Hmmm….something’s not right here

I got the mail this afternoon and when I looked in, I saw what looked to my bank statement.  Odd thing was…there was no envelope, it was literally just the pages of my bank statement.  and in the corner there was the postage mark.  So….yeah….somebody mailed my bank statement with no envelope so any number of people at the post office were able to see what checks I wrote and to whom.  So now I get to go into the bank monday morning and close out the account just to be safe.  the lady at the 1-800 number was pretty stunned and at first said “Well, it must’ve been somebody from the post office who opened it”  to which I replied “Yeah, I would’ve thought that too except it’s got postage on the first page of it. 

UPDATE: I went to the bank this morning, got the same kind of response that I got from the 1-800 number.  They were ready to let me walk out the door with just putting a flag on the account to check for signatures and id (which I didn’t ask but the thought crossed my mind…shouldn’t you be doing that already?)  They asked if there was anything else I’d like to do like close the account and reopen a new one, to which I replied yes.  They set me up with a new account, waived all the setup fees.  I also turned off paper statements to avoid this happening in the future.  They’ll be rushing me my new checks and debit card and hopefully I will have dodged this little identity scare bullet with only a little inconvenience.  

Pop Quiz, Hotshot!

Who’s drunk in this picture?

Random Thought of the Day

Even if you do everything you think you’re supposed to do, chances are pretty high you’re not necessarily going to get picked.  And that’s how life goes.  You can let that fact knock you on your ass and get swallowed up by the disappointment.  Or you can stand up, dust yourself off, take a deep breath, and take another step forward.  And then take another one after that.  and another one, and another one and another one…

You can’t expect what should happen or what could happen, but you have to accept what does happen. 

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Found this interesting article today..

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

This passage really struck home for me..

“I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.”

I haven’t been able to sit down and a read a book for years now.  Like the author of that article said, I lose my focus after a few pages. 

I was thinking about kids these days and how when my nephew ends up in college in 4 years how drastically different of an informational landscape it’ll be.  The internet was still in its widespread infancy back in ‘94 when I started college.  I remember being a Prodigy user back in the day.  I had an email address through an honors english class I was in.  I could get on the web in the computer science lab.  But the majority of any research I had to do was done by trudging to the library, searching titles for something that might be somewhat relevant to my topic, trudging *editor’s note* did alot of trudging in college, must’ve been all the books I had to carry through the bookshelves, craning my neck to read the spines of the books to find the one I needed, taking the book back to a nook and skimming through it, trying to decide if it was relevant enough to my topic or not, putting it back, wash, rinse, repeat…

Now in the age of google and wikipedia and mobile devices with internet access, information is so readily available for us at our fingertips.  But is that a good thing?  I think it was a good character-building experience to have to go through the actual research process.  It was kind of like a right of passage to get through higher education and achieve a degree.  You want a degree?  Prove it.  Do the literal legwork necessary to complete the task put before you. 

Random thought of the day..

When I get depressed, I feel like nobody cares whether I’m happy or not, and I wish that someone would try to cheer me up.  But when I’m depressed, people don’t generally want to be around me.  So in order for people to be around me, I need to try to make myself happy again.  By doing so, people are more likely to be around me.  So, basically in order to get what I want, I need to get it for myself. 

 

Make sense?  dunno, that’s why it’s a random thought. 

I suck (revisited)

Way back in the olden days (summer of Aught 07 specifically) I put out a request for blog topics.  I’m revisiting the comments I got from that request now.

Today’s request comes to us all the way from sunny Mentor, OH.  Jenny asks “is it ok to joke at a funeral? (an essay on when it’s ok to bring out the funny)”

This is unfortunately a timely topic.  Monday I attended the funeral for my best friend Scott’s father.  With respect to that event, there was levity before the service itself and following it at the memorial meal.  Personally I think humor is one of the more powerful coping mechanisms we have available to us.  A properly timed and worded joke can short-circuit grief before it can get to that soul-crushing stage.

Looking back to when my dad passed (btw, Happy early Father’s Day, Dad!) I remember how on edge and exhausted and emotionally spent I felt the day of his (unbeknownst to us at the time) final surgery.  When the moment came that the end had come, I was overcome with an explosion of negative emotions that had been building that day.  Terror, rage, etc.  I remember running out of the ward and just starting to punch the wall out of disbelief.  Friends and family tried to console me, but for that minute or so, I was just shut off and running on pure emotion. 

