Category: general

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Feel Good Inc.

These moods are ephemeral, so I will enjoy while it lasts. I like where things are headed. I like my job. I like my friends. I like my co-workers. I have a good apartment with a good roommate.

I enjoy living in Boise. It’s so strange that I could find pleasure in such a slow moving environment. No beach, no huge malls. Still though, everyone is nice. Crime is low. People are not as stuck up or plastic. Most people here have lived here all their life. They have no idea what it’s like anywhere else.

I was the same way before I moved out of California. I thought that big city, beach bums, homeless hagglers and gang fights was all that life was. I was wrong. If only people out here knew that what they see at the movies or on TV is not so far off from reality.

Tomorrow is a new day with new challenges. I look forward to them all. Tonight I feel good.

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general

Inaudible Melodies

Slow down, everyone, you’re moving to fast!

Do you ever wonder why some weeks fly by and why others seem to last for an eternity? I do. I know it’s just a perception of time. Depending on our comings and goings time can seem to slow down and speed up. Einstein predicted that the faster we go the slower time goes. In fact it has been proven that someone that travels into outer space travels so fast they experience a time differential. We are only talking mere seconds, but still it makes you think. Is it just a perception? Or is it real? I guess it’s all relative.

Life’s moving fast. I graduated from high school 8 years ago. I have been living in Idaho and working at DirecTV for almost 2 years. It has been almost a year since I was promoted from CSR to Coach. Maybe another 8 years will go by and I will look back and reminisce of the simple days of 2005 and wonder where it all went. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee it.

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general

Falling Up

Things feel weird. It is hard to put my finger on. It feels like a transitional phase. I have learned to proceed with caution during these times in my life. Who knows what is behind the next corner. It could be good, it could be bad. The trick is defensive driving; keep my foot close to the break, and start slowing down.

But what fun is there in that?

What happened to the good ‘ole days of pushing the gas to the floor, with the music cranked all the way up? We all slow down. We all grow up. We have to start making better decisions someday, right? My day has come. I probably made enough bad decisions to last 3 lifetimes. I changed due to necessity, not by choice. It might have taken me a lot longer to snap out of it if the circumstances were different.

Ultimately though, I am happy where I am at. I think I have always been able to cope well with my newest environments. It is a gift the Good Lord gave me; to see the positive in every situation and make the best of everything. His sense of peace follows me wherever I go.

So why be cautious during times of transition then? You are right. I might as well push down that gas pedal and hit that corner as fast as I can. What’s the worst that can happen?

Lets find out…

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general work

Between a Bullet and a Target

I have moved out of that house. That door is closed. The final chapter has been written. The book has been published and then immediately tossed into the flames. The burning embers are all that’s left from that time of my life. This is not the first time that I have gladly left a situation or place. This time, however, I am not running away. Too many times before I was in a situation that grew way beyond my control. This time the roles have reversed, and I have outgrown my environment. I am moving on, not running away.

It took one week to move all my belongings from the house to my new apartment. It then took another week to clean out the house. It was bad. The house was trashed. It was the product of people that did not care about anything.

After James got fired from his job and bailed I may have over reacted. I have been burned too many times by roommates. This situation feels different. I hope I’m right. If I get burned one more time, I don’t know how I will react.

But now it is done. I look forward to living with Chris. He just got back from the Philippines yesterday and things are cool. I am glad that my dog has warmed up to him. My bigger concern, however was that Chris would warm up to her, but that also seems to be a non-issue. Things are going great. A new roommate, a new apartment, a new 57″ TV…

During the madness of moving I went into work on my day off to say some last goodbyes to the coaches with whom I had worked. I was told that the hiring manager for the Team Lead position wanted to talk to me so we talked and had an impromptu interview. The next day I was upgraded.

The first couple days were excruciating. It was overload. Now I have settled in and am ready to make an impact. There are so many people supporting me. There are too many people in that building that just will not let me fail.

This is not a house of cards that I have been stacking. I will not come crashing down.

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general

What’s My Age Again?

I have a tendency to not want to stay in the same place for over a year. This is not in any way a conscious decision. I do not intentionally go “Hey, I have been here too long, maybe it’s time for me to go”… but that is what ends up happening. I was in Utah for one year, and then I moved back home. I was home in Cali for 2 months when I moved back to Utah. And then I moved to Oregon exactly 1 year later. 4 months in Oregon was 4 months too long so I somehow made my way to Boise, Idaho.

