Eeep

Another GREAT weekend was had. I had an amazing date with a wonderful girl on Friday... I'm sure this blog will have more about her soon enough. Saturday, I was able to kick back, relax and watch a bit of television. Sunday was marked by the beginnings of my house being transformed into the dungeon of nightmare. Halloween is coming and I've taken to throwing a huge Halloween party at my house. I always spend far too much on decorations, so it's always a good time. This year will be an 80's theme, as well as mark the return of the horribly dangerous "Witch's brew" While this transformation was taking place, I was at a video shoot for a website, where I got to get my ass kicked by girls in costume. It was fun flying though the air... until I landed on a baseball bat... HUGE bruise forming on my back.

This week also promises to be eventful, with Sushi and a bad ass band tonight, followed buy a haunted house on Thursday... then last minute party prep for Friday. Good times indeed. Life is pretty damn good.

Wonderful Weekend

It's Monday, and the weekend is over, but I must say that the weekend kicked major ass.

Friday was fun filled fright ride through the Haunted Corn maze at Sauvie Island. We went with a huge group of people (around 27). I thought the maze was well done, and the spooks they put into it were great. But by far the best thing about it was the fact that several of the girls in our group were screamers who got scared at everything. I kept sneaking off into the corn and jumping out... Somehow this never got old, and the screams never stopped. I had a stitch in my side from laughing so much.

Saturday brought a wine tasting at Hip Chicks. Again, fun people made the night. Wine flowed freely, I got to watch people squish grapes with their feet, and saw the machine that actually squishes said grapes. Fun times indeed. Even if I did have a bit of a wine hangover the next morning.

Whee-ness

Ok, my life is going pretty well. I've decided to start working out five days a week... I'm on week 2 and so far so good, makes me feel GREAT.

Work is good, I got a massive raise, seem to be taken seriously, and everything is decent.

Social life is going well, went SCUBA diving last weekend, this weekend will involve a corn maze.... all in all I really have no room to complain.... Oh, and and HALLOWEEN is coming up quick. That's enough to make me say WHEE right there.

Life in General

I am continually amazed by the sheer amount of interesting people in the world. Every day you pass hundreds of people, most of them strangers, each of them has their own lives, dreams, thoughts, feelings, etc.

Sometimes you meet one these people, and you find that you have much in common, alot to learn from each other. Other times, you meet them and you discover that they are part of the population that you wish would just do away. But regardless it's mind boggling to think of how many lives you brush across every day. How each day brings an infinite array of opportunities and chances and how we typically just repeat the last day. Life is interesting.



Mostly waxing all philosophical because I've been thinking about the person I am, and the person I want to be. You can never really reach your goals until you define what they are. That's always where I've gotten stuck in the past. I didn't know exactly where I wanted to go, so my life would always revolve around gathering up options, and never closing any doors... remaining nimble enough so that when I DID figure it out, I could run quickly in that direction. That sort of leads to an option paralysis. If you really and truly understood all the possibilities that each day held... you would probably be so overwhelmed that you wouldn't get out of bed... Or, spend each day in a safe pattern of the last.. Hmm... Now that I've typed this up.. I'm sure I'll need some kind of profound graphic. Let's see.....

Traveling fool

As some of my loyal readers know (ok, loyal readER) I travel quite a bit for my job. Recently I've been traveling quite a bit, and there is a distinct possibility that I will soon be traveling all the damn time.

Now I don't tend to mind it all that much, I'm back on weekends, my house stays clean, and I earn thousands of wonderful frequent flier miles that equate to fun low-cost vacations with interesting people. However, when my company asks me to fly the red eye to New York, then travel again to Virginia the next week, followed by another trip to New York.... I'm beginning to dread the feeling (numbness) of six-hours in a airline seat.

The solution as I've found consists of 3 Benadryl (may cause drowsiness) washed down with a couple of glasses of red wine.... makes sleeping on the plane a breeze.



What's more, I'm not the first person to discover the wonders of the magic pink pill.
This guy sums it up better than I could..... *READ*

Oh, and there is always 5-hour energies when I arrive on site..... Whee for chemicals.

I think if the weekly travel continues, I'm think I'm going to have to work the first class upgrades

Aggravation

Have you ever had one of those moods where you wish you could shoot fire out of your eyeballs? I'm feeling quite aggravated today. Nothing seems to have any real importance and little things are leaving me wanting to explode in a flaming rage of fury.

Every so often I get in one of those dark moods and it takes something to pull me out. Now I'm a normally a pretty easy going guy, so it doesn't really take much, but it's random as to what will do it. It could be an old friend saying the right thing, it could be a new friend saying something, it could be something as simple as seeing an old couple being cute at the park, but it takes some example of why life is beautiful. Be it a floating trash bag, or a child holding a flower. Sad part is that it's impossible to predict in advance what trigger will remove the mood, but once it happens, it's like someone flicked a light switch on my dark mood. Silly humans.

