Well, this is quite an interesting turn of events...

Over the last few months, the company I have been working for - Touch Support - has been working to get into the managed dedicated hosting market. Yesterday, we all got notice that there was an emergency staff meeting today at 9:30AM, which never happens. Nearly the entire staff was present this morning, as were the company owners/senior management, and a few other people.

At about 9:50AM, Dave announced to the staff that we had been acquired by The Planet.

In general, there is a lot going to change. I am indeed quite nervous of the entire matter, but that's just going to go with the territory. This is the first time I have held any sort of a management title in the IT industry, and I'm really doing it blindly. I know I'll probably figure it out, but jeez...

I've had a lot of response from that last blog entry, and I guess it did come across a little awkward. I just wanted to clarify a few things though:

1. I am not gay and I'm not coming out of the closet
2. I'm not quitting my job
3. I'm not pregnant

I'm just going to leave it at that for the time being. If anything more comes of it, I'll let you know. Otherwise, just read over my blog and you'll probably get a sense of what's going on.

So I'm on the verge of making a bold move. I'm not quite sure how to put it, so I'll just not mention it until after it is done.

No, I'm not quitting my job or moving to a different location. I'm talking about a more personal level. If you've been reading my blog entries at all over the last 4 years (Yeah, it's been around that long), you'll probably know what I'm going to do.

I'm at the point right now that I'm just frustrated with myself, so I'm going to do something about it. I don't care anymore what the consequences may be. I can't live this way, so I'm going to change it.

Anyone who has talked to me for any length of time knows my stance on communication: Regardless of the type of relationship, communication is mandatory for success. Here lately though, I've found myself lacking in several areas, the first being how I handle frustration and anger.

When I first started this blog, it was to be a place where I could vent without fear of offending someone. For the first couple of months, I was able to do this. However, my reader base started to grow to a point where I had to watch what was said. I mean, I found myself in a bit of a bind with a lady-friend who I was starting to get a little close to. You see, things happened in our relationship that frustrated me, and I had nobody to really share it with. So what did I do? I blogged about it. I soon found out though that this friend read my blog, and even though I never mentioned her name, she knew exactly who I was talking about. When she did realize this, she sent me rather nasty e-mails and instant messages, chastising me for my actions. At this point, I began to censor myself. The result plagues me to this day: I have not spoken to this girl since the last "big incident", and it has led to the other communication problem I'll talk about later.

The second big occurrence was when I was leaving my previous job at the quick lube. This was a rather large step in my life, as I was moving out on my own for the first time. Along with this came a lot of complicated scheduling of my final days in Rensselaer. I found out that my soon-to-be former employers were looking to have a bit of a "going away" party for me after my final shift ended. While I was not at all offended at the gesture, I was frustrated because this forced me to shuffle my schedule. I couldn't voice my frustration to my co-workers, because they were already in denial over my leaving. I couldn't share it with my parents, because they were already emotional about their youngest leaving home. With nowhere else to turn, I turned to my blog. Shortly after posting the entry, I received an e-mail from my boss, clearing showing how much I had offended her. It was a mess to clean up, and I think to this day it still isn't right.

I don't know how to deal with anger and frustration anymore, so I will either bottle it up, or I will find releases where nobody is affected. Here lately, I find myself yelling at my monitor at work - at the invisible customer on the other end who cannot hear me - which accomplishes nothing.

My other problem is approaching a female who I may be interested in. I don't see this as being the typical "fear of rejection" that nearly all guys experience at some point. Rather, I have absolutely no idea how to go about it, and while the fear of rejection does exist, I'm more worried about the way my peers will respond to it. I mean, I value the opinions of my family and friends above anything else. The problem is the teasing that others do. I remember back to when I was in grade school and had a "girlfriend". Even today, my family teases me about those girlfriends, and while I know they mean well, it is kinda embarrassing. (Sorry guys, don't take it personally.) Now that I'm 26 years old, I don't know that I can handle that, and it really detracts from the overall concept of "dating" for me.

But beyond the initial approach, I don't know what to talk about. The few phone calls I have had with a female (other than family or business) in the last few years have be incredibly awkward and leave me feeling inadequate in the social aspect of life.

