I've Gone To A Better Place

No, I haven't died. I got my domain back, RonnMcCarrick.com . And it only took 2 and a half years. Anyway, that's where I'll be from here on out, hope to see you there.

I'm 40 Today

Today is my 40th birthday. This is supposed to be one of the big ones, right?! I mean you can drive when you turn 16. You're an adult at 18, voting, military service, jail, all the good stuff. At 21 you can drink. I guess you're supposed to have grown up when you become 30. So is 40 or 50 over the hill? Guess it depends on the crowd. 65 is retirement. And 100 is, well, you made it to 100. So there's the big ones. How do I feel about 40... mixed.

On one hand, if you assume that I'm not even halfway through my life (and I assume that technology will advance sufficently to allow me to remain alive indeffinately) eighty would seem like a short life anymore. Besides, I figure my retirement age is probably more like 70, and that means that I've got 30 more years of work ahead of me. Or roughly what I've worked so far, plus six more years... I'm not even half done with working. So there's a lot of work left. So if you're asking me if I feel old, the answer is no. If you're asking me if I'm starting to feel the rush to deadline. Yes. It's as if what I do from here on out counts and that everything from before was just practice.

So where am I at in my 40th year of life. Well, the good stuff is that I've got the best job I've ever had and it looks like I have lots of room to grow and continue to get better. My kids are mostly grown (15 & 18) and as such don't need me nearly as much as they once did. I'm with a wonderful woman and happy to be in love. I own a motorcycle and my car will be paid off in a couple months.The bad is that my credit is still shoddy and in need of work, I have no savings or retirement, I'm nearly 20-pounds heavier than I was last year at this time, and I'm on a downward slide when it comes to my motivation and drive... Must be the contentment. All in all, things are going quite well, thank you very much.

So I recognize that I need to work on my motivation, my drive really. I need to take better care of my body and my mind. I need to exercise more, read more, and write more to get where I want to be personally and professionally. I need to socialize more and spend more time with those closest to me. But really, I'm not doing to bad. And the way I see things, they're only going to get better.

It's Another Friday Night In Kentwood

Tonight I went for a 2-hour ride along the Grand River, back through downtown, and to the Honda dealership. Damn, do I want an Accord Coupe something fierce right now. Ah well, the ride was nice and a new car can wait until next summer. Besides, I hardly ever even use the car I have at this point. What with driving the van all day and not going anywhere at night, I maybe drive my car five days out of 14... and most of that is going to see my lady or driving her around.

Wednesday that lady came out and spent the night. She had a job interview on Thursday for something that sounds good... we'll see what happens. So you didn't get a post because I was entertaining... ...I think that's what the kids are calling it these days. And yesterday the time I normally spend writing posts was spent adding posts to the archive. I've finished the 2003 and 2004 posts, but that was easy because apparently I wasn't doing much posting either of those years. 2005 should have more substinance to it.

Tomorrow is my boys granduation party. I got him a card and some cashola, but I'm almost afraid to think what he's going to do with it. This'll be the first time in his life he's had this kind of money and he's not exactly money wise. I'm hoping it'll go toward a car or school, but it'll probably go to video games and fun money. Yikes. Think positive thoughts. I'm going to write a little something to put in the card, but I'm not sure exactly what that'll be just yet.

Today was payday and somehow I had more bills than I thought I had going into this part of the month... hmmm.... well, I've been spending too much money of late anyway. I need to stop eating out everydamnday.

I want to play Temple of Elemental Evil, the PC game, but I'm not sure how well it'll run on my machine. I think it's part of my growing surplus of creative energies. I really need to start writing or drawing or something, otherwise I'm going to end up doing the whole building a rpg wold thing again. Which I do not need to be even thinking about.

Later.

The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for,
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love, for your dreams,
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow,
if you have been opened by life's betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain,
mine or your own, without moving to hide it
or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own.
if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy
fill you to the tips of your fingers
and toes without cautioning us
to be careful, be realistic,
remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty every day,
and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine,
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,“Yes.”

It doesn't interest me to know where you live,
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair,
weary and bruised to the bone,
and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what
or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself,
and if you truly like the company
you keepin the empty moments.

© Oriah Mountain Dreamer, from the book The Invitation published by HarperSanFrancisco, 1999


I don't really get poetry, but I wanted to save this one. So I figured I'd share it here.

A Very Full Day

Today started fast and hard and just kept on rolling right up until I got home. Just one of those busy days. It started with a roof leak/ceiling colapse, followed up quickly by a no AC, back to move wet furiture, water in a basement (coming out of electrical conduit no less), and ended with a page asking when I was going to get back to Kalamazoo to change some light bulbs. I was busy. Probably going to be busy tomorrow as well. What do you do? It's better to be busy than to be bored.