(inner editor’s voice) *cough* where are you going with this?

Anyway, the emotional wave finally crested and I was able to get myself back under control.  The whole family went back out to the waiting room to wait for the next step.  We started talking about dad.  It’s strange, how many details of that night I can remember, but then some I can’t.  Someone made a joke about something dad used to do.  it might've been me.  regardless, laughing at that point felt so cleansing.  I helped ground me and realize that the clock on the wall continued to tick. 

I think it’s something similar with respect to a funeral as well.  There is a time and place to be one with your grief and let your emotions flow (ok, perhaps not to the wall-punching level, I admit) and to pay your respects.  But I think at a certain point in time, grief needs to be reigned in, and humor does a really good job of doing that.  It tries to remind us that no matter how terrible of a sorrow we’ve been through, that none of it should discount or lessen the good things that have come before it.  I think if we spend too much time grieving that we can sort of “disrespect” those who have passed. 

Humor at that point in time needs to be handled by a semi-professional though.  You have to wait for the right moment.  You don’t want to take attention away from the ceremony.  But there comes a time when things have settled enough.  There’s a kind of still in the air.  Some of the “fringe” relatives and loved ones may have already left, and the “core” loved ones remain.  If you time it right, and do it with enough care and love behind it, it can really turn into a joyous situation.  I know following my dad’s funeral, my cousins and I got pretty laugh-winded, sharing classic Dad stories.  And even joking about things not even related to Dad.  Same thing occurred at Scott’s father’s memorial dinner.  Like I said above, ….

Wow, great spot to get pulled away by work…Umm…yeah…anyway, no matter how bad we feel at the time of the funeral or memorial or the passing, I see humor as life’s way of reminding us that time keeps on moving along, and we’d best make the best of it while we can. 

What to say…

Jennifer says I need to blog more. So…yeah…guess I need to come up with more stuff to blog about.

I’m trying out Windows Live Writer.  It’s supposed to make blogging easier.  We’ll see.  It’s got lots of tools which I’ll probably never use.

 

For now here’s a map of where I work.  hooray!!!

Perception vs. Reality

I have a problem. "HA!", you say, "and this is news how?" or do you? maybe you say "Oh cool! Chris has figured out something else about himself!"

That's kinda my point. Perception vs. Reality. Perception is like a pair of glasses with multiple, multi-color, variable prescription lenses. Looking at Reality through these special glasses can warp, distort, discolor, etc what Reality actually is. Not having a clear true view of Reality and relying on our Perception of it can lead us to unnecessary anxiety or irrational expectations.

So, in the example above, trying to guess what people would say is based on Perception. The first "negative" response is based on the Perception that I talk about my problems alot, which probably annoys people since that's all I seem to talk about, so therefore they would probably react in a manner similar to what I put. The second "positive" response is based on a different Perception that everybody enjoys reading my posts about my personal struggles and that they'd be happy that I've made a new "discovery". Which one's right? Which one's wrong? Does it matter?

Well, let's take a step back and look at the Reality. This is the tricky part, at least for me. This requires you to be able to recognize when you still have the Perception glasses on, and recognize when you still have one of it's distorting lenses flipped down over your eye. I've been trying to work on this since last weekend, and I've noticed times where I thought I'd flipped up all of the lenses and was seeing the Reality, when actually there was still a couple layers of slightly distorting lenses flipped down that were tweaking my view of Reality just slightly. (note: that whole last sentence was one massive analogy, but I didn't feel like putting ""'s around all the "facets" of it. seriously, I love ""'s, and can't seem to stop "using" them)

Anywho, back to looking at the Reality from the first example. Let's try to find the Reality. First off, I can't predict whether anyone will read this post or not. so how can I try to predict how people will respond to it? And even if, for some reason, I was able to predict that x number of people were going to read this post, how could I truly predict how they would react to it? In Reality, should I even give a crap about whether or not anybody reads this? No. I should be writing these for myself, and if someone happens to read it, so be it :) and if they happen to take something from it, so be it :) and if they think I'm full of BS and should stop writing about my crap, so be it :) The Reality is, it's not all that important anyways.

So, there it is, that's what's been on my mind lately. Trying to make myself recognize what is my Perception of a person/situation/event vs. what's the actual Reality of it.

