Everything everything everything...

Wow! The middle of the week already. Time flies when your having fun... er working your ass off! Work has been super freaking busy. I've been busy setting up our new Dell PowerEdge 1850 Enterprise server (NEATO! okay not really) which has two dual core Intel Xeon processors in it. It's a pretty impressive machine. It will need to be to handle the things we have planned for it. On a crappier note (is crappier even a word?), work has been sucking. To make work worse it really feels like there are a bunch of people who just aren't pulling their weight. It's not like I'm this great wonderful employee by any means but I get my shit done. Plus, I wish people would make up their minds to what my job title and function is. One day I'm a testing & support manager, the next a product manager, the next I'm a testing & support & product manager & network admin & e-mail admin & IT admin & all around go-to guy. If it's technical related it falls on my head (PLOP!) It sucks. It wouldn't be so bad if I got paid like I should for having all those responsibilites but I make less than half of what I most definately should be. Not that I'm trying to be a whiner or anything. I love my job but... you know, I have a life that I want to live. I would like to be paid close to what I'm worth so I can progress in my life. I've got a future (Angela! Woot!) that I'm ready to start living. Money isn't everything but it sure helps make life easier.

It's been a few days since I've been in this new house and I like it. Yay for a door on my room! I'm still in the process of unpacking but I'm getting there. This new place shaves off about 10 minutes on my commute each way. I no longer have to deal with those freaking railroad tracks just to get to the freeway. When a train goes by it pretty much stops traffic for 10-20 minutes which blows.

Tomorrow I'm having lunch with my long-time good friend Grant. Should be cool. He's a cool guy that I used to work with for years and years at KeyLabs. Ah, the good old days cooking in our office without A/C testing Java applications and applets for Sun Microsystems.

I miss Angela. It's only been a couple days since I last saw her but I do. She is to me as what oxygen is to every living thing. She sent me numerous cute text messages today :) She made a somewhat lame day much brighter. She has that effect on me. She is the only person I know who can instantly make me light up with happiness. That's a rare thing and I love it. I love her.

I really should write in my blog in the mornings. It seems I ALWAYS have some deep soul-shattering thoughts but they only occur in the mornings. Maybe it's because I'm still half asleep and I think they are deep when in reality they probably suck! Ha-ha. Seriously though I need to take more time to write. I love writing. Wether it's just a random thought on some obscure page in one of my work notebooks or this blog. There is something about transfering thoughts and words down on paper or whatever. It's interesting to go back months, years or even decades and read these things. It's surprising to see how you change as a person and how events happen.

Anyways, my feet are cold. I should go stick them in someones diet coke to cool the soda down.

-mbh signing off

A million words running through my mind...

I'm so tired. I wish I didn't have to work tomorrow. I really would have LOVED to stay another day with Angela (hell a million more days would suit me just fine) but I had to come back to Utah to go to work tomorrow. I spent the last five days down in Las Vegas, NV with Angela. It was awesome. I feel so comfortable being around her. You would think that after going to visit her a dozen times that it would get easier to say good-bye and drive off. Nope. It get's harder and harder everytime. I almost broke down and started crying when I watched her drive in the opposite direction than I was heading. Fortunately for me Angela had written me a heart-felt little note for me to read once I was settled on the road. It made me feel better but I still miss her. I'm glad that in less than two weeks I'll get to see her again.

This weekend was Angela's long time childhood friend Charlotte's wedding. It was cool. The ceremony was held at the Classico Wedding Chapel in Caesers Palace which was a very nice place if I do say so myself. The guy that Charlotte married Adam was a cool guy and Angela was very happy for them (and me too even though I barely knew them). It made me feel nice when everyone commented to me on how happy and good Angela looked. They say they think part of it was that she is happy because of me. It made me feel all good inside to know that the people Angela grew up with approved of me. Not like it really matters but it's just nice. I do love Angela very much and I always want her to be happy. To be honest I was more than a bit jealous (in a good way) of Angela's friends getting married. I know that someday I'll get to experience something as special as that. Until that time though I can day dream (sue me).

