Accidentally deleted comments

Crap! I know few people (if any) read this blog but, just for accuracy and completeness, I was trying to delete spam comments from one of my other blogs, I accidentally deleted a boatload of comments from here.

Car accidents

My son was in a car accident this morning. His second mother (it's a long story) was bringing him home so he could go to school and some kid who was speeding ran into them. Thankfully no one was seriously hurt. The kid had to go to the emergency room. My son was quite a bit shaken up, this was his second accident but this time he was in the front seat. The pickup he was in didn't have a back seat. The air-bags deployed but he had already turned his head away so it just got him in the cheek. His ankle was bruised or sprained, the kid hit the passengers side of the pickup. Anyway, we kept hi home today and are going to take him in for a "just-to-be-safe" doctor visit tomorrow. Hhmmm... I should try and remember to call the school about tomorrow.

It all reminded me of the accidents I'd been in over the years. Most were fender benders but two were significant. One was when a guy pushed me off of the road into snow and ice which caused the car to crash into the middle guard rail, slide right over two lanes and hit a small snow bank at the foot of a retaining wall. I was ok but the car was totaled. It was my sisters car. She'd only had it for a couple of weeks. She was not amused.

The other one was fairly serious. My head when through the front window and everyone in the car was hurt to some degree. Nothing bad enough for hospital but more than just a little bump. The passengers were my two brothers and our sister. Afterwards I was very shaken up, mostly about the fact that I could have caused one of my siblings to be critically hurt or worse. The cause, though, was the right front tire blew out on a snow covered road. We went down a 12 to 15 foot embankment where the care ended up lying on the drivers side after doing a couple of rolls. There was more but these were the highlights. For weeks after I could still see the car rolling whenever I'd close my eyes.

The ups and downs

Ever notice how people tend to use a roller coaster as the metaphor for life's travels? The whole up and down thing is understandable. But life tends to be a lot less forgiving than an amusement part ride. The ups and downs in life are far more intense and have much less warning. Closer to a rocket shot; straight up and straight down.

Right now I'm in the middle of limbo. The job in PA went very well but was a real killer. Nearly 4 weeks in a hotel away from my son... That's far to long a time to be away. Now I'm in wait state while the sales people are working out another gig. I did get my first paycheck from the new job and it was almost enough to catch me up on things. But I need new glasses and had to put down half for them to start making them. Now the glasses are in but I can't pick them up till I get more money in. Heh, as a side note this prescription is bifocal. Damn I'm getting old.

On a good note I have been on two dates since I got back. One was with the Chinese lady friend from way back. The other with a setup through that Together Dating. They both were nice and I hope to see them both again. I'm pretty sure I'll see the former but can only hope about the latter. The funny thing is I have four more "introductions" in my bag. I've setup dates with three of them but still need to touch base with the fourth. Next weekend is going to be very busy.

What else... I'm still hoping to start my plan. It's not going to be easy as it's far more likely I'll spend the days lying on the couch watching TV than trying to re-learn programming. It would be good for me if I did get back into hacking, though. And it is something I really like. The lack or motivation and, more critically, discipline is what's holding me back. I know it. You know it. Everyone knows it. But lazy is more than just a state of mind. It's a way of life. Well, for some of us it is.

Oh, before I forget, I started smoking the Eclipse cigarettes again. The Wellbutrin was working wonderfully but I ran out of the prescription while up in PA and the stress from the training and being away from my son was to much. I need to call the doctor and get it renewed this week.

Anyway, them's the highlights. I'll try and get on here more often but don't hold your breath. Remember, lazy is a way of life.

Life moves way to fast!

It's been a while since I've updated this blog. A lot has happened. Well, one thing has happened but it was a major life-altering thing. I got a job.

It's not just "a job" though. See, I've been working with and using Linux and open source since November 1991. I'm a big advocate of Linux and open source. I've participated in a number of open source projects, written articles and helped with the spreading of Linux whenever I can. This job is like a dream. I will be doing Linux/open source training, Linux/open source consulting and building Linux/open source solutions for companies. Can you believe it? I still can't. Right now I'm in PA doing three weeks of Linux training with the potential of some add-on consulting. It's been a little rough, though. It's been a while since I've done anything more than one day sessions but this first week seems to have gone well.