Energy in Liquid Form

Ok, I'll admit it, I tend to take Newton's first law of motion a bit too seriously. You know the one about an object in motion. Well, for awhile now, I've been an object at rest, and staying there. Of course, that doesn't mean I haven't been busy. Just not busy in a way that is good for my sanity and health. That's going to change.

Goals: Start using my gym membership at least 3 times a week and meet and go out with fun interesting people at least twice a week.

Of course I may need a bit of a push to get started, (damn you Newton) so I ordered 216 vials of pure liquid power....

Seriously, these are like crack in a bottle. No energy crash, wide awake, 8 calories and only a 15% chance of turning your brain into a rutabaga. Mmmm veggies, I should eat some of those as well... I wonder if I can get them in liquid form?





Check out this video: Powerthirst



Add to My Profile | More Videos

Blogging again?

It's possible. When I first started my blog it was to be a lighthearted window into what I spend my time on, I was unemployed at the time, and needed a way to fill out my ample free time. Life happened (as it tends to) and I updated less and less.... then of course I didn't have anything I really felt like sharing as the most drastic things happening in my life were things I didn't really want to burden others with.

Now, fast forward to present day, I seem to be having more time left over, and the need to interact with my many (IE, 2) readers. We'll see if I've been bitten by blog fever, or if it's a passing fad.

The (not-so) Frozen North

The first week on January I got stuck doing an install for work in Nova Scotia. For the geographically impaired that would be a few hundred miles North by Northeast of the good old USA. All in all the trip went pretty well. Except for the pain in the ass plane ride. 13 hours on a plane in never fun.

First I flew through Cincinnati.


















Followed by a stop in Boston, before I was supposed to fly into Halifax. It turned out however that they had overbooked my flight into Halifax by quite a bit and were taking volunteers to be bumped to the 9 am flight the next day. Quickly, I did the mental math. Free hotel room, having a good excuse to miss 4 hours of work, not getting to my hotel in Nova Scotia at 1 am. Me please. Only after I volunteered did I also remember that my friend Kristen had recently written me and advised me that she had moved to Cambridge, Mass. Now I've been talking off and on with Kristen for years (10+) but had never met the girl since she lives on the east coast. She is one of those great people who will keep in touch and send you x-mas cards even if they haven't heard from you in 2 years. So, I gave her a call... got hold of her and demanded that she meet me for drinks.



I discovered why it's worth it to keep people around. She is an amazing person with a good heart and great insight on life. I'm really glad I finally got to meet her in person.














The view of Boston from my hotel wasn't all that bad either.

So, after what became a very successful night in Boston, I managed to get on my plane to Halifax. Now, it turns out that the Northeast is having record high temperatures for the winter. Good thing because it was still pretty chilly, but nothing like the bone-numbing cold I was expecting. I had a two-hour drive from the airport to the place where the install was taking place, so I got to see quite a bit of Nova Scotia, It's a really pretty place. All lakes and rocks and seashore.


After I finished up with the first day of my install I took the opportunity to explore the countryside a bit. While it was unseasonably warm, as you can see it was still pretty chilly.



As part of my exploration I thought that I simply MUST touch the Atlantic Ocean. On all my travels to the east coast, this was something that somehow managed to elude me. So I drove over to the seashore. (right across from the above picture mind you) and decided to dip my hand in the ocean water. I quickly discovered that this water was rather bone-numbing cold. In fact my hand turned instantly numb (aided of course by the 30 degree temperatures and the wind chill) So, being the intelligent person I am, I decided it was worth it to touch the water again. I then discovered the joys of getting minor frostbite... another first for Eldon.


After that adventure, I continued my drive around the countryside. At this point the sun was starting to set, providing me with a chance for truly stunning pictures of the red sky reflected in the ocean.




I finally managed to get back to my hotel room after stopping every 5 minutes to take pictures. The next couple pictures were taken from right outside the hotel where I was staying.

























The remainder of the trip was pretty uneventful, I managed to get on a plane, head through Boston, and Salt Lake City in my return quest to land in Portland. Of course, what I heard upon landing was pretty damn eventful all in all.........

Holday Party Nazi-Party

Jesse and Ildiko throw an annual holiday party. This party tends to be over the top (as house parties go) simply because it's hosted by Jesse and Ildiko, who together have more kitchenware than Martha Stewart in a drug induced dream. In any event this years party was a success, the venue was changed due to the fact that Keith and Talya happened to own a really nice house over in Clackamas. It was a bit of a drive for most of us, but overall worthwhile. Let the photos begin..

(Wrong year, I know... but it's perfect)

All in all I must say that 2006 was a pretty crappy year. But the old adage holds true, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, teaches you and makes you a balanced person. We only truly learn about ourselves when we face our fears, and our limits. For that 2006 was a stellar year, although I would much prefer to not have to deal with one of those again in this lifetime.