All in all the wedding seemed to be a huge success for everyone involved and Angela and I had a lot of fun even though I got a little grumpy late that night after the wedding because I was getting tired and my feet hurt from standing on them for almost 8 hours.

Work has been burning me out. Plus I had to help my parents move to their new house that was just completed which also tired me out.

I'm ready for spring. This cold weather sucks ass. I got a taste of nice 70ish degree weather in Vegas which made me crave the warmer weather.

Soon hopefully.

Remember to remember...

The year is moving along and it's already February. Two years have passed since rehab. Almost two years (almost) to the day since I met my girlfriend in rehab. It doesn't seem like two years ago I was in there... but it does. It's weird. When I think back to rehab everything seems so surreal... like a dream, where I sometimes feel like it never happened. But it did. I don't know if it is supposed to feel like this and if it will continue to seem distant; yet not as the years go by? Certain aspects of rehab I will never be able to forget (Angela, going to Taco Bell in the snow, getting coined out) but yet I can't piece together the days and the events. It's like my memory is spotty. Like the withdrawls, I know in my mind and in my heart that it was torture. The most mentally and physically excruciating pain I have ever had to endure. Yet... I can't remember any of the events during withdrawl. Those 5 days of hell. The 11 days without sleep. Well, I remember them, but they are all fuzzy. I guess they will only get more fuzzy as time marches on. I don't want them to get fuzzy though! Rehab was one of the most important events in my entire life up to this point! I don't want to forget. I can't forget! I shouldn't forget! It may sound crazy but there are times when I miss rehab. As shitty as it was, it was a place where I was safe from the mad mad world. Where being a fuck-up wasn't that bad.

I think I am crazy.

I seriously need to sit and write down my story. It might not be the greatest story ever told but it is my story. It's important to me. It's important for me to remember what happened to me and why. To remember what it felt like and why I can't ever go back there. To help remember the pain and anguish. How it felt to have redemption and to live again. I'm making an addition to my New Year resolutions (I can do that right?). I'm going to try and write down one event at least once maybe twice a month for the rest of the year and when the year is over I'll piece together my story and post it.

I'm trying to think of a good quote to finish this entry off with but I'm drawing a blank so I'll just use my favorite one.

-Life is a daring adventure... or nothing!

One man army...

Someday's I feel like I'm a one man army at work. I had a very productive day but it seemed like I was the only one. I had to fix everybody elses problems. Marching like a one man army at work is starting to take it's toll on me. I'm getting sick of it.

On a lighter note. Tomorrow is Valentines Day so I'm going to take another moment to tell my sweetheart Angela how much of an amazing person she is and how freaking LUCKY I am to have her! I LOVE YOU ANGELA! VBM&A+F. (That's code for Very Big Much and Always and Forever).

Yes, we're dorks but it's cool!

Cut me I bleed like you...

I'm only human...

I woke up this morning not wanting to. Not wanting to do the routine. Not wanting to deal, with anything. Of course, however, I dragged myself out of bed and stood in front of the bathroom mirror just staring at myself. Wondering if this is it? Is this my life? Not that it's a bad life by any means. It could ALWAYS be worse. I used to stand in gas station bathrooms thinking the same thing. But at that point my life was much much worse.

I took a nice long hot shower pondering the mysteries of life, got dressed half-heartedly and got in my car, unready to drive to work. While I was driving on the freeway I pulled up next to a huge diesel that was transporting livestock. As I was staring into this cage-like trailer I made eye contact with one of the cows or whatever it was. I just sat there staring into it's eyes and for a moment I could relate. Knowing what it was like to be trapped in a cage with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

The rest of my drive I looked around at all the other people speeding in their shiny metal boxes; all participants in the same frantic race. Racing toward a not-so-distant future that is unknown to everyone. Rushing as fast as they can to get from point A to point B.

It was depressing.

They say there is just enough religion
in the world to make men hate one another
but not enough to make them love.
-unknown