The one down side is that I'll be away from home for three and a half weeks. That's a long time away from my family, especially my son. That reminds me, I need to call him.

[...]

Ok, just got off the phone with him. He's doing good but misses me. I miss him very much. Thank $DEITY that my mother is there to watch him. If she wasn't I don't know if I could have taken this position. Another reason I wish I had a wife/girlfriend.

On that front, I believe that I'm going to give up looking for a woman. Not necessarily forever but for a while at least. It's to distracting. And it's not likely that I will ever find anyone anyway. Man, you know it's bad when your own mother also doesn't think I'll ever find a woman. Very depressing.

Which reminds me... I have run out of the Wellbutrin. The Doctor has said I need to see him again before continuing the prescription refilled. That's not likely to happen anytime soon as I won't be back for over two more weeks. Unfortunately the lack of the Wellbutrin has meant that I started smoking those damned Eclipse cigarettes.

Oh well, what the hell. Or as Miles says in Risky Business, sometimes you just have to say, "What the fuck."

Catch up is more than just a condiment

It's been really freaked here lately. Going on a month of unemployment, which means the bills haven't been paid in two months. I'm getting calls and email from everyone wanting money. I have no money and will not be getting more anytime soon. My disability annuity just covers the rent. Life sucks.

As for the job situation, I am getting a boat load of calls from recruiters. My skill set and expertise are quite good. However, they are only looking for full-time employees. As soon as I mention my part-time limitation they all say the same thing.

Paraphrase: "We have no part-time positions available but will keep you in mind if something comes open."

I'm sure they mean well. It's just that it's very hard to place me. There is one possibility that looks promising but I don't want to say anything as not to jinx it.

On the home front, my son is doing both exceptional and abysmal in school. Academically he's running 2 to 3 grades beyond his current one. Emotionally/interpersonally he's 2 to 3 grades below. He lacks discipline and the ability to self monitor his behavior. It's nothing extreme. He's just a bit talkative and, when he gets bored, he wants to occupy himself in loud and boisterous activities. Most of the time trying to get his classmates to join him. I know why he lacks the discipline and there's not much I can do to fix that (I am trying, though). But he is very capable of behaving in the right environment. He had almost no problems when he was in Tae Kwon Do and he's never been a problem when he visits his grandmother. He's generally good for me, too. I think that the school systems in this day and age aren't prepared to handle boys. Girls will, generally, behave fairly well. The boys are, well, why do you think that "boisterous" starts with a "boy" sound? We'll work it out somehow.

Health is, well, I have no idea. The last few weeks I've had a headache that won't go away and some body aches that are above and beyond the FM. Today I was up at 4am with chest pains. They seemed to come and go all day. My left arm was numb and weak. I mean much more so than normal. I almost called 911 on two occasions but didn't. Yes, I know... I'm being a pig-headed, stupid man who won't call the doctor when he's sick. I've done the chest pains/911/ambulance/hospital thing already and it's not something I want to do again. No, it doesn't make any sense. But if I'm still having them tomorrow I will call. That is if I am still alive in the morning. Waking up dead would be a real drag.

I haven't started my grand plan yet. I didn't think that it would be easy to. I'm infamous for wanting to do something but never getting around to actually doing it. There's always a distraction here or there. And I'm very easily distracted. Most of the time it's email or the web so I'm going to setup the other system with something (maybe SUSE or CentOS or most likely FC3) and keep the browser and email apps disabled. I can pop over to my main machine if I need something. I guess I'm just not very enthusiastic about doing C coding. But if I want to get back into it, and do any hacking on open source projects, I'm going to need it. A foundation in C isn't all that bad, really. I should probably move onto Java after that but I don't know if I'll ever get that ambitious. Hell, I have no ambition. That's half my problem.

