In 1990, I was recovering from some problems in my life and really just going through the motions. I was doing a lot of partying, making friends, and met a really hot girl that was totally into me. Well, as I’ve found, the hotter the girl, the crazier they are. We had a very “on again, off again” type of thing going and during one of those “off again” periods, I thought it would be great to just get the flock outta dodge, so to speak. I figured, if I wasn’t around, I wouldn’t do something crazy like getting back together with her. Of course, I also had the whole “this’ll make me a better person” thing going on…toughen me up a bit, ya’ know? So, I go to a recruiter, take the tests (scored a 96 on the ASVAB, thank you very much), and get sworn in. Before I shipped out to Fort Benning, I get a call from aforementioned crazy hot girl and she goes mental that I’m leaving. Some remorse for my decision was felt but, oh well, the deed was done and I had to honor my obligation to the US Army. Now, before going further I must add, being a high school drop out and only having acquired a GED, this does not sit well with Uncle Sam and my options for active duty were limited to Army Reserve (96 on the ASVAB and I’m not suitable for full-time army?..BITE ME!). So, of course, after the 4 months of basic training, I came home to have crazy hot girl waiting for me.
What was accomplished by all this?
A hair cut that I could’ve done myself, a wardrobe that I’d only use for about 36 days a year, being subjected to random drug testing, getting in the best shape of my life up to that point and putting on a bit of much needed weight, having people yell at me and making me do push-ups, and being obligated to go to war, should the need arise (it never did)…I guess that’s about it…OK, maybe in hindsight it was fun and added to my character, too.
And guess what, crazy hot girl and I continued to have our “on again, off again” thing for a couple more years…right up until I married her!!!!
Sorry if you were looking for a moral in the story and just found out I was a friggan nut. I was trying to find one, myself. OK, how ’bout this. Don’t join the fuckin Army to get away from your own craziness and boredom in your life?…Sounds good to me!
To be honest, I’m feeling rather down about an email I received in response to my last post. Who’d have thought some people would take me serious?…OK, maybe I was serious. Maybe I was blunt and a little crass but worrying about what other people think never really did me any good - bottling up my feelings, on the other hand, was really taking its toll on me. I do still think that if I take the time to email, text or IM, to show that you’re on my mind, it wouldn’t be that hard to take a minute to let me know the feeling is mutual….But I guess if you’re that busy, you’re that busy. Que Será Será
Also, if you feel the need to shun me from your life because I chose to voice those feelings, that’s your prerogative (OMG, I can’t believe I didn’t know how to spell that). Those involved should know that wasn’t my intention…Hell, who really reads this or cares what I have to say here anyway, ya’ know?
So, in closing on this post: This is my public apology for being a prick.
And here’s a little pic I found last night that amused me for some reason.
That’s the catch-all excuse for not getting in touch with people that we don’t want to talk to, right? Well, some people I guess I’d believe and some, ummm, not so much. I know honesty is a bit of a crazy concept but when you’re on the receiving end of an “I’ve been busy”, it seems simple enough. Believe me, I’m a big boy, I can take it and to me it seems like an act of cowardess on their part to not be forthright. I know what busy is. I do it all the time. Often, sacrificing most of my sleep to not be in the position to tell the people that matter, “I’ve been busy”. And there it is… If you’re on the receiving end of this nasty little line, I think you know it’s because you don’t matter enough to that person for them to take the precious minute or two to text, IM, email, call, or whatever, just to say hi.
Am I bitter?….maybe.
Will I get over it?….absolutely.
Will I be too busy to take the time to text, email, or call?….Fucking count on it!
This one is a Valentine’s Day present for my childhood sweetheart, Robin Lynn.
Of course, I’ve been doing this song for over 10 years but in this context it has significantly more meaning. I wish I could’ve played it better (I’m a little rusty) and done more for the video, like adding pictures from that time in our lives and such, but sadly, I have none.
I hope you enjoy it but I hope even more so, that she does.
*Happy Valentine’s Day!!!*
OK, so as you can probably guess from the “arghhhh!!!!”, it’s not my vacations we’re talking about. First off, my assistant takes this past week off. My company, in their infinite wisdom, decides to just up the remaining crew members hours to 48. OK, fun! I usually take Sundays and Thursdays off, this week it was just Sunday. Great, a 6 day