Appreciation

I appreciate...

• that the weather has been beautiful this week.
  
• the taste of a Robek's Strawnana Berry smoothie and a DiBella's turkey sub.
  
• being able to get up in the morning, make my breakfast, watch the news, get showered and go to work.
  
• being able to come home after work, make dinner, chat with friends online and channel surf
  
• having full use of my mental and physical faculties.
  
• my intelligence and my sense of humor.
  
• my friends who care about me.
  
• Jennifer, Dan, Rachel, Jen, Todd, Kathy, Scott, Garland, Denise, Jodi, Amy, Mike, Jennette, David, Sharon.
  
• the fact that I can go to a store and buy most anything I feel like, without having to be concerned about paying my bills.
  
• the fact that I'm not in debt.
  
• that I'm respected at my job.
  
• that I am very competent at what I do.
  
• that I have freedom at my job to do things the way I see fit.
  
• that I have a short drive to work.
  
• that I have a nice apartment
  
• that I have nice furniture
  
• that I have a large collection of movies and video games
  
• the fact that I can be 32 years old and still enjoy playing video games
  
• the fact that I have the freedom to do what I want with my free time
  
• a walk in Liberty Park, or the South Chagrin Reservation
  
• all the parks and trails that we have throughout northeast ohio
  
• my family
  
• Mom, Caryn, Joe, Ben, Will, Molly, Connie, Don, Darlene, Andy, Barbara, Sam, DeNiece, Thelma, Cindy, Kay, Ralph, Craig, Carol, Katie, Annie, Grace, Victor, Cary
  
• having a fan for when I feel hot
  
• being able to drink clean cold water when I'm thirsty
  
• having the foresight to be able to study myself and learn from my mistakes and grow as a person
  
• having had a father for 30 years of my life
  

...More to come later

Update 3:16 pm

• sending good morning emails to Jodi, Rachel, Denise, Jennifer, Scott and Garland
  
• sending Time Check emails to Jodi
  
• making Jennifer cry now and then
  
• making Jennifer hard type
  
• "therapy" emails/ims with Jennifer
  
• hours-long phone conversations with Jen
  
• acting random and goofy just because I can
  
• having a blog where I can dump whatever thoughts are in my head
  
• music
  
• finding new music I've never heard before but really like
  
• finding classic music I've never heard before but really like
  

omfg

Taking a break from my content as of late to post this video...I'm amazed

Optimism (Anxiety Part 2)

Where does Optimism come from? what gives some people the ability to see something that's still formative, new, or unknown as a potential success? Are we born with optimism as a child and can lose it as we grow into adults? I really don't know how to answer those. I look back, and I have a hard time seeing whether or not I've been an optimistic person. I think as time went by and "bad" things happened to me (and by bad I just mean unfavorable or difficult or trying) my natural anxious tendencies kicked in. But I don't know. maybe optimism is too black/white of a concept? maybe optimism isn't what I should be striving for, but just realism. trying to take a rational view of the future, and accepting that some things could go bad or good, and give them equal weighting. I'll edit/post again when I think of more.

Update: Good comment from Glittergirl..."i think folks like us are more sensitive to stuff, and it's hard at times, but it's also a gift. we see a lot of beauty in things others miss."

This kind of highlights my point but not in the way she intended. That statement, at it's core, is one of positivity. Calling it a "gift" and being able to see the "beauty" in things. I had to stop and think for a second, because that's not I would see it at first. What is different about her brain, her experiences, her life, and my own, that leads us to those different viewpoints? We've both been through hardships in our lives, so it can't be that. Maybe she wants to believe that more than I do? Something about her allows her to appreciate the positive side of things. Maybe those of us with the "worry gene" as she put it over time develop the ability to say "fuck it" and take away some of the worry gene's important or effect?

Something else I've thought of is that I may have gotten my hopes too high early on in life and those unrealistic expectations were dashed enough times to make me "gun-shy" to having even realistic or rational expectations. Somewhere along the line I got hooked on the idea that good things happen to good people. I wish I could remember when and where I got that concept and in what context, because I think that's been a big problem for me. I think my negativity towards the future and the unknown is a mix of frustration that I'm not getting what I "deserve" for having done the "right" things in my life, and too many dashed unrealistic hopes that led me to make the deduction that hopes and dreams generally get dashed...

I dunno. Will post more as thoughts come to mind.