And here it is, almost a year later, and I am still in Boise. It will actually be 1 year in October. I am already feeling anxious though. I am ready to move on again. This time though I do not have a desire to move to a different state, at least for now. You see, my job is going extremely well, and for once i feel like I am ready to set down roots somewhere. I will soon be going back to school. I am ready to take care of all my debt and get my life back on track. I want to get a house. I want to be responsible. I want to find a nice church and start going regularly. I want to get back into ministry, maybe even be in a worship band again. I want to be that old friend everybody looks at and says “Wow, he ended up doing something with his life”.

I have a long way to go though, and talk is cheap. My friend Nathan has asked me if I want to move in with him into the new townhouse he bought. Right now it is just him and his daughter, Rainy. She calls me Uncle Richie, which is rad. She is a way cool kid, and I wouldn’t mind helping Nathan take care of her. I am ready to move out of the house I am in now. It is not that I don’t like where I live. I love this house, and I have good roommates. I am not sure though how good they are for me. They in no shape way or form keep me spiritually accountable. If anything they drain me. One of them does not believe in God, and the other hates God for taking his sister at such a young age. I will continue too pray for both of them.

So do I move out? I will not leave my roomates high and dry. I will of course give them plenty of time to find a replacement roommate, if not find one for them.

I am not sure what to do right now. I will pray about it.

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general

Private Idaho

Working in the coaches program at DirecTV is definitely not the cake job that I thought it was when I was new hire. I remember thinking “I want to be a coach someday.” Well I am a coach now, and I have to say that there is a lot of work to be done. There is a lot of responsibility that I have taken on since I have become a coach. All in all, though, it’s way worth it. It is a good feeling when you see the light go on in the eyes of the new hire in week 5 of OJT.

That is not what this post is about though. I got a text message on my phone while I was at work today from one of my old friends in Cali. We kinda parted on bad terms, which is unusual for me. I love everyone. I have always been that way, but given my lifestyle and frame of mind at the time I left California, it comes as no surprise that I have not talked to him in almost 4 years.

It was good to see an email from him, and I hope he calls me. He said that he is not the same person that he was when we last saw each other. I believe it. 4 years is a long time. I know I have changed a lot in the last 4 years.

I mean, check me out, I’m living in Idaho. When I was growing up, Idaho was the state the sitcoms made fun of. Idaho is where the potato lovers live. Idaho is full of rednecks and full of punks that would never make it in Southern Cali… or so I thought. There are some really great people here, and I have made a nice home for myself. I have an awesome puppy that I love very much and a job that I actually don’t mind going too.

I made some really bad decisions 4 years ago. I walked out on a cake job, got into mad debt and turned my back on some really good friends. It has taken me time to forgive myself and move on, but for the most part I have done that.

I didn’t expect this post to be so long. I guess I had a lot on my mind.

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general

Smell like Teen Spirit

With the lights out it’s less dangerous
Here we are now
Entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now
Entertain us

Over a period of eight months I have moved five times. The first three moves were quite unpleasant. I moved out of my apartment in Draper to live with my friend Jon and his sister up in Salt Lake City. That lasted for a week. The landlord kicked Jon and me out for no apparent reason. So I lived in a motel for a while. Then my good friend “Handy” Andy and his parents took me into their home under the pretense that I would be moving out in 2 months. And I did. I moved too Vale, Oregon. I don’t need to mention anything else about Oregon except it was so nice to leave that house in Vale for the last time. Getting all of Alexis’ things packed in the back of her grandpa’s truck was its own adventure.

Since I got this great Job at DirecTV, I needed to move to Boise, ID. Commute was killing me, and my roommate who was also working in Boise. So we decided to find a place out in Boise, and we did, and here we all are.

I do not like writing in my journal when I don’t have much to complain about. Heh. Things are going so good right now I’m not sure what to do with myself. Job is awesome. Money coming in is enough to take of the things that I need to take care of like rent, bills, internet, and cable (including a little extra rent to help out my roommates). I bought a washer and a dryer (They are piles of crap, but they work, barely) I am currently saving up to upgrade my computer, get a nice big TV and eventually I hope to have enough money to either get my car working better or buy a new one (I have a feeling that it would cost about the same)

I was making more per hour in Utah, and could never accomplish this. I don’t know why exactly that is, but I’m sure smoking the herb had something to do with it. Now that I’m clean I have so much more motivation to excel at my job and save money, and just plain do what I need to be doing.

I love it. I have found my niche in Boise. Maybe location has less to do with it and maybe it has more to do with timing. Any way you look at it, timing or location, I’m here, right now, and I don’t think I need to be anywhere else.