Change the site name?

I think it should be “I Need a Life” instead of “centration”. I need a girlfriend. I need a [second] job. I need local friends. I need a room mate.

Everything feels like… it just feels bad. I’ve got some significant debt hanging over my head. I also don’t feel like I can go out to places where I might meet people because I’ve got no money. But the job market in Lafayette is suckier than I remembered and I can’t seem to convince anyone to move into the weird ass house I live in.

To top it all off, Tuesday was a terrible day for me and fencing. There are reasons that I won’t go into here (you can ask, but there’s fencing people that don’t need to know my every thought), but a big part of it is that I still need to grow up.  

Head Hunter Hunter

“Hey there skilled programmer guy! We’ve got a job that’s perfect for you!”
“Ummm, sweet!”
“Just take this test to show your skill, fill out this paperwork in the next 20 minutes and we should be all set.”
“Great! Who will I be working for by the way?”
“We can’t tell you that now, but we can tell you that you’re a good fit.”
“Riiiiight, so when can you tell me?”
“Ask us tomorrow.”
[Tomorrow]
“So how about that job?”
“Yeah, so that position was filled by our cometitor yesterday, but there’s another great match somewhere else!”
“Where is it at?”
“We can’t tell you that now, …”

This has actually transpired no less than four times in the last three weeks between three different head hunters. Needless to say the job search does not go well.

Floaties

There’ve been some things floating in my head that I mean to blog about but they’re too short/pointless to really go through the effort, so now you get a big meatloaf of thoughts.

The movie Curious George was surprisingly good. The new George was very cute, and despite giving him a name of Ted, the Man in the Yellow Hat offered a fair amount of character depth. But the pace never slows down, great if you have A.D.D.

I’ve decided that what I really want girlfriend-wise is a band-geek. The more I think about it, the more I think I was on track early on in my significant other search and since then I’ve deviated from that which will really make me happy.

I woke up at 1pm today with three goals in mind: 1) do the dishes that had been in the sink for three weeks, 2) hang up my clothes that had been accumulating on the floor for three weeks, and 3) go through all the mail/papers on my desk. I just finished up all three and it’s 2am. If all goes well i’ll have a job interview tomorrow; I suppose I should get some sleep.

Godzilla!

Click the picture to generate your own warning label.

I know why

I know why I fence, why I coach, and why I feel so empty when I’m alone. It’s all because I feel like I know nothing when I don’t have someone to share my experiences with. I can’t validate that I know how to fence unless I compete. I can’t validate that I know how to coach unless I teach others to fence. I can’t validate that I’ve lived for 25 years unless I can tell someone else about the things I’ve done and been exposed to in that time. Everything in my brain is worthless unless I can share it.

That’s why the blog is a decent stand in. I can at least pretend that what I say here is read by someone else even if it isn’t true. Or I can tell myself that I’ll give it to someone years from now who will read it and find value in it.

To me it is important that someone, anyone finds value in my life. And the more valuable that person is to me, the more meaning it carries.

Italy

I’ve had a strange attraction to all things Italian. Well maybe not all things, but many things. Some of it I’m aware of, other things I look back and in hindsight find the connection. Things like the Rennisance, DaVinci, fencing, even the language. In high school when Italian wasn’t offered I took the closest thing to it, Spanish, and then followed up with four semesters of Italian in college. In history I always enjoy the portrayal of the “re-birth” of Europe and especially any mention of Italy. I only remember one set of historical facts about the changes of Europe, and they deal with Istanbul becoming Constantanople. I love Italian food, even if it is Americanized; Olive Garden, La Scala, Spaghetti’s are all top notch places to dine in my book. I also frequently cook alfredo, spaghetti, rotini, and ziti for myself.

Even the women I find attractive have strong Italian heritage. Like my 9th grade math teacher who got married and changed her name to Smith (lame). Or that woman from New Jersey… mmmm.

When I set out to find my birth parents, I found that I was concieved in Italy where my American birth parents were stationed. I suspect all that Italian culture around me may have contributed to my interest in the nation. Sadly though, I’ve never been there myself. What is always running through the back of my mind is that I might make it out there one day, and that I might, just might meet the woman of my dreams.