Let's see, what else... Can't think of anything off-hand. I think if things all the time and say, "I should blog that" but it's been so hectic lately I just don't feel like getting on. I recorded the F1 year in review thing from the Speed Channel and, whenever I get 'round to watching it, I might post something about it.

Why? Simply, why?

There has to be a reason. Doesn't there? I mean, we're not talking about the immaculate reception. Why the pain? Why the debilitating, crushing, grinding pain? Why the weakness and numbness? Isn't the pain enough? Why do all the meds I take impair cognitive abilities? Why is it getting worse? Why can't I get some help? I know that I am my worst enemy in many ways (just ask my mother about my [not] getting a flu shot). I missed two appointments; one with the talker and one with the doctor. The former was really more important than the latter but I can't get a hold of the practitioner to try and reschedule. I think she's decided that I am not worth "treating" and am not in a great need of her services. If that's the case then she'll be in for a surprise when I end up in the emergency room with slits on my wrists.

Speaking of which, in a former post I had pondered about how I would do the deed. This weekend would be a good time for it. He'll be with his mother (at least he is supposed to be with her) so I could just hole up and bleed out. It's supposed to be fairly painless and you just pass out and die. Not an unpleasant thought, really. If the warm water would hold out the wrist slitting in the shower thing does seem the best way. But we're getting into the cold time of year here in the northern hemisphere so the hot water doesn't last that long. It would need to last until I lost consciousness. I really hate taking a cold shower.

I also hate getting into a cold pool. My son has no hesitations. He's a water baby and will not get out of the pool even when his lips and fingers are blue and he's chattering so hard he can hardly talk. He swims like a fish and fears nothing when it comes to water play. Luckily last summer Grandma was able to take the kids to the pool at the country club. The girls are good but he is great. His mother was a great swimmer and $DEITY knows he didn't get my physique, thankfully. He's going to be a great athletes in whatever sport he will play. I think it'll have running as a bases for it, though. Running is his #1 favorites thing to do. Well, that and watching cartoons. Kinda contradictory there, huh?

Hmm... This is an interesting post. I started out with the pain into suicide thing then moved over to my son. And damned if talking about him didn't completely distract me from the black thoughts. It is true. A truth so strong and fundamental as to be gospel... Without him I would have already committed suicide. Definitely. No question. No him? No reason for a me? Why? Because I have no other benefit I can give to society. I cost more than I produce so I run at a loss. No business can run at a loss and survive for long. And the reason for this is the pain and weakness and pain and numbness and pain I have from the FM.

So, we're full circle. Why? Why must I fight against so much pain? Why do I have such a wonderful boy? Why is the desire to end the pain using drastic measures becoming so strong? Why is it that my only hold on life is my son? Why isn't there SOMETHING out there that could help me?

To quote a great man, "This shit is really fucked, man."

I don't know where I'm goin'

But I sure know where I've been.
Hangin' on the promises of yesterday
But I've made up my mind
I ain't wastin' no more time
'cause here I go again
Here I go again

I haven't been posting for a while. I'm even late with my "Comments on the Japanese Grand Prix." Life hasn't been so good lately. Being a single parent is hard enough. Being a disabled single parent is bad. Being a disabled single parent on a fixed income where you're forced to work a part-time job in order to pay the rent and buy food sucks. Now, to top it all off, I might lose the part-time job. I've been so bad lately with the symptoms of the FM that I've missed a ton of work. I'm on a 30 day "probation" now. If I lose the part-time gig I can't live on the disability check at all. No house, and they take away my kid. His mom is "between dwellings" so that's a bit of a difficulty. It's not very sunny here these days.

Since you've been gone
Since you've been gone
I'm outta my head, can't take it
Could I be wrong
But since you've been gone
You cast a spell so break it

I ran across this site called imode the other day. It's really very lame and mostly seems to be used by AOL'ers, kids and IM'ers but I thought what the hell and signed up. It's free anyway. You can put up a smiley to show what your mood is. The cool thing is that it will use all the moods to make an aggregated mood for the Internet. Looks like this -

The Current mood of the Internet is .

At least it was when I typed this.

My moods have been rather dark so far. Wonder why...

