The only outlet I have

Sometimes, things come up in one's life that they need to talk about. Sometimes it helps to talk to a third party, like a counselor or a friend, and sometimes it helps to not talk to anyone but the voice inside your own head. Most times, though, it helps the most to talk to the person that is the culprit or the focus of the problem bugging you or affecting your life or otherwise existing in such a way to throw you off the calm, peaceful existence that you'd like to call your life. And since I know the person in question won't read this, and the few (if they exist) that would read it won't say anything/can't say anything/etc. makes this a better medium for venting my frustration.

Suffice it to say, I don't think it's a normal thing to think on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis after 7 years of a relationship that you don't want to remain in the relationship anymore. Even less so that, and I put my future at risk by saying so, depressing thoughts enter my mind mixed in with the angry and confused and fed up ones. Nothing serious, but they're there and have been for quite some time. Now, you'd ask yourself, why can't I just talk to her? The answer lies in what I know would happen and what I know I'd fail to say. I've no idea how to open up the conversation. "Hey, babe, I'd like to talk about us." is probably not the best way to open up the conversation. It would, undoubtedly, be misconstrued as "I want to break up with you". Which ... I don't want to. 7 years (technically 6.5) is a long time for a relationship. Fixing it is the best course of action, but I don't know how. I feel that, regardless of how the conversation starts, it will rapidly degenerate into an argument (where I am the one at fault), or crying. The crying would make me feel terrible, as if I was making a mistake, the conversation would go nowhere, and I'd be right back where I was.

Halfway through that sentence I lost my train of thought and lost what it was that I was talking about, so I guess I'll leave it here.

Camping, Survival, the Rapture, and a New Beginning

This past weekend was supposed to have been the rapture. Very clearly I wasn't raptured, though given the severe lack of news follow-up, it's also clear that nobody was raptured, either. As I knew the rapture wasn't going to happen as described, I am a bit disappointed that nothing happened at all. Frankly I was expecting a riot, mass suicide, or other such outrage at the fact that nothing happened. Or aliens, that'd have been grand, really V-style. Alas, nothing happened. The time passed, 5:45 this past Saturday, while I was on the Cape Henlopen beach with Sarah and three of her friends. Watching an Osprey catch a fish, and some dolphins kill a shark. Nothing spectacular, though I did get a sunburn.

I thought it fitting that I was camping the weekend that the rapture was predicted to happen, and in my words i was "avoiding the rapture by hiding in slower lower". What I was really doing is testing my survival kit/camping kit. Turns out I missed a few things. Also, camping where were at wasn't so much "camping" but more "going to a hotel without any walls". That didn't stop it from being fun, however. The experience taught me a few things, and added another line to my "zombie apocalypse" rulebook. That rule is: "If you don't know if you need something or not, consider the consequences of not having it. If you are comfortable with the consequences, do without. Otherwise, do with.". This rule, as ambiguous as it seems, was borne out of my lack of sunscreen whilst I went for a run on the beach. I thought "I won't be in the sun for very long, I don't need any sunscreen". Totally wrong, I was.

It also taught me that my Bug-out-bag is just too big. What I have is more of an 'I'm never coming home bag', which for the purposes that I'd apply it to in the near and distant future, is hugely overkill. I'm planning on going for a 3-day pack and designing it for a "real" bug-out-type situation, also to take up much less space in my closet.

Today I told my boss that, officially, I'm going to grad school. When I told him that I'm essentially going tuition-free, the conversation went quickly to, and i'm paraphrasing, "I'd do the same thing in your situation". Frankly, I underestimated him. He expressed an observation of me that was more spot on than I even realized about myself. That I'm 50/50, one foot in this job, one foot in grad school. this, to him, explained why I wasn't totally focused on my job, and when combined with the fact that I still don't know what it is that I want to do, this makes more sense and, to him, grad school is the right thing for me to do. At the end of next week will be my final day here at NRG-Edge, hopefully I have enough cash to float myself until the semester starts and my loans get disbursed.