May you live in interesting times, 2006 was certainly that, and while circumstances might have decided to kick a lot of people in the teeth, and a lot of pain was shared, remember to learn from it, don’t dwell on the past.

Pain is the body’s way of telling you to pay attention something important is going on here. It’s as important as happiness as it provides contrast and getting more information is never a bad thing.

So, thank you very much 2006 for teaching me so many lessons. Thank you for putting so many wonderful people in my life, and thank you for the happy moments. Now get the hell out of here…

New Year's Eve... Eve

Saturday, was a sort of a difficult day for me, something about having too much time to think. I wish I could turn my brain off at times, as it’s always looking for solutions, answers and mapping out things that haven’t happened yet. Reminds me a bit of a chess game, thinking ahead several moves, problem with that is that when it’s not really in a good place, the moves, solutions and thoughts that tend to run though it are not exactly conductive to continued sanity. Didn’t help that I had to do something really difficult in the afternoon, something that brought home exactly what I lost and how much I miss Brandy.

Again though, my friends came though for me, I got a random invite to a party downtown from Simon. While I didn’t end up going, the invitation made me happy. I also talked to my friend Erin, (who is going to kill me for posting her picture.) We decided to go and hang out at the Asian Gardens (bad karaoke place in Beaverton) Funny story is that I had been there before about 7 years ago for Chad’s 21^st birthday (before I moved to Portland). That story deserves a blog in and of itself.

Justin managed to join us there a little later in the evening as well, and both of them managed to put up quite nicely with my tidal emotional state… (look he’s happy, look he’s annoyed, look he’s sad). New game… guess where Eldon’s mind is at….

Didn’t help that nearly every single Karaoke song on the play list was a love song.

Afterwards we headed over to Justin’s place for pool and more drinks. Fun and very um… Educational night….

Night on the town

After the events of the week, I was feeling the need to be distracted; Emily and Nancy volunteered to drag me out on the movie night they already had planned. We started the night at Rock Bottom where I overcame my depression induced anorexia to consume a large steak. Take that body… red meat trumps all.

After that and two very strong cocktails we headed over to the movie theater to watch Night at the Museum. The movie was quite good, but I almost got kicked out as my cell phone went off during the show. Ok, so it was before the show, and the ringer wasn’t REALLY that loud.

All in all a pretty fun night… helped take my mind off current events for a few hours and that was exactly what needed to happen.

Friends

First of all I have to apologize to my readers (both of them) for the turn my blog has taken. When I started my blog I promised myself I would write about my life and avoid the deep emotional things that most blogs tend to turn into. Well, that was before the last 6 weeks (good lord has it only been 6 weeks) The last six weeks have been an emotional roller coaster of epic proportions. I’ve laughed, cried, done both at the same time and learned quite a bit about myself and life. While it hasn’t been fun, and I’ll likely be recovering from the aftermath for quite some time, I wouldn’t take away the experience for anything.

Only through adversity do we truly learn about ourselves. When life happens to you, the only thing you can truly do is learn from it. The past is the past, learn its lessons well, make your present the best you can, and use the knowledge to plan for your future. One cannot live in the past and dwell on it. I believe that would be a sure road to insanity. Live, learn, and strive to always improve.

I’ve learned another valuable lesson as well. I have truly great people in my life. I have the tendency to hide when bad things happen. I take everything into myself so as not to worry or upset those around me. However, I’ve discovered that the people I choose to surround myself with are caring, wonderful, compassionate people that I can depend on when things get so overwhelming that I can’t handle it. This blog is just a thank you to all the people in my life. I’d like to think that I’m a good judge of character and if you’re any indication, I am indeed. Thank you for helping me, each in your own ways. I’m still hurting and I doubt I’ll be at 100% for some time, but you’ve helped me find my center and my strength, and I can go on from there. I hope that I can do the same for each and every one of you in the future.

Torrent

Alas, many days have past after I said I would be blogging, I've yet to put up a new blog. I have my reasons, but still excuses are like um... noses, ya... everyone has one.

Work is interesting, VERY stressful, they are asking me to do much more work than before and we have yet to discuss any additional compensation, I pulled up a salary.com report on myself and I should be making over 30K more than I'm currently pulling down. That was a bit painful, so hopefully I'll find out today if a decent raise is in my future, if not I'll begin the hunt for new employement. Maybe I can arrage to be unemployed during the summer again, that was really really fun... best time of my life, I was laid back, fun to be around, and I didn't bite people's heads off for no reason, or create issues where none should be. What is it about work and stress that turns normal people into rat bastards? A certain friend of mine is thinking about dropping out of the working world... I envy him.

On the personal front, my life has been confusing to say the least. Although I've come to a realization that I should have come to months ago. You know, I went as a caveman for halloween, I carried a big club. Someone should have used that club on my head months ago. *grin*



Alas, life is never simple and rarely easy...