Doctor doctor, please
Oh, the mess I'm in
Doctor doctor, please,
oh, the mess I'm in

Right at this exact moment iTunes is playing "2 Minutes to Midnight" by Iron Maiden. I'm really glad I got to live through the heyday of Heavy Metal. We were all living in Germany then so it wasn't like it was here with the hair and the glam and stuff. It was barebones, no-holds-barred, shred your face mayhem. $DEITY it was glorious. Heh, how Klingon of me to say that. But it was. I lived from about 17 to 25 in mind thrashing happiness. Hell, even when I was unhappy I was still happy. You know all those old guys who talk about the glory days? It's true. When you get to a certain time in life you realize what a great thing youth is. I'm going to try to do everything I can so that my son can have a life as wondrous and grand and humbling and driving as I did. 'Course a lot of that will depend on the coming US elections. Speaking of which...

If ever there was a time when "None of the above" should be on the ballot this is it. I know people out there who are very adamant about being either for one of the guys or against the same guy. I can't honestly, in good conscious, vote for either of them. But then I either have to not vote or vote for one of the fools running on various independent platforms. Either way it's a wasted vote. Sometimes it's not worth it but I will vote. I probably won't know who I'll vote for until I actually pull the leaver, but I'll vote. I mean, I am a USian after all.

The boys are back in town
The boys are back in town
The boys are back in town
The boys are back in town

Things goin' on

Another 4am update.

My son is having trouble sleeping. He's having nightmares and the crickets are to loud. I wish I could exterminate every cricket within hearing range. Normally I am very, "Don't kill it", with bugs and other living things. It's the almost Buddhist in me. But crickets are a different story. They should all die, no exceptions. Well, maybe Jiminy Cricket, but all the rest are flamebait. Anyway, he's not getting much sleep. I put on an album (CD for you under 30 crowd) to drown out the noise and help relax him. He likes it and it does seem to work.

But he's also having some nightmares from watching Terminator and T2. He'd already seen T3 but not the first two so this morning he watched a double feature over at Grandma's house. He'd spent the night there on a sleep-over and had a great time. But between the crickets and the bad dreams he's been waking up (2 times so far) and waking me up as well.

The first time he woke up I came into the computer room to see if there was anything in my iTunes library that we could listen to but he nix'ed everything. Then he saw the playlist that had only one 20 second song in it. It was my first experiment with GarageBand. I showed him what it was and we ended up making a 30 second piece that's really pretty good. He helped me select all the tracks and was the one who wanted three guitars in it. Maybe we can fill it in more over the weekend.

The second time he woke up I put on his album again and said I'd come lay down with him after I answered a little email. I can usually get away with this one as he falls asleep and I can just go straight to bed. I just stopped here for a quick sec... I shoulda known better.

There's more going on in life but my brain is fried right now. Most of it is the same $#it over and over. One thing I do have to do this weekend is fix the laptop from work. I totally hosed it on Thursday and spent Friday trying to recover it. I got almost everything working except X. The change from XFree to Xorg is a bit to tricky for me to do manually. I'll just blow everything off and reinstall from scratch. It's a Dell laptop <subliminal message>Dell Sucks!</subliminal message> but despite that fact it works fairly nicely.

$DEITY I'm tired! The sun is coming up. Man, I really wish I had a girlfriend or wife so much. I wouldn't be sitting here typing this bullshit if I did. I'd be in bed sleeping with her in my arms. It's the holding and hugging and kissing I miss the most.

It's oh-three-thirty. Why am I still awake?

I'm so damn tired I can barely see but I can't get to sleep. My son is dead-out and when morning comes he'll be whizzing around at 145 kph like normal. I'll never be able to keep up.

It seems that Blogger has a new compose interface. Lots of new formatting features. However it seem that the spell checking doesn't work. That's definitely not a good thing in my case. My spelling prowess, or the lack thereof, is (in)famous around the world. Anyone who's ever received an email from me before good spell checkers came into being knows how truly bad I am at English word spelling. I can probably still tear up German but in the 41 years I've been around spelling English words is something I just can't grep.