I came home, ate a salad, and sat down to watch 10,000 B.C., which wasn't terrible as long as you don't, you know, think about it.

I found a little bit of writing craft advice for you, here. Basically, it's 10 words to avoid when writing; Really, You, Feel, Think, As, A Lot, Sort Of/Kind Of, Like, Just, and Used To. It'll explain it all if'n you follow that link there.

No deep thoughts or long monologues tonight. I'm tired and I just want to get back to relaxing. I'm going to go read my book, American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I'm liking it. Later.

Entertaining? Perhaps.

I've bee asked to make this entertaining. Apparently my last few posts have not been. For that, I am well and truely sorry. I apologize and will try to do better in the future. Although, in my defense, my life is only so interesting and far less entertaining.

Let's get you caught up. After all, it's been a few days since you heard from me and I know you're wondering what I've been up to.

Wednesday, or was it Tuesday, whatever, who really cares what day it was, Tasha received notice that the 16th would be the last day for her contract house. So she'll be out of work and free to move her ass out to Grand Rapids and into my little slice of heaven on Emerald Lake (apparently that's the name of my pond. No really, it says so on the map they gave me). So I imagine she'll be doing just that sometime around the weekend of the 18th or 25th... not sure which just yet. Anybody wanna help move? No! I didn't think so. Damn.

Thursday night Tasha came out after work and we picked up some pizza and just sorta chilled out on the patio. Did I mention that they added water to my lake? Well, they did. It's still down a foot or so, but you can't see the mud any longer and most of the rain water drainage pipes are underwater now. I say they added water, but they may not have had a choice. We got clobbered with heavy rain Wednesday evening and I imagine that Swan Lake (yeah, I know... I didn't name the damn thing) which is the larger lake on the property probably would have overrun its banks if it didn't flow off into my lake. So maybe they opened the damn, or maybe the water just poured over it... I don't know which, but I'll ask when I'm at the office tomorrow. Whatever the case, I've got a lot less mud and a lot more water, which is a good thing.

Friday we rolled out of bed late and went for some luncha at Bennigan's, which has closed their 28th street location even as I write this. Too bad. I like the occasional meal at Bennigan's. We came home, walked the dog and then headed off to an Independence Day party I'd been invited to in Rockford. One of my bank managers and the security guard at that branch invited me knowing that I really know no-one in the area. It was a nice gesture, but... on the way there Tasha proceded to ask me a series of questions about the party that I could only answer with a shrug of uncertainty; things like, who's house is it, will the people who invited you be there, will you know anybody there, who else will be there. Needless to say, I was taking her into a lions den of strangers and while I was seemingly okay with that, she was a tad-bit nervous. We drove out there and I must confess, the closer we got the more uncertain I became about the idea of spending 6- or 8-hours with a bunch of strangers. When we found the street and drove up towards the house, but couldn't find a place to park because of the horde of cars, I was done. Cold feet. Can't do it. Sorry. Gotta go. So we left there and went to our own little party at the Kentwood fireworks, because I'm a chicken. The Kentwood fireworks were okay, but I think we would have been more impressed had we gone downtown on the river as we talked about. Oh well, we'll know better next year. Of course we nearly missed the whole thing becasue, well, simply put, I never should have introduced Tasha to The Sims 2. I'm just saying. For real.

Saturday we grabbed some breakfast and then headed back to the east side of the state with the intention of letting me get my motorcycle. I tried to explain to Tasha all the way there that I just don't think. Period. End of story. No thoughts about things here. I don't think she bought it, but it made for... well, it made for conversation on the drive back. I grabbed the bike from my brother's and visited with him for a few short minutes. He invited me to my nephews birthday party on Sunday, forewarning me that there'd probably be a lot of people I didn't know there... As if he knew about the night before, strange. And then I left and went to Tasha's, happy to be on my bike and enjoying the wind in my face. Tasha made dinner and we ate and then watched Live Free Or Die Hard. Which was a better movie than I was really expecting.

Sunday we slept until noon, Tasha made pancakes and sausage, and then we decided to go for a ride. We headed up to 26-mile and then just kinda kept going. At some point we saw a girl on the back of a motorcycle who's shirt was, well, it was off. Around her waist and she didn't seem to care. Motorcycle people are crazy. Anyway, we kept going, drove thru China, and eventually found ourselves in Marine City on Lake Saint Clair. So we stopped for some dinner, watched the ferry's go back and forth, and walk along the shore for a bit before we headed back through China and onward to her place. I stopped long enough to clean my visor and strap myself into gloves and jacket before heading out on the long ride home. I was pretty much on the bike from 3:30 until 9:30 with just a couple stops. That's a lot of riding around and mostly I felt it in my ass. My poor, sore ass. But now my bike is out here and it fits in the car port right next to my car. It's tight, but it works. It was a good day for riding, and hell, we got to see a little bit of China. So that's something.