“Qeso-dillo”

Today I’m walking out of Qdoba (it’s a place like Chipotle, Mexican food) and a guy says to his [noteably attractive] girlfriend “Hey they have breakfast ke-so-dillos!” and he wasn’t trying to be funny.

The joke here is that the sign said “breakfast qesadillas” and in Spanish, the double ‘L’ sounds like a ‘Y’ so it should have been kea-sa-dee-ya. Well in my head I wondered what a queso (Spanish for “cheese”) armadillo would look like, and why you’d want one for breakfast. I know my PhotoShop-fu is not great, but you get the picture.

Will vs. Soup

“Ah just enough time to heat up some soup and have a nice hot meal.” Or so I thought. I coyly reached into my cupboard and selected a can of Campbell’s as I had done many times before. What I did not realize was that this was the soup of destiny and that an epic battle was about to ensue.

The soup was emptied into a bowl and tasted a new freedom. I then placed said soup in the microwave, and then foolishly armed the soup with a battle shield (aka a plate handed down to me from the 1960’s). My intention was that the plate would protect the interior of the microwave from the soup’s explosive powers. The soup however, had other plans…

Instead of the usual offensive strategy employed by soups, that is to escape by force, this soup assumed a defenciveposition. The cooling air between the soup and the plate, combined with the smoothness of the plastic plate meeting with the plastic lip of the bowl formed a seal that suction cup designers only dream of. When I went to remove the plat I found it firmly attached to the bowl, my soup safe inside.

At first I wasn’t certain of the suction’s strength so I carefully held both plate and bowl as I removed them from the microwave. I then conducted a more thorough investigation in which I determined tools would be required to gain access to my food. I attempted to slip a knife between the battle bowl and mighty shield, but the combination proved to be too strong. I then attempted to shock the suction apart by stringing at the soup’s shield with a kitchen mallet to no avail.

Next I would try science. I quickly placed the bowl into the freezer, hoping the temperature change would aid my fight. After a few moments of thought I realized that cooling air was the reason this battle had begun, and since I had no quick way to heat the bowl without melting it, I was down to one last option if I were to get my food. Something mut be destroyed.

It was either going to be the plate or the bowl, but it wasn’t going to be me. My drill was at RCF so that wasn’t an option, and so that only left breaking. The bowl was like rubber maid, but the plate was made brittle from decades of use. I knew that several of the plate’s bretheren had perished in the line of duty, so with my mighty fencing arm I bent the edges of the plate upward in hopes of preserving the soup inside. I pulled and wrenched with all of my might and at last when I thought I was at my limit, as if by some divine power, the mighty soup shield gave way. I then inserted my spoon deep into the belly of the beast. Weary from battle, I ate.

Let it be known that the taste of victory is Mmm mmm good!

Blank Head Stone

I don’t know why, but David’s head stone was blank. Just a flat white stone laid into the ground. On it was a pot of fake flowers including an O’Charley’s cup. To the right of the grave was a train wind chime with the center chime missing. On the four corners of the stone were solar powered yard lamps. And right in front was a stamped metal marker with David’s name, birth year, and death year; it was steaked in the middle of a roll of blue tape. Bits of tape were all over all of the items I mentioned.

At Jefferson High, the administration had “designated loitering areas”, and the designation was made with blue tape. It was a new policy, and of course the students all thought it was ridiculous. So apparently David had taken a lot of the tape and wrapped it up in a ball and stored it in his locker.

But there was no name on the stone.

Monday

Unless a miracle happens and I get an interview scheduled for tomorrow, I plan to go to a grave. Not just any grave, but the grave of one David DeMay, one of the fencers from Jefferson High, a student. He died in a car accident on April 25, 2004. He was on life support for about 48 hours. I was called to visit him at the hospital, but I didn’t realize the severity of the situation nor how much I meant to him.

When I went to the funeral the family had prepared a slide show. I was in half the pictures. He was buried with his fencing equipment. Until that moment, David was just another hopeless fencer. I wrote him off skill wise instantly. What I’ve since come to learn is that while you can’t win if you suck, you can still enjoy yourself, you can still be proud, you can still learn life skills from fencing. It’s something I’ve known since I was a sophomore in the Purdue Fencing Club, but to this day I still need to remind myself of it.

So tomorrow I’m going. I’m going to see where he is burried. I’m going to see his tombstone. I’m going to thank him for reminding me of the other things that are important.