$DEITY, I just fell asleep at the "wheel". Dozed off and ended up pressing the space bar for a L-O-N-G time. What a trip.

I'm hungry. I want a snack but don't have any in the house. Well I have Oreo and chocolate/peanut butter chip cookies but no milk. Can't eat the cookies without milk.

Man I wish the spell checker worked. I can still use my workaround, open a compose window in Evolution, type the message there then cut-n-paste it to the Blogger form. Think I'll do that... Ok, now I'm in Evolution. Already found a small handful of words misspelled.

I didn't get an article written for LWN this week, which was disappointing. I'll be working double-time this weekend. I know that they are relying on me for some content as many of their outside writers are on vacation and such.

Oh hell, I fell out again. My snoring woke me up. That's one thing I can claim to be world class in... Snoring. You can hear me from the other side of the house and possibly from outside my bedroom window.

My son is all hooked on a Spider-Man game on his iMac. I need to get a joystick for him. The guy at CompUSA said that all the ones they had there would only work under a Microsoft OS. I think he's full of it as a USB is a USB. But I'm going to check with the Mac store, just in case.

That's enough for tonight. Or should I say this morning?

Insomnia sucks

I'm sitting here at oh-dark-thirty in a small room with the only light visible coming from my monitor. My son has been happily sleeping for at least 4 hours but I've been wandering around the house looking for something to do.

• I did a little email answering as well as deleting the 1800+ spam email messages caught by my anti-spam tools
  
• Watched a bit of the Tonight Show. Leno had Sharon Stone on and was just drooling all over himself. But then again so was I... Halle Berry will be on tomorrow night so much more drooling is to be expected.
  
• Had a small dip of Skoal. Since I was drooling I might as well make use of all that extra saliva.
  
• Came back to the computer and fiddled around some more
  
• Decided to write this entry
  

So here I am. Tired as hell as I didn't get to sleep last night till after 0245. I did make it into work today, thank $DEITY. The new meds I got from the doctor on Monday seem to be helping, though I was quite "stoned" all day. Hopefully that will be a minor side effect that will go away after taking it for a while.

I seem to be ready to pass out so I'm off to bed now. I won't get to sleep in much at all as my son will undoubtedly wake me up around 0800 to make him breakfast. I think I'll make pepperoni and eggs tomorrow. It's incredibly good breakfast food. Just throw a bunch of pepperoni slices in a frying pan and cook them for a little bit. Then throw some scrambled eggs in, cook and serve with toast. Mmmm.... Gettin' hungry just thinking about it.

Tired and sick

I'm really sick and tired of being sick and tired. After having a few good weeks last month this week just plane sucks. I was a mess on Tuesday but was able to make it into work. Wednesday is my off-day but I ended up in bed almost all day. Today hasn't been much better but it also means another day missed from work. Additionally, I had planned to start going back to Tae Kwon Do this week. The instructors are going to think I'm never coming back. At the rate things are going they might be right.

I got all of my sons TKD equipment over to his mothers so hopefully he'll get to a couple of classes a week. That would be at least something. The fall tournament normally happens the end of October or the beginning of November. Next week the TKD school is closed for summer vacation so the best I can hope for is to try again in two weeks. I don't know how but I do need to get back into going. It helped my health quite a bit and it is a lot of fun. Definitely better than just lying on the couch in front of the TV for hours.

I'm just so damn tired of the constant pain. It's crushing, like a boulder on my back. It's a good thing I'm not feeling well enough to drive, though. If I were I'd probably be out getting cigarettes again. (I've been quit this time for almost three weeks, I think)

Last week with my son

I've been divorced for two-and-a-half years after a one-and-a-half year separation. During this time the physical custody of our son went from me having him only every other weekend to us alternating weeks with the weekends to the current setup of me having him all week during the school year and her having him all week during the summer. We still alternate weekends and the major holidays. Tomorrow I take him over to spend the summer with her.

This is going to be a long three months.