Today was Monday, with all that Monday's entail. Tonight I had dinner with my buddy Doug and his wife, Tara, who were out here buying furniture for the business that Doug's helping get started. We went to Logan's if'n you care. I showed them my place and they deemed it passing fare. Though I must confess it was not in what I would consider visitable condition. And now I'm writing a little blog post and drinking the beer that I bought for the party I didn't actually make it to on Friday to bring my night to a close.

Did you notice that some older blog posts have started showing up in the archive? Well they have. I'm not going to promise how fast they'll be added, because I'm doing them by hand at this point, but they'll be added as quickly as I can bring myself to adde them. Soon you'll be able to read about my divorce, my novel, my job at MCI, and all the other good stuff that I wrote about between 2003 and 2006... I like to think of it as the golden age of my blog. Anyway, I'll add them as I add 'em. Read them if'n you'd like.

If it wasn't dark already I'd take some pictures of my less empty lake. Ah well, perhaps tomorrow. I think that'll do it for tonight. Later.

Old Blog Problems

Hmmm.... I was trying to figure out a way to import my old blog into this one, but I don't see an easy way. Of course the last backup I have of my old blog is from 2003. Unless Doug has a more recent back-up. I'm guessing he doesn't, but you never know with him.

So I have an old back-up of my Nucleus blog, and I'm thinking this other file is a WordPress file, but I'm not gonna swear on that. Ah well, what I really need is my domain back or maybe I should just get a new one. Frustrating.

Today I worked in Kalamazoo and Constantine, so there was a lot of driving involved in my day. And to make it even better, it rained like crazy on the way back. When I got home I cleaned the house in anticipation of Tasha's weekend visit.

Short But Not So Sweet

I don't have much for you today, so let's get right to it.

I found a couple different fireworks displays for the 4th, so I'm good to go there.

I changed the comments for the blog. You don't have to be registered anymore. It'll accept annoymous comments now. I'll leave that be unless I start getting a bunch of spam.

I added some more pictures to my Picasa galleries. Just some wallpapers that I've made. Nothing really new.

Well, that's really it. I'm going to go read some more of the Dresden Files. I'll give you something with more substance tomorrow. Peace.

A Simple Magic

I've talked about this before in other places and on other blogs, but as I sit here watching Walk the Line and drinking beer I can see the fireflies around the lake flashing in the growing darkness and I marvel at it as I always do. It's a simple magic. A little thing that makes everything feel right for as long as that little light is aglow.

I'm very happy that this is a short week. Tasha will be coming out on Thursday for the weekend and I've got to find some fireworks for us to go see. Sunday I'm going to go back with her and get my bike. It'll be a good weekend. I need a good weekend. Later.

Old Routines Or Not

No calls so far... guess everything Gary was saying about getting after hours and weekend calls every week were a little overstated. Or maybe I'm just lucky.

Tasha and I talked about being more of an active couple, but so far we're not doing so well on our couples events. First, I neglected to invite her to Tyler's comencement ceremony. Then I got stuck with the oncall this weekend when we were supposed to go to a friends 40th anniversy party. She's said that Tyler's graduation party isn't something she's thinking she'll be going to (I can understand that... I don't think she and Heidi ever actually spent any time together during the eight years we were married, and now, well, it's just more wierd.) We've got her high school reuion coming up and I'm hopeful that we'll be able to make that. So really, it's just me not being able to make these things. Hmmm. I think the biggest difference is this; In the past, I didn't really want to be bothered to do any of these couple things and so would use whatever excuse I could find at hand to avoid them. Now, I actually want to do these things, looking forward to them even, but life has set out to confound me. So to Tasha I say, I'm sorry. I want to do these things with you. I really do. Honest.

Of course all this just leads to a questioning of whether this is us falling into old routines and foretells bad things for the future. I don't think that's the case, but it something to consider and work against. A relationship is a constant project, one that is never completed.