Anxiety

So, I had an anxiety attack this week. I've started seeing someone new. Things were going pretty darn well at the start, better than most of my previous relationships have started. But I still ended up having an anxiety attack. As I've done before, I let my mind wander and get caught up in the emotions of the moment, and started to project into the future. For some reason, the future to me is full of fear and potential disappointment. I'm not sure why I do it. I'm hoping that by typing out this blog post that maybe I'll get a glimmer of a clue. Anyways, I started projecting to the future that we're going to end up in a relationship, and that I'm not going to feel as strongly about her as she feels about me, and that I'm going to have to disappoint her and hurt her feelings or break her heart. I flipped out and nearly ended the relationship. We were able to talk and I let her know about some of my problems, and I think things are better now. But the stigma's still there. So, why can't I be optimistic about the future? I can't control what's going to happen, but I also can't expect things to go wrong. I dunno. Anyways,I'm going to take a break for now. I'll write a follow-up later or in the morning.

Update #1: Whitey makes a great point in his comment "The only thing I can tell you is that after I faced the scary moments, wether they turned out in my favor or against, I didn't have to be afraid anymore. It was over..." That initial hurdle for me feels insurmountable somedays. When it's something I have to face alone, I buckle. If it's something I'm doing in a social situation with people I feel comfortable with, I have more strength inside, or I don't give a shit nearly as much about how things will turn out. when I'm on my own, I lose faith in myself, or I fear the outcomes too much. More updates to come as things pop into my head

My Johari Window

Arena (known to self and others) caring, intelligent, logical, silly	Blind Spot (known only to others) able, accepting, adaptable, clever, complex, dependable, friendly, giving, happy, helpful, kind, knowledgeable, loving, mature, modest, observant, reflective, relaxed, searching, self-conscious, sensible, sentimental, shy, trustworthy, warm, wise, witty
Façade (known only to self) introverted	Unknown (known to nobody) bold, brave, calm, cheerful, confident, dignified, energetic, extroverted, idealistic, independent, ingenious, nervous, organised, patient, powerful, proud, quiet, religious, responsive, self-assertive, spontaneous, sympathetic, tense

Dominant Traits

60% of people agree that copaX is caring

All Percentages

able (10%) accepting (10%) adaptable (10%) bold (0%) brave (0%) calm (0%) caring (60%) cheerful (0%) clever (30%) complex (20%) confident (0%) dependable (10%) dignified (0%) energetic (0%) extroverted (0%) friendly (20%) giving (30%) happy (10%) helpful (30%) idealistic (0%) independent (0%) ingenious (0%) intelligent (10%) introverted (0%) kind (10%) knowledgeable (20%) logical (10%) loving (10%) mature (10%) modest (10%) nervous (0%) observant (10%) organised (0%) patient (0%) powerful (0%) proud (0%) quiet (0%) reflective (30%) relaxed (20%) religious (0%) responsive (0%) searching (50%) self-assertive (0%) self-conscious (10%) sensible (30%) sentimental (20%) shy (10%) silly (10%) spontaneous (0%) sympathetic (0%) tense (0%) trustworthy (10%) warm (30%) wise (10%) witty (30%)

Created by the Interactive Johari Window on 30.4.2008, using data from 10 respondents.
You can make your own Johari Window, or view copaX's full data.

Lyrics

"I wanna get lost in my life sometimes
sit on the side and watch the world go by
I wanna get lost and I don't know why
Sometimes I wanna get lost and I don't know why
Sometimes I wanna get lost and just dream for a while"

"I work hard every day of my life
I work till I ache my bones
At the end I take home my hard earned pay all on my own -
I get down on my knees
And I start to pray
Till the tears run down from my eyes
Lord - somebody - somebody
Can anybody find me - somebody to love?"

Blizzard of Aught 8

The view this morning when I got up..

(note the far left white car. See that stick like thing sticking up out of the snow? Yeah, that's my snow shovel which I had left outside. Someone conveniently borrowed it last night to try to dig themselves out, but didn't bother to put it back. Needless to say the shovel stays inside from now on)

And here's the view this evening, after an hour or so of shoveling 2-3 foot drifts and some thawing thanks to the wonderful sunshine.

Random

I don't know where this is gonna go, just kind of a free association post...

Life's like a river.

I've heard a few people tell me that, jennifer for example, and I've read some books that refer to it that way.

