Walking along the JC Waterfront (I only have a month left before my move to LA) Tuesday night and I captured this- One World Trade lit up in Red, White and Blue.

Lucky Man

Today I was for some reason up just as the first light was coming across the island of Manhattan. I had to fly for work cross country, and as we were coming in for final approach to San Jose, you could see the last rays of light on the west coast. It was at that point that I once again had a new appreciation for how lucky I am at times. Some people will never see something as beautiful as that, let alone twice in one day. Since I wasn't thrilled about having to work while on my vacation, this turned things around a bit.

My head has been spinning about a bunch of other things lately. I'll get into that later, but I wonder why I'm able to deal with anything professional, but when it comes to my personal life, I just can't deal with.

Marriage

In the past few weeks, the owner of my company has made comments publicly about getting me married at least three times. They have all been in jest -- I think -- but I wonder if at least part of the reason I'm not married is because of my job. I don't know if I could do the job that I do if I was married. I've said many times, I don't know how people are able to make it work. I have to say, those who do stay married are the exception.

I honestly think that my job cost me two relationships. I'm a firm believer in fate, and what will happen will happen, but I'm fairly certain if it wasn't for my job- and my dedication to doing a good job, I probably would be married now. That said, both of those women I met because of my job, so....

(Un)Fortunately, I can't really half -ass things. It's not in my nature. Because of that, I get enveloped in work and it gets to be to much. One of these days when the time is right, I'll get married. I don't understand what all the peer pressure to get married is though.

A perfect example of that would be J. She's getting married in a few weeks to a nice guy she met while traveling overseas with her mother. I've met him a few times and wish them all the best. I was invited to the wedding, unfortunately, I won't be able to attend the wedding because you guessed it- work. I had a dilemma about going anyway- If I should go with a guest or not. I'm not dating anyone, but at the same time, I would know very few people if anyone other than the bride and groom. I sent my regrets and a nice gift. She understands. I insisted that I get to see pictures of the wedding though, in particular of her in a dress. I'm still a bit surprised that she's getting married because she was always so anti-marriage. I guess people change.

I go back

I've been neglecting writing lately, and I think it has really been affecting me. I've always found that when I have an outlet, I'm able to keep my mind clearer/freer of distractions. I recently found out that a former colleague committed suicide. I don't know many of the circumstances, but I am still in shock over it. Outwardly he was one of the happiest people I worked with. I guess he kept things bottled up. Maybe there was something else going on that I didn't (and apparently none of our mutual friends) know about. RIP Swa.

I turned 36 this week. Not a major accomplishment or milestone, but I'm really beginning to realize that I'm not a young kid anymore.

I was invited to J's wedding, but I decided not to go. First, I didn't really have anyone to go with. I think this is a wedding where I'd feel slightly out of place. I'd really only know the bride, and no one else. The entertainment value of J getting married didn't outweigh this. The other issue was that somehow my office couldn't find anyone to cover me for the time of the wedding. It makes me wonder why I even have vacation if I can't take it when my truck is working. I did manage to take 21 days of vacation this year. 17 days of that was when my truck wasn't working and I would have been off anyway.


I'd been working on this bottom part of the blog for a few weeks. Surprisingly a friend posted something similar as a status recently. I guess I'm not the only one.

Have you heard Kenny Chesney's dong "I Go Back"? It talks about how certain songs forever hold a meaning in our lives, and hearing them will instantly take you back in time and place to days gone by. Listening to my iPod will bring all sorts of emotions based on what songs are played. Some will take me back to my high school days, some to wild parties that were had and no one knew about, some to previous loves, some to all night (and then day, and then night) edit sessions, many to good times down the shore with good friends. Then I realize that by doing that I'm living in the past.

Songs have also had meaning to me. I remember when I went away to college, a friend gave me a mix tape (yes, I'm that old that I got a mix-tape). She had put a lot of songs on it, but one really hit home with me- Desperado by the Eagles. I didn't date much in HS, and had a tendency to get wrapped up in pursuing someone and have blinders on to everything else.

"Now it seems to me, some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you can't get"

I often wonder if she included it on the tape for that reason. I never asked her.

There's an annoying pop song out there now by Katy Perry- TGIF that actually caused me to remember something from college. There's a line in there about skinny dipping after dark, and I had totally forgotten about a time I went skinny dipping with a girl named Grannie . I had totally forgotten about that experience until that song was in high rotation over the summer. She left after the first semester freshman year. I wonder what every happened to her.

There's an Adele song out now- "Someone Like You" that when I actually listened to the lyrics for the first time caused me to well up. It pretty much sums up my feelings. There really isn't anyone that I don't wish the best to. I often wonder why something happened, or didn't work out, but I have no ill-will. I figure I'm just as responsible.

Panty Peeler

Some of you have been waiting for this post for a long time, I know. I want to start by saying that I'm not proud of my actions, but at the same time, I don't really regret them either. With that, on to the stories…

For the several months I have been truly a single man. S and I had the talk and realized that we had two big problems in our relationship- 1) I'm not sure that I want to be married- ever, and 2) She's not sure that she wants to be married to me. With that, we went our separate ways. Well, as separate as I typically do. We still occasionally talk, have gone out to dinner a few times, she even went on my dad's 70th Birthday cruise since it was already booked. NOTHING happened. Since I was a single man, I ended up putting an ad on Match. I know lots of people who had success there and I figured what the hell.