So this leaves me back where I started about 6 years ago: A social "retard", unable to start a conversation, regardless of the amount of advice I have been given. What am I to do? Do I tell my boss when I'm mad about something at work (I sort of have over the last few days, and I feel guilty for it)? Do I throw caution to the wind and just tell that one girl how interested I am in her?

I have successfully moved into my new apartment, and I am pretty happy with it so far. The only problem is that with larger living spaces comes greater feelings of loneliness. I don't really understand it, but it's just a part of the human mind, I guess.

I have found myself just wandering the apartment for no reason, and I think deep down inside I have been hoping that there would be some sort of companion(roommate or otherwise) sitting in front of the TV when I got out of bed in the morning. What's funny about that is the fact I love my privacy, and I love not having to work around someone else's schedule.

<creepy_schizophrenia>
This evening I was on my way home from a friend's place, and for a split second I saw a woman sitting next to me in the car. When I took a second look though, she was gone. Is this my body, my soul, crying out for a life partner? If so, where the heck do I even start? If not, I suppose I should be calling the local psychiatrist and scheduling an evaluation.
</creepy_schizophrenia>

It's just so confusing right now, and I don't know what to do about it. I guess I'll just keep on what I do every week: This.

So I just woke up from this really vivid dream that I couldn't get back to sleep to finish...

The dream started out in this really vast, open stretch of road. The road was wide, and surrounded by trees at each side. About a mile apart, there were overpasses, or other bridges. A group of people congregated at the one bridge, but down the road, through the valley and back up, there were just a handful of people.

At the first bridge, 20 people or so had gathered with high-end racing go karts. A few of the people I had recognized, but most of them were just strangers to me.

The race started, and we all went down the road, to the other bridge, made a wide left turn, then back up to the starting point. We made laps like this, and it was fun. I don't remember the race ending, but it did at one point, and I moved on to the next part of the dream.


In the next part of the dream, a few close friends and one stranger joined me kayaking. We went on this strange man-made river. The river was like an elevated road bed that had been carved out for the flow of water through the mountains. At one point on the river, there was a large campground to the left, then a small town a little ways downstream on the right.

I love kayaking, and I love whitewater rafting, so this dream just was amazing.

We put in the water. My one friend was freaking out because he doesn't like boats or kayaks, but he agreed to go anyhow. We started out and met a small rapid on the river. The stranger went first right through the torrent, but I went to the left. When I did, this other man yelled and screamed at me because he said it was too dangerous. I made it through, but fell out of my boat when I hit the calm water again. The rest of the group followed me, but were able to remain in their boats.

When I tried to get back in my kayak, it was almost like an inflatable raft that had lost pressure; all soft and pliable, and difficult for me to get back in. Once I got back in though, it was just like the kayak I actually have.

We went on downstream, past the campground and town, curved to the right, but came to a really narrow part of the river. We went single-file through this high-speed section, and all came out on the other side with no problem. Although, my one friend that was nervous about the whole trip was nowhere to be found. We paddled up and down stream looking for him, but finally decided to continue on with our journey. Eventually, we found him. He had somehow made a lot of distance ahead of us, but decided to slow down and join back up with us.

I woke up at this point, so I couldn't finish the dream. I love my kayak, though it has been damaged for the last few years and I haven't had the time or ability to repair it. Even if it was in proper condition, I would have nowhere to store it down here though. I would need to rent a storage locker, but I would have to rent a big one, which would be very expensive. I'm sure I could leave it with friends down here, but I don't want to do that because I'd have to bug them to get in and get the boat before I go use it. When I do get a place with proper storage (like a garage), I'll be getting that bad boy fixed and take it out again.

I have a blog?

Okay, so it's Saturday night, going on 10:00PM. I've got the house to myself until Tuesday, and I am b-o-r-e-d!

I went to the shooting range with some of the guys from the office this afternoon, which was fun. Now, though, I'm just about to go crazy.

I went to Wal-Mart and got some food, but didn't eat it because I'm really not hungry. I got some "hard lemonade" but didn't care for it (and I don't really drink in the first place), so it's probably going to become my roommate's property. I've already watched the two movies I got from Netflix. I don't feel like spending time coding. I don't want to sleep. Video games will eat my soul. I'm pretty much screwed for now. :-/

So yeah, everyone on AOL and MSN is currently gone or away, so I'm just about to go out of my mind!

Why does my life have to get complicated all at once?

Where, in all that, was it my fault?