Women get jobs and look older

I don’t know, maybe 25 is the age when women throw off girlish things? I’ve been cruizing the personals (yay internets!) more because I’m bored, and women my age seem… I don’t want to say older, but it feels like there’s an age gap between them and those who are a year or two younger. The way they dress, the way they style their hair, the makeup they wear…

That or they’ve got kids. WTF? I know I’m not 17 anymore but who is knocked up and single by age 25? That’s crazy to me.

I guess what it really boils down to is I feel like they’re more mature than I am. I wear a t-shirt and flip flops (pants optional, jk) to work. I wake up at noon on “early days”. I eat Cap’n Crunch. I don’t do the dishes if I don’t feel like it. I leave my laundry in the dryer because no one else is going to use it before I do.

I feel like I have my life together though. I pay my bills, I’m happy, why do I need to be “old”? I also feel like I should be able to find a woman who is in the same position I am. I think what makes it tough is that it can be easy to mistake youth and immaturity for “enjoying life”. I think of myself as someone who is grown up, but still thinks life kicks ass.

The Deer Head That Wasn’t

As I mentioned, this past weekend I reffed at Dublin, OH with the anticipation of recieving a talking deer head as payment. Well it seems that it’s not talking deer head season so the only place you can get ‘em is online. So I got a check instead. But instead of applying that money to a deer head as I intended, I decided to pick up an old prject of mine, the Fencing Software Scoring Machine.

You see, the little scoring boxes we use to determine who hit who run about $350 on up to $1,000. The problem is that a simple box is really only about $50 in parts. The price is high because the fencing market is a small one. So what I wanted to do was write some software that would do the same job. Maybe charge a few buck for a download or disc to cover my time and be done. Well there’s a little dongle, that initialy I designed to attack to the parallel port since it was piss easy to make. But many PCs these days are shipping without a parallel port, so now I’ve got parts on the way to make it USB compatible.

Since the parts are on the way I decided to at least get some of the programming out of the way. So between Sunday and today I got foil working. I ended up basing my design off the Assembly code for a free hardware scoring box (free meaning you have to update it from the 10 year old design and out dated parts list). Which meant I had to re-learn assembly. I thought “I’ll never use this” back when i took the class in Purdue. And to wit, I probably wouldn’t have if I didn’t leave the computer field and become a full time fencer.

So now I’m considering if I want to give away the software and charge for the dongles (maybe assembled or kits), or if I want to charge for the software, and just provide plans for the dongles and people have to make their own. What would be cool is if a vendor wanted to pick it up and sell it for me. MMMmmmm.

Molly

Saturday I traveled to the not-so-distant land of Dublin, OH which is just outside Columbus. The reason: Referee the Great Lakes Fencing Team Challenge. The Pay: One talking deer head+mileage. As it turned out I was the ONLY ref there and they couldn’t find the deer head so they just wrote me a check. The turnout was low thankfully so we were done by 5:30 and I made a phone call to Molly since she lived in Dayton which I would be passing by. She had just returned from Texas and so we set up dinner at Olive Garden.

It was a much needed dinner. I got to laugh, talk about non-fencing things (and fencing things of course) and listen to some new stories as well as get to know Molly a bit better. She’s an interesting “hub” of Will Read life. She fenced with Heather, took classes with AnneC, dated my former roomie, Bruno, and pretty much turned me down flat when I wanted to date her. After that last incident I’m pretty surprised that we’ve kept in touch. She’s usually impressed that I keep in touch with her after the Bruno break up. I guess we just impress each other.

So now she’s back at law school and she’ll be finished in a year. She connected with Brittany about law school back at my going away party when I was moving out of Cinci. I find myself thinking that it’s too bad she lives in Ohio otherwise there could be good times had by all. So like many of my other friends I’m forced to be content to see her when I see her and talk to her when I talk to her.

Exactly

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
  – Dr. Seuss

I think this is pretty much how I’ve run my life from day one. Back in college, the Great Dickersonian ask me about my friends. I told him that most of the people I knew were acquaintances, and only a select few fell in the “friend” category. Matt was a friend. My roommate was a acquaintance. The great part about this system is that you really start to get some high quality friends who always encourage you to do what’s best for yourself.

It’s not always the best route though. For example, it takes me a very long time to make a new friend, especially in a new place where I can’t rely on my like-minded friends to introduce me to new people.