Sometimes it's calm and peaceful..

(source)

..and other times not so much

(source)

There's this sense that we have more control over the flow of this river than we really do. We try to paddle or swim, or redirect the flow, but all we end up doing is wasting our energy and getting ourselves frustrated. Would it be nice if the river flowed through that beautiful valley over there?

(source)



Sure would. Will it? Maybe, maybe not. Should we let ourselves get upset if it doesn't? Only if you thrive on frustration, which last time I checked most (normal) people don't. (I gotta admit, I've known at least one person in my life who did, oddly enough). So, what can we do? Things would be really cool if we ended up in the pretty valley. What we have to do is make the best out of what we have. We have to make the most out of the path that the River of Life ends up taking us. Sure things could be better. But who's to say there's not another valley up ahead that's just as pretty, maybe even prettier.

Ok, so we can get our hopes up that around the next bend will be another valley right? If you're the gambling type, then go for it. But wouldn't it be a bit more peaceful, and maybe even more fun honestly, to just ride along with the flow and see what happened? Not have expectations about what's around the bend, just have a keen interest to see what's there. For better or worse, just patiently wait and see what's around the bend. Not like we should just close our eyes, lay back and blindly float down the river. A) you still have to make some minor course corrections here and there to avoid the rocks and the shallow sections and B) where's the fun in that?


That's like taking a long car trip sitting in the backseat of a station wagon with your nose buried in books the whole way. I should know, that's how I lived most of my childhood. Anytime we went anywhere, I had to make sure I had toys or books or games that I could do along the way. I ended up missing a lot of life by doing that. I also ended up with a rather horrible sense of direction, that I'm still trying to overcome in my adult life. (thank GOD for GPS units). I had a point somewhere around here I was aiming for....hmm, must've fallen under the desk. Ah, there it is. Anyways, the point is to open your eyes and be witness to where the River of Life ends up taking you. When it's pretty or not so pretty, there's still much to be learned from where it takes us.

UPDATE: Music recommendation. Yael Naim - Endless Song of Happiness. Listen to it.

it's batTERies, not batTRies, ya bloody wankah!

and there were no pieces of wood on fire, so where's this supposed "torch" he speaks of...god, you'd think he was a foreigner or something

Glittergirl's famous!

Sorry glittergirl, but I took your video down for a while. It loaded up everytime my blog loaded and kept freaking me out.

Glittergirl's WKYC Page of Famousosity

Some things change...

some things stay the same.

a looooooong time ago I gave eharmony a try. Well, some friends of mine are in burgeoning relationships, so I thought, "You know what, I've gone through alot of personal development in the past couple of years. Maybe I've changed enough to be a better match for someone." So, I went through the peronality test again. I cleared my mind and just went with my gut and answered the questions honestly. At least, 3 years later, eharmony doesn't appear to reject people outright. This time I was allowed to upload a photo, so I thought there was a chance. Got in, and was presented with my "home page". 0 matches :)

I'm actually sitting here smiling about it, chuckling.



I've been reading books about Taoism lately, trying to find some inner peace and happiness. Guess that's why this isn't really bothering me that much. Last time this happened, I reacted a little bit differently :)

For those curious about Taoism, I recommend reading The Tao of Pooh I'd get into details, just take my advice and read it. it's a short book, easy read.

Found Cameras and Orphan Pictures

Found Cameras and Orphan Pictures

Interesting site concept. Basically if you run across a memory card or camera with pictures on it, you send a couple in that would be the most identifiable and hopefully through the power of teh intarwebs and good old word of mouth, they can be reunited with their proper owner.

I think it'd be fascinating to find someone else's pictures like that. Does that make me voyeuristic? That I want to see other people's pictures? I don't have any ulterior motives, I'm just fascinated at seeing how other people live their lives compared to mine. I also have the same problem when I'm riding in a car in the evening down a street with alot of houses. I tend to try to look into the living rooms where the lights are on and the curtains/blinds are open. Not because I want to spy on them, it's just merely curiosity's sake. I tend to think things like "Wow, the average television size has gotten insanely big." or "That's a very interesting way to have your living room setup."

I also have started going to the Art section of Borders, and checking out as many of the Post Secret books as I can, looking to see if anyone left their own postcard in it, like I've read stories about people doing. No luck yet, but I'll be sure to let everyone know when I do.