So I'm going, in the fall, to grad school for an MBA, which I've explained in previous posts. The only problem I'm going to have is that I'm going to end up digging into my savings. What I might do is accept all of the financial aid that I get, and defer interest, and stick it all in my savings account. Take what I need, then upon graduation, pay as much back as I can. Hopefully, over the course of two years, I'm able to get my internet presence up to the point of paying the bills...but I'm not holding my breath.

I don't normally like to plug my game, but Zombies at War is progressing nicely, and in the next few months I'm going to have a lot more time to work on it. I'd like to have it out of Alpha by the end of the summer, but as time has shown there's always a lot more to do than I realize.

Day in, day out

I thought, over the past few days, why I never post much. I think I've discovered the real reason behind it. That reason is the fact that I always have _something_ going on in my head that I'd like to post/share/etc., but I don't want to make a new blog entry for every single one. So these thoughts fade away, and time goes by and none of these ever make it to my New Post window. I think the solution is to just wait a few days between postings, then post whatever is on my mind at the time. Anyway...

Grad school is looming over my head, and I'm still conflicted as to staying/leaving this company. i had planned on having a conversation with my boss today, but he's out so it'll be Wednesday at the earliest, probably Thursday before I sit and have a conversation with him. I'll e-mail him next time I'm in the office and he's not, either Wednesday or Thursday. Thing is, I love working here. But, I also can't pass this opportunity to go to school, essentially for _free_. How awesome is that? College isn't a scam if you're going for free. Other than the $90+k in lost wages, but it's my plan to create an online presence by graduation, hopefully knocking out all of my student debt and ending grad school in the black.

That being said, however, I'm finding it very difficult to get myself back into the coding mindset, at least for Zombies at War. Part of me wants to scrap the project, but I know that's just both me giving up and me being lazy. It's my fear that it's never going to make any money, and that my future ideals as a businessperson are totally flawed and impossible. Maybe it's not possible to live a comfortable lifestyle without really working. Perhaps it's only possible to remain alive, with no extravagances, without working for only a short time. So far, things have worked out for me. Maybe they will work in the future, maybe they won't. But all in all I realized a few days ago that if i'm procrastinating _now_ because I'll "work on it during grad school", what proof do I have that I will actually work on anything related in grad school? I have the same free time now, I won't be moving anywhere, so why do i insist on putting it off until later? I should just do it now. And that's what I'm going to do.

...Almost a year?

So I've seriously lost track of time and haven't posted anything for...damn near a year. So what's been going on? Quite a bit, in fact. From my diet/body change perspective, I'm down to 166 as of yesterday The goal is 8% body fat, so I've still a few pounds to lose (around 10.8 as of this morning). My diet started June 15, so on that day I'll have pictures and fanfare and personal congratulations, etc, etc.

On a non-diet subject, I've learned to brew beer. A few days ago I received the ingredients for my fourth brew to date, my third all-grain brew and, if things go as well as they did the last time I brewed, my second successful from-scratch brew. It's going to be a red ale, and there should be enough for a case of pint bottles for Otakon.

I can't remember if I spoke of my job, but post-graduation I was offered a job for Hosting.com, which I worked from mid-June until Mid-November. At which point I received a job offer from another company, NRG-Edge. Love these guys. And...I'm going to be sad to go. Why? I've also been accepted into grad school!

UD's MBA program, I applied and was accepted, and for icing on the cake - I've received a fellowship worth 50% tuition. This means I pay no tuition for my first semester - and if my grades keep up the second one, also. It's an opportunity that I can't turn down, a $12k/semester MBA program for, assuming two semesters of fellowship, $12k TOTAL (in-state students get 50% off from the get-go).

Hopefully, combining my savings and on-campus jobs I can come out with paying $0 for grad school. With $22k in loans outstanding, I need some sort of financial wizardry to get this done.

I'm going to try to post more, I know I need to. Even if nobody reads anything it'll allow me to get ideas and thoughts and feelings, etc. out in a timely manner.