and it's starting to feel normal to me. I'm still getting the hang of all their systems, which are fairly disorganized between online and local students, but it's making more sense. Getting used to working with Windows again is frustrating, but a necessary evil, until Linux takes over the desktop.
I find myself with a lot of free time during my shift, and with it being in the evening, my days are pretty much completely open. With school being out until August, I have a lot of opportunities to get personal projects done. I don't find myself exhausted at the end of each day, I feel excited for the next one that awaits.
I've been blessed by change.
I just finished my last final of the semester!
This was an enjoyable one, with so many changes and formative moments of my life occurring in the background of it. I admittedly have fallen out of regularly writing on this blog, but I hope to change that and update my massive fan base of the edge-of-seat exciting moments of my deeply fascinating life. Throughout all this excitement I have thought about all the things I've wanted to do, if I only had the free time. Well now with the next three months being pretty much completely open, here they are:
Exercise regularly
Between work, school, and spending time with Maria, my fitness has fallen to the wayside. I'm hoping to get back into working out and doing more physical activities again. Maria wants to as well and I think it will be fun to share that with her. She makes me feel so confident which I think will take away a lot of the stress that exercising with others has in the past.
Work on Feedie++
Feedie++ is a rewrite of my original terminal feed reading app, Feedie, but in C++ instead of Python. I've learned a lot since I originally wrote Feedie, and want to build a more robust and performant program. I started the rewrite at the beginning of the year, but as coursework became more demanding, I haven't been working on it as much.
Build a new desk
My current desk is a bit larger than I really need and I think it would be a fun project to try. I haven't made any sort of furniture before but I think It will be a fun challenge.
Cook more meals
I've been eating home-cooked meals a bit more recently than I had been before, but I hope to do that even more. It really is so much better tasting and saves money.
Finish my mini-laptop
For the past eight years, one of my background projects I've worked on has been a hand-held mini laptop. I got my first semi-working design over spring break, but it was a bit to fragile to actually use and I never got wifi fully working on it. I think one more iteration will do the trick, but we will see.
Replace the motor mount on my car
It gets a bit too shaky for my liking above 90 MPH and you have to be very light on the accelerator when going up a gear. I got the part, but in all of Saab's great wisdom, it's pretty hard to access so I've been putting it off.
Continue working on my garden
Last summer after July, my garden sorta fell to the wayside, I'm hoping that doesn't happen again.
Go on a trip with Maria
We have been talking about doing so many things this summer, but I really want to go on a camping trip or something like that with her. Maybe to Oregon.
Write more
I've started so many posts only to get distracted and lose my train of thought. I really miss writing and want to get back in the swing of it. This is made easier with my new job too, since some nights there really isn't much to do.
Much Much More
I could keep going on and on about things I want to do, I don't want to waste away in my room all day, I want to live and be busy with things that fill me with joy.
I want this to be a summer to remember
Being a tech enthusiast, gaming is almost always a central part of coverage on new products
This makes it kinda annoying following a tech release, because almost half of the video will be showing how well it performs in the new hot game, talking about how much more FPS you will get, when none of this is at all applicable to me. Sure, games can be a great benchmark for performance and using them as such is a good way of comparing one piece of hardware to the other, but it seems like half of the actual coverage is just a screen recording and the host going "WOW WOULD YOU LOOK HOW FAST THIS GAME IS PLAYING". Now some of this certainly is just because I haven't made a concerted effort to actually find non-gaming tech content, with many of the channels I watch being holdovers from my teenage years, where I did have an interest in games.
I built my first PC for the soul purpose of being able to play games I couldn't on my dad's old Core2 Duo iMac. When I got it running, I was amazed by the sheer quantity of games I was able to play, spending countless hours scrolling through the free section of steam, downloading, and playing, only to delete them and never touch them again. Even then, I wasn't sitting on the edge of my seat for new releases, waiting for leaks about the next big release; it was very passive, just a way to spend my time, since I didn't have many friends to occupy that time. As I got older, games took up less and less of that time, being replaced with more fruitful hobbies.
Studying Computer Science, I find myself feeling like an outsider in my classroom. I hear my peers going on and on about the games they play and finding a form of kinship through them, while I hack away at my config files in the corner. I thought that maybe here I would find people who share my flavor of interest in technology, but I have yet to find one. Even outside of the classroom, trying to talk to males my age often ends up with them mentioning a hot new game like it's commonplace, and I've never heard of it. It makes me think that maybe I should try to get back into it, but I always get left with the same bad taste in my mouth whenever I try.
Games leave me feeling really stressed out. The only thing I could think about while playing is "I could be doing something productive with this time". The main exception to this is social games that I'll occasionally play with my friends, but with that the reason I'm playing is really because it's the only option that allows us to talk while doing something. The other exception to this rule is Minecraft, which I find scratches that same creative itch that working on other hobbies has, though this only lasts for a couple weeks until it too gives me that uneasy feeling that I'm wasting my time.
I struggle to find how I really feel about games. Part of me knows that they don't do anything productive and makes me view them negatively. Another part recognizes that they aren't really a social-ill and are a way for people to connect who otherwise wouldn't have. Not to mention their great entry-point for people to get into technology, like it did for me all those years ago.