Today, I cleaned the house a little, washed my laundry (or would that be laundered my clothing?), revised my resume for Carlo and company, and went to the grocery. Of course I forgot to cash in my bottle returns yet again, I think I'm up to about ten bucks in return slips now. I fiddled on the computer. And I got Chinese food, mind you it was TERRIBLE, I mean it was so bad I fully expect to get sick later tonight. But not so bad that I didn't eat it. After all, I did pay for it... no sense in throwing away ten bucks. I checked craigslist for mountain bikes, as suggested by Doug. But alas, there was nothing I was interested in. All in all it was the most boring uneventful day I could imagine. I'm so bored.

The internet is a wonderful tool. I was exploring my site traffic, which isn't huge, but I was curious who has been reading me and I see that I'm getting visitors from all over the place. Oh sure, Michigan is the biggest source of my traffic, but I'm also getting visitors from 19 country's and from all around the USA. In the last month I've gotten multiple visits from California, Washington, Ohio, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, and a few visits from 18 other states. Like I said, I don't get a lot of traffic and I honestly don't know anybody in most of these places. Florida could be my mom or grandparents, either way they're visting secretly because nobody has mentioned my blog to me. The rest of the states, sadly, I know no one in those other states. I really don't know a lot of other people. Which brings me to another thing...

I was using the internet to find people I haven't talked to since high school or shortly there after; friends, ex-girlfriends, former co-workers (did I mention I was bored?). I'm pretty sure I've found my old buddies Doug Lechner, Mike Womack, and Eric Schultz, none of whom I've talked to in 20-years. A little bit of Intelius combined with Google PhoneBook and maybe a few web searches and it's pretty easy to find people.You think I'll call them? Probably not. I'd like to, but it just seems weird to call out of the blue and be like, hey, how you doin'. **sigh**

I miss all my friends. I'm just to lazy to do anything about it. Later.

Better Late...

So I'm oncall. So boring. If nothing comes in tomorrow, then nothing will come in at all. Because no one will be at the banks to know that they need help on Sunday. I'm expecting to get nothing.

In more exciting news, I paid my rent today... that's not the exciting part ...while I was doing that I added a 10x10 storage unit and a carport to my lease. All for only $30 bucks a month. I think that's a good deal. Pretty cool, huh. I also got the run down on how much it's going to cost me to have Tasha and the animals move in. It won't be bad at all.

Tasha didn't come out this weekend and I didn't go out to where she's at for the obvious reason of being on call. So I don't know what I'm going to do for fun this weekend. Maybe I'll try and find a mountain bike. There's lots of bike paths around here and it seems like it'd be a good way to get some exercise. I'll hit the garage sales and resale shops, there's gotta be something I can get my hands on for less than the $100-$300 I see bikes for at all the stores.

This is a little late today because I was playing The Sims 2. I picked up the Pets expansion tonight and had to play around with that a bit. Sorry.

Tasha asked what the deal was with the Eagles lyrics and refused to accept that it's just a great song, perhaps my favorite Eagles song. Of course I presented my case a little differently than that. I may have said something about it being  their best song.... honestly, I don't remember how it went down. But that's the deal. I was listening to it while I wrote last night and I figured you needed to feel the love.

Okay, that's it for now. You don't go getting all crazy without me this weekend. Later.

Let's Shake Things Up

Tonight dinner consisted of three strong margarita's. No particular reason, just kinda the way things worked out. Besides, moving furniture around is thirsty work. Yeah, I decided to do it. Tyler and I talked about it but I wouldn't pull the trigger to make it happen. Tonight I decided that I couldn't take it any longer and I rearranged the couch and moved my desk into the living room.

Why? Well, let me explain. Not that there's any reason for me to do so. I spend a lot of time on the computer when I'm at home and my computer was in the small bedroom that looks out on the parking lot. This was doubly bad because one, I'm spending all my time in the smallest room of my apartment and two, I've got this nice lake out back that I can't see from the back bedroom. So now I can see the lake and I don't feel near as clostrophobic. I'm sure that when Tasha moves in she'll hate it and I'll move it back, but for now I'm more happy this way. (Happier, yes I know, that was intentional. Sheesh, you people.)

I put some pictures of the new layout on Picasa, you can see them here.

Word has it that they'll be letting everyone know on Monday when they're last day is... um, Tasha, not me. My job is safe... I think... probably... sure, no worries. This weekend I get to do my first on-call. I'll be on-call for all of western Michigan. I don't expect that anything will come in, but I sure wouldn't turn down the overtime. OT would be sweet. Today was one of those days where I busted my ass trying to get everything done only to find out that I'd busted my ass for nothing. Which is both a good feeling and a frustrating feeling. It's good to bust a little ass and feel like you've done a solid days work. It's not so good when you rush around to make time for something only to find out when you get there that it's been sent to another vendor and that you really didn't have to rush at all. Ah well, such is life.

I'm going to finish on that note. Later.