So I end up meeting a girl for dinner and we had an OK time. She was very socially awkward. By that I mean she couldn't make eye contact when she was talking. She would look everywhere but to the person she was speaking to. That was a bit of a red flag. We met again with plans to go to a restaurant by my apartment and that's when the view took over. We did go to dinner, and went back to my place and well as The Lady in Red calls it, the panty peeler effect took over. We started fooling around a bit before calling it a night.

A few weeks later we met again for dinner, both saying we're not really looking for anything serious, just two people going out to dinner. I met her at the restaurant and she was dressed in such a way to accentuate her breasts. After dinner, we went back to my place to watch TV. We watched something off the DVR and she excuses herself to the bathroom. She comes out a few minutes later with her hair down, wearing a sheer teddy, panties and boots. It was an incredible outfit. I know what you're thinking- this is right out of penthouse forum. I've experienced some crazy things in my life as you know, but I really didn't see this coming from the shy, barely able to hold eye contact girl. Needless to say, we started fooling around and ended up in the bedroom. We fell asleep together, but she ended up leaving around 4am. I never felt so cheap and used. Oh wait, yes, I did- once in college. We had a good time and never talked about her changing act there. We still occasionally text, and we've met for lunch once since then, but with my schedule that's really all the time I've had available. We briefly talked and she understood my schedule and now doesn't think that she can handle it.

Through the magic of Facebook, people can reconnect with anyone. The person who used to steal your lunch money in first grade, The guy who you used to beat up in 6th grade, the first girl who broke your heart. You can also reconnect with people you were acquaintances with over the year, and perhaps learn more about them. The second story is about one of those people.

I'm alone a lot. Whether it be at night time in a hotel room, or when I'm home generally speaking I'm alone. I'll sit there and go through Facebook when I'm bored and read people's statuses, and occasionally comment. That's how it all started with M. She made a comment wondering how she got to where she is in her life. I've wondered that same thing many times. I definitely took a non-traditional path to my career and made sacrifices along the way. I'm not as close to my friends as I used to be. I always used to be the guy who kept in touch with people. As we've all grown up, I've fallen out of touch. It's not that we're not still friends, it's just we're all in different places in our lives. My life choices have cost me at least 3 relationships, mainly because I have put my job ahead of my personal life. At this point, I have very few close friends. If I was to get married, I don't know who I would pick to be my best man, let alone be my groomsmen. Enough with the pity party and on to the story-

After a few comments on Facebook, we decide what the hell, lets meet for dinner. We did and we both had a good time. We weren't really friends in high school, just acquaintances like I said. She asked if I was always this cool in HS, etc. We end up meeting the next time up by me and are talking and walking and the panty peeler took effect. We ended up kissing at the end of the pier where my apartment is, and headed up to my apartment where merriment followed. We have hooked up a few times, having a friends with benefits situation that I seem to fall into from time to time. She was out with another friend from HS at one point and mentioned that she and I had been fooling around and told her that I was amazing in bed and particularly in giving oral sex. Apparently that friend responded- I always thought that he was cute and wondered what he'd be like in bed. I didn't realize girls did that.

I never believed the panty peeler theory that The Lady in Red was espousing, but now I have no choice but to believe in it. She wonders why I'm not having sex every night that I'm home because of the view. I really don't think of my self as a guy who could do that, and I'm not Barney Stinson, So I'm not taking that as a challenge. I've been thinking long and hard about my living situation and may end up giving up my apartment for a little while during NASCAR. More on that later.

Merry Christmas to me

Since I'm stuck in Wisconsin and can't get home due to the snow in Newark, I bought myself a few Christmas presents.

First I got myself an AppleTV. It's a pretty cool device that lets you stream video to a monitor via an HDMI connection. More and more hotels have the HDMI port brought out on the desk, so this was a no brainer. Especially since I'm going to be here for over a week. My second present to myself was a flip cam. They're cheap enough and small enough, I figured why not. a little HD video camera that records to flash memory seems like a cool thing.

With all of this time on my hands, I'm working on catching you up on goings on in my life, but it's taking a long time to get them written.

So much to write, so little time

I've been really busy lately, both work wise and in my personal life. I'll write more about that as I find the time, but wanted to give an update on things medically. I put some of the weight I lost back on. Between my back injury and the cruise I think it was bound to happen. I actually only put on 3 lbs while on the cruise, so most of the 15lbs I gained was a result of not exercising because of my back. When I saw the Doctor last Thursday, he wasn't happy with my appearance physically. He could tell that I put on the weight. When he called yesterday with my hba1c number, he was still impressed. It was 5.4 which is in the normal range. It's not as good as my number was last time, but considering I was on steroids for my back, it's pretty good.

As far as my back goes, it has been acting up again. I have the radiating pain occasionally. Now it the pain has moved to shooting down my right leg instead of the left leg. I went to see the pain management doctor, and will be getting an injection on Wednesday to hopefully help alleviate the pain. He thinks it MAY be related to the severe headaches I've been getting also. I'll update on that as I have time as well.