Another downside is that I’ve been accused of being discriminating, that I’m not open to forming friendships with people who differ too much from my own value set. So while I don’t disagree about this observation, I don’t view it to be a bad thing either; a person should pick his friends wisely.

For those of you who recall my days of bright clothing and mismatched shoes, I used those to screen the people who talked to me. Those who were critical of the way I dressed were not concerned with who I was inside and so those people did not count, their opinion was easy to ignore. Those who were unfazed by my appearance, or even enamoured of my courage to stand out were the people that I wanted in my life. These days I’ve traded in my bright clothing for a colorful character, which has served me well thus far in the “adult world”.

It’s not for hackers

When they tell you not to use the same password for everything, it isn’t because of hackers, it is for people you trust.

At some point I had Kris use my password for something. Later she used it to gain access to the private entries in my blog. And so she read all the things that I had rolling around in my head. Things that I couldn’t tell anyone because I wasn’t even sure of them myself. Things that I just needed to get out and documented so when I look back on my youthful days I won’t think “Things were easier then”, I’ll know that I struggled with decisions.

She lied to me and said she came up with these things in a dream. And there were times where I felt like she knew things I didn’t tell her. What pisses me off the most is that she has been in situations where her private thoughts, where her emotions were used against her; it was her entire case for not being open with me.

So the trust is beyond gone and I’m done with the relationship. It’s over. I’ll be ok, and she’s a good person, so I hope she’ll be ok too and be able to learn from this.

The Internets Were Cooler…

I think the internet was cooler when I was in college, and certainly when I was in high school. I’m not entirely sure why but I have some suspicions:

•  I think part of it was that I had a web page and not just anyone could put together the kind of site I put together. Now any user can get a blog or MySpace page without knowing a line of code. The magic is gone. BTW, moms read MySpace.
• RSS keeps me from going to the site. I don’t stumble upon things anymore. I get the content I want and nothing more in my RSS reader.
• I don’t know where to meet people my age who aren’t giant ass holes. Back in the days of AOL being cool and Prodigy before that, chat rooms were where it was at. Now if I poke my head in a chat room I run a good chance of being labeled a pedophile. Fourms always have more than the lion’s share of opinionated ass holes and it’s tough to form a friendship when you’ve got some cocky SOB interrupting with how moot your point is or how you’re violating the traditions of the board.

So I sit on AIM while I read up on fencing wondering why I can’t think of a better way to spend my free time.

Gas Bill!

Gas bill this month was $4.50! That’s right, less than five bucks. That’s awesome. I realize I was gone 2.5 weeks of the month, but two other people were living here. I assume they needed to use the stove from time to time and needed the water heated. Crazy. All bills should be under $5. Where do I sign up for that deal?

Sing Fat Lady! Sing!

Summer is officially over in the land of Will! Purdue is back in session as are the grade schools. Kris has moved out so I’m alone in my apartment again. The air is getting cooler so I’m trying to use the AC less.

But it means fencing is ramping up again. I’ve already got two gigs as a referee lined up for the fall. I’ve also planned out most of the competition schedule for the entire year. I need to know when Purdue is going to be holding it’s opens and if they want me to coach meaning I’d tag along to the team events. Busy!

Next week is my last week before everything gets even busier. I’m planning to have RCF open an additional 9 hours each week, plus the home school group and the YMCA starts the week afterwards.

Strangely though, everything is falling into place, the way things magically seem to do around me. It’s weird. I’d like to say that I have some part in that, but I know some of it has to be everyone else, or voodoo, or pixie dust. Basically summer is over, new things beginning, end of non-cohesive-rant.

It would be a lie…

… to say that after today my life would slow down. You see, since I returned from Fencing Coaches College a week ago, I had a fencing club to repair, a open house to attend, and a whole mess of paperwork. Today is a commercial shoot for RCF which was generously given to me by my parents. The commercial will air on WLFI during premier week. I’m crossing my fingers that enough people will show up to make it seem like there really are fencers in Lafayette.

Tomorrow, Kris moves out and back to Cincinnati. Wednesday I’m having lunch with Mom after I give a presentation to a Hamlet class. Thursday, Nads will be in town. Friday another presentation to the other sections of Hamlet at Purdue. Saturday, I’m reffing out in Dublin, OH. Monday is Global Fest at Morton Community Center (another fencing demo). And then the new schedule starts where I’m waking up twice a week to teach a class at the YMCA at 5:15 AM, and then there’s the Home School clubs, followed by normal practice schedules.

All that should equate to more customers/income, which I desperately need, but ugh!