The Daily Grind

Unless I'm jinxing myself by saying this already, when I go to work tomorrow it will be the first full work week I've had since I don't remember. Missing all that work has made a real impact on my income. I only get paid for the hours I work. The last few paychecks were between half and 2/3's. I had to borrow money from my mother yesterday just to get gas in the car. Hopefully, with the warmer weather and the adjustments to the medication I'm on, I will be in much better shape and have a better chance of being able to work the hours I am supposed to.

There is one thing that annoys me on occasion. My ex-wife will complain that she's short on money and needs her girlfriend to work in order for them to have enough to live on. Yet I, with virtually the same net income, have to pay for almost everything related to our son (child care, school lunches, school clothes, health insurance/medical costs, food and lodging for the school year). Not to mention any extra curricular activities like Tae Kwon Do (tuition, uniform, testing, graduation, etc). It's just me and him in a house I am renting for $1180/mo while most of the time is her and her girlfriend in an apartment with a much lower rent and no child expenses. She does have a brand new car (well it's a 2001 Ford Taurus) and doesn't seem to have any trouble going out every other weekend or going to a concert.

But it's not the crying of "I'm so poor" that's the worst. It's the fact that she has someone there with her to help her with our son. If she's not feeling good her girlfriend can spend time and play with him. When I'm under the weather, which happens often due to the medical disability I have, I got no one to help me with him. He is such a sweet and intelligent boy, though. When I am hit hard (i.e. unable to get out of bed at all) he does a great job of taking are of me. He really is an incredible and wonderful child.

I get paid on the 15th so hopefully that will let me pay off the big-ass stack of bills sitting on the table. Playing the bill juggling game really sucks. After next week our son will be staying with his mother for the summer (I get him during the school year and we alternate every weekend and major holidays). It will be very difficult to be in the house alone. Last summer I spent the time lying on the couch watching crap on TV that sucked because I didn't even feel like moving enough to change the channel. This summer I am going to put forth an effort to get back into programming again. That and start going back to TKD again. It's been nearly a year since I've been there regularly. I am hoping that the hacking and TKD will keep me motivated enough so I don't fall into the "Pit of Despair" when he's not here.

And with a little luck I can kick this Eclipse habit that's stuck on me worse than white on rice. I was able to stop for a few months using Skoal but about two weeks ago I fell back into the cigarette's. There are just some days that you can't get through w/o something to give a little kick. What I need is a wife.

My personal home page

It's been many, many years since I worked on my useless vanity page. So this evening I redid it. It's even more sparse than before but the directories are cleaned up and now I should be able to make a simple but decent looking bunch of pages. Something like what I did with the now defunct WebTrek site.

I hate long weekends when I don't have my son

I had an article about the European GP race at the Nurburgring on Sunday but it wasn't to be. During my eloquent and insightful wright-up the browser crashed. Oh well, such is life.

The Ex and I alternate weekends with our son throughout the year with me having him during the week while school is in then she gets him during the week in the summer. We keep switching weekends throughout the whole year. I do get to have two consecutive weeks with him during the summer. Major holidays, Like Christmas, New Years, Easter and Thanksgiving are alternated yearly. Minor holidays, like today, he just stays with the one of us that would normally have him then. By explaining all of this I'm leading up to the fact that there are two or three weeks left of school. With the snowday's they've had this winter I'm not sure when his last day will be. I believe it's the weekend of June 19-20. That's fine by me as I want to get every moment I can to be with him.

The only other thing of interest this weekend has been my insomnia. It's extremely rare that I can't sleep but I didn't sleep a wink Friday night nor Saturday night. I got about 4 or 5 hours last night but I am running on fumes. It's already nearly two hours past when I wanted to go to bed. All the meds are kicking in and I feel like I'm underwater. Everything is slow and I can't focus my eyes on anything. It's very much like being underwater.

This means I have to call an end to this entry. I can't see the screen or the keyboard.

Another blog

First is was K5. Then iBlog. Now I'm trying Blogger. It seems that this might be the best mix of features and simplicity for me. If the email-to-post feature works as easily as I hope then I might have found the best way to actually keep things updated.

Of course, only time will tell if this will be the case.