Most of the guys I know are great at socializing and making new friends. Scratch that, let us call them acquaintances. They meet new people, gab, chat, swap numbers, hang out, get involved in some light interpersonal drama and all is well in the universe. It seems like most of these connections are somewhat fleeting or lightweight though. While most people seem to water ski or snorkel through the social scene I tend to end up in diving bells way out at sea. It’s rare for me to find or make a new friend but when I do, they are almost always golden and part of my family. This has it’s advantages, lots and lots of them. And, though it is not a disadvantage to be able to forge such lasting bonds, I think it is possible I might be missing out on opportunities with people who are not quite as intense/neurotic/bizarre.

So let’s talk about contributing factors, shall we? Lets throw the two biggies right out there: I am retardedly insecure and I have trust issues. Hmm… it’s no wonder, really, how I could get backed into corners by my own demons of self defeat. I think I do a really good job of getting past them in the opening rounds of exchange, but as I am left to my own devices and my thoughts wander, my internal gaze inevitably falls upon my personal pandora’s box and things go downhill from there.

It really just comes down the qualms we have with various aspects of ourselves which I honestly think we all have deep (or not so deep) inside like weight, style, grooming, presentation, or personality. I think at any given time anyone has had doubts about one or all of these aspects of themselves. I just happen to allow myself to indulge in them quite a bit more often than I should and I don’t really quite know how to stop.

I know I am not alone here, but at the same time it seems like I am the only person who hasn’t figured out how to get past it? I don’t know! Any thoughts? More to come…

I know I am an odd duck. In many ways I relish it, but at times I am at odds with it. (At odds with being odd, har har.) I don’t connect well with most of the gay population that I am aware of. I get along with anyone well enough; but as for establishing a lasting social connection, that’s where things deteriorate quickly. I have a circle of golden friends whom I love, but the process of making new contacts is a freaking mess. Don’t even get me started on dating, that’s another beast all together wherein I am a total spaz at best.

I will always be the first person to acknowledge the fact that I am a headstrong spaz and total dork more often than not. My goal in life is to live with as much honesty, grace and humor as possible as I think those are the qualities I can most benefit from. I do sometimes wonder if that is the best approach or best set of ideals as I never seem to gain much ground in the socialization department. Maybe there is some area which I have yet to recognize or understand. This wouldn’t be the first time.

I guess for now, I will take comfort in knowing that so far I have made a life which I am proud of. I may not understand all of it, and I doubt I ever fully will. My friend-making process, though quite slow and semi-retarded, will continue to work as it has. I carry the hope that at some point, what and who I am will be enough for some special guy who will be willing and want to sweep me off my feet. I really do enjoy and am very happy with where I am at in my life right now, earlier grumblings included. However, finding the Petruchio to my Katherine or Katherine to my Petruchio would be such an exciting adventure.

It has been three years since my last relationship. It may yet be another three years before I find my next. Or it could be thee months, who knows! I just hope that it will happen at some point and that I will be able to recognize it and dive in if and when it does.

I haven’t been very up front with myself about a lot of things and the other day I sat down to get some work done on The Project and I started writing a down some points on what I wanted to accomplish. I do this when I’m having a mental block and low on inspiration or direction. The writing didn’t stay on topic for long and I ended up writing a ton of crap which came completely out of left field. Some of this stuff was very striking as it was on a couple subjects in my personal life I wasn’t wanting to acknowledge or had been avoiding. I realized it had been a very long time since I had written as candidly as that even for myself.

I am returning my iMac this week. That has turned out to be somewhat of a severely disappointing situation and I will say this to you, my gentle readers, and to any people random search engines throw my way:

The current revision of the iMac line (the late 2009 revision) is not to be purchased lightly. Do not buy one of these machines casually and expect for everything to be great. Though they are the most beautiful and refined desktop computers ever crafted in history in terms of design, their internals are the rotted spawn of satan.

Here are the issues I had with mine when I first received it:

• Yellow/jaundiced screen
• Extended boot times
• Failure to start from external drive
• Inconsistent wireless networking

I dropped it off at my local Apple Store on a Friday and received some awesome, top-notch assistance in reviewing the problems. I never heard back from the Apple Store. The next Thursday I called and was informed it had been ready for several days already and that they were unsuccessful in reaching me to let me know. I was irritated by that as the ONE feature I have come to find reliable from AT&T is the voice messaging system. I would know because I get more voice messages than I do successful phone calls. I went in to pick up the accursed machine on Friday after work and received excellent assistance from the people in the store.

The problems started when I got to my car. I noticed that the stand for the machine seemed a little scuffed up, but it looked like this was not permanent. I got it home and found that the new LCD panel they installed was still yellowed and to my dismay there were now dust and smudges in-between the outer glass and the LCD panel itself. At this point I was getting wary and was giving the machine a lot more scrutiny and I found that the glass on the display hadn’t been mounted correctly, leaving it skewed and off center and that the aluminum casing had been scuffed and damaged in several locations on the corners. It was at this point that I became furious.

It was irritating that I got a machine which was not in working order. It perturbed me to take the iMac in for repair less than 72 hours after I took receipt of it. It irked that the repair personnel didn’t bother to call and then lied about it. I was now mad that the display still was not fixed, infuriated that the repair personnel didn’t bother to complete the repair properly, and incensed that the manner in which they handled my computer SCRAPED AND GOUGED THE SOLID ALUMINUM CASE!

Dear person(s) responsible for the piss-poor work on my iMac,

If I ever meet you I may feel the need to scrape and gouge your face with the same force it took you to mar SOLID ALUMINUM. Alternatively I may feel inclined put contacts in your eyes containing dust, fibers and fingerprints. When you break something while doing your job, you report it and take corrective action. That was a dick move and karma will kick your ass up around your ears for being a douche.

XOXO,
Eli

I called Apple the next morning and very politely informed them that I was having problems and to see what could be done for the situation The guy on the phone was nice enough but clearly not listening as he kept trying to have me describe where on my laptop the damage was. I had to explain and then re-explain several times that I was using an iMac. He kept speaking over me trying to pawn me back off on the Apple Store. I had to stop him and just lay it all out and the more I talked about it the more upset I was beginning to feel about the situation.

I did not just spend my own hard-earned cash to buy an expensive new computer just to become Apple’s bitch and jump through hoops to somehow magically earn a fully-functional computer. That is not how this business/customer relationship works. You ship me a shit product, you make it go away. I very politely informed him that I was done and that I wanted to return the machine, the end. He woke up from autopilot, stopped feeding me crap lines and shut up for a moment and got me in touch with a product specialist who had his shit together.

I was informed that they wanted to “capture this unit for technical analysis and review” which sounds fancy. I gently informed him that I don’t care what they do with it, I just no longer want to see this stupid crap machine in my home anymore. He offered to replace the computer with a brand new one and I agreed. As sick to death of this whole process as I may be, I still need a new computer and I’m not yet at the point where I’m willing to spend any amount of money on a PC as a primary computing device.

At this point in time I’m now waiting for magical things to happen inside the walls of Apple so that my iMac is taken away and a new one is custom configured and shipped to me directly. If this new one is not in good order there will be much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. As it is, I’m really hoping that Apple will be kind enough to provide me with AppleCare as a result of all this crap to cover the new iMac once it arrives. Considering how much effort has gone into it so far, I think it would be the least they could do.

I have realized over the last while that I have utterly no clue what I want in life.  Yes, I know of many things that I want or activities which I would like to do, but I don’t have a clue as to what I want of myself or my experience in the long-term.  Maybe I’m wrong in thinking there is a distinction between the two because our lives are ultimately the sum of our smaller experiences and achievements.  It just seems to me that having a larger overarching goal, or at least direction, would be useful when weighing out choices or decisions.

Part of this mindset probably has something to do with having been raised as a Mormon in the Utah culture.  My existence from now through eternity was clearly mapped out.  When I was part of the church I didn’t just have a life-goal, I had an eternal game plan.  At the time I parted ways with the church, the rest of my eternal existence was looking something like this:

• Serve a mission
• Go to college
• Find eternal companion (spouse)
• Have children
• Raise children in the gospel
• Send children on missions and to college
• Serve a mission as a senior couple
• Die
• Be reunited with family in heaven
• Live for eternity in paradise

Yeah, there would be smaller varibles along the way which would have been up to me, but the goals and milestones were set out clear as day.  I’m not passing judgement on this plan, nor am I stating that it is a 100% accurate representation of what all Mormons see as their plan.  That just seemed to be the jist of how things were to go down for me.

I made peace with my parting from that path years ago and in the years since, I’ve been so very busy with some of my immediate goals that I was really passionate about.  I bought my home, I’ve worked hard at my job, I’ve built a solid circle of friends whom I love dearly, and I’ve learned a ton about myself and my capabilities.  These goals and achievements were inspired by needs and situations which arose from my life organically.  These were also very complex tasks, some of which are ongoing, which really occupied the bulk of my time and thought.

I’m now at a point where I’ve accomplished a lot of the meat of these goals and I find myself at a certain point in my journey.  It’s not what I would call a crossroads so much as an alluvial plain.  I chose a rushing river, jumped in with my kayak and navigated the rapids and cataracts and now I’ve emerged from the tight canyon walls and rushing waters into the flatlands.  (No I don’t kayak and yes, that even made me a little ill.)

Along the way I forged some really solid guiding principles but they do not really constitute a solid direction or heading.  They will do well to keep me out of trouble, but won’t provide a destination.  For now I will have to content myself with staying out of trouble (which I am more than thrilled to do).  I think my next big task will be the one of chosing what I do next and keeping myself in motion.  I am amused by the irony of this choice; my next big goal is to determine what my next big goal will be.  I don’t doubt that as with all things in my life, it turns out to be significantly different than anything I could expect at this point in time.

Additionally, I have a Very Big & Important Thing which I’m working on for work.  It’s very BIG and VERY important.  Because I don’t talk about my work for a vast multitude of reasons, I’m not able to go into much detail other than it’s consuming a very large amount of my time.  I’ve handled a similar Thing for work in the past which basically took 80 hours a week for over the course of more than a month to take care of, though this time around it’s not been quite so rough (so far *knocks on wood*).  This Very Big & Important Thing will take up a lot of my time through mid-late April.  Very Good things could happen as a result of this going well, but nothing is set in stone.

What I’m trying to say is that I’m going to be a slacker here for a bit.  The Hulett Plumbing Disaster will be concluded this week, I swear upon my iPhone that it will be done.

Blerg.

This sequence, and most importantly the song, were replaced recently with a new opening theme.  The new theme is a song which was written by The Chambers Brothers, “Time Has Come Today“.  I may be a premature fuddy-duddy, but I think that this is far from the most appropriate or stirring music for the scope of American Experience.  ”Time Has Come Today” is a good song on its own and has therefore been used extensively all over the media and television for thousands of different things.  But these thousands of different fleeting things are not American Experience, which I feel will stand the test of time for generations as quality media and film-making.  I submitted feedback on the program’s home page at PBS and I hope that it will be considered.

I’ve always enjoyed the exceptionally high quality of the subject material, writing, editing, photography and music on American Experience.  The program provides some of the most enriching content available on television, and now online, today.

It may seem trivial, but one of my favorite parts of the program has been the opening sequence.  Like a good palette cleanser before a fine meal, the two previous sequences helped clear my mind and prepare for the program set before me.  They were both exceptionally stirring and worked with the sublime images to pull me from my current surroundings into the story I was about to enjoy.  Those themes were classic and timeless and will never age or do injustice to the content of the films shown on the program.

I would politely request that you reconsider the use of “Time Has Come Today” as the theme music for the program.  I understand that it is more contemporary and that may have been a deciding factor for its use.  I argue that contemporary song, which is often overused for television and radio promotion, does not suit the depth, breadth, and richness of the films presented on American Experience.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to the continued excellence of the films and documentaries which has not changed.

In any case, I strongly recommend that you head over to their site now and watch some of their programs.  There are dozens available online in their entirety.  If you have never seen American Experience you need to drop what you are doing this instant and go watch a film right now.  I would recommend their program on Walt Whitman for your consideration.  I cried multiple times.

I’ve been sick for the last week and have been forced to take time off combat a sinus infection and to recuperate.  The final (?) chapter of The Hulett Plumbing Disaster will be coming this week along with a new seasonal series this which I’m retardedly excited about.  That is, of course, if I am able to get my house cleaned up and get some studying done for a work related project.  When these posts do hit though, both will contain some twists, turns and surprises which I hope you will find as interesting and exciting as I have.

P.S.  Am I the only one who’s home seems to fall completely to pieces and become an epic disaster when sick?  Hopefully I’m not alone here, otherwise I may have to figure out how to capture and market this amazing talent I have.  It looks like a bomb went off and I don’t even know where to start.

Why are you so terribly disappointing?.

Have you seen how many things there to be disappointed about these days? Love. Sex. Marriage. Stock market. God. Gas mileage. Death. Air travel. 5/9ths of the Supreme Court. It’s all just a big goddamn letdown. The list is endless. And getting endlesser…

But we don’t stop there. Not only are we disappointed, we need to express it. Vent it. Hiss it and spit it and hurl it like fistfuls of mental manure at the great wall of hey, screw you.

• Successfully pass my certification exam for work
• Get more fit
• Learn to play the piano
• Take more pictures and start working with them
• Cook and/or bake more stuff

Waffle-ey resolutions:

• Learn PHP
• Learn Objective-C

Ideas which failed to make the cut for one reason or another:

• Take up needlepoint
• Reproduce the Sistine Chapel ceiling in my living room
• Grow vegetables

I’m in love with the new album from Jonsi & Alex titled Riceboy Sleeps.  The song above, All the Big Trees, is one of my favorites, though I know that this genre is not everyone’s cup of tea.  It is, however, absolutely one of my favorites.  I like it because it is particularly good for setting up a soundtrack for any given moment in my day.  Songs like this are just as strong as they are subtle, work just as well cranked up as they do turned way down, and are just as capable of being heartbreakingly melancholy as they can be pure joy.

It’s great to be able to have something like this to fall back on when I want to be able to think without losing track of my own thoughts due to some catchy lyrics in a song.  I can barely type when people are talking near me, let alone think things through when I can hear singing.  I’m a big lyrics person, I can’t tune them out and my brain just latches on and I’m pulled along for the ride.  I love that and it really brings depth to my normal music listening, but right now I need a little extra time to keep on top of my thoughts and ahead of the curve.

I’m definitely finding myself in the happier end of things and feeling quite centered, which is amazing considering all the hubbub which is swirling around.  Thats why having a good soundtrack is so valuable to me right now.  It gives me the extra boost to keep on top of things without sidetracking me or forcing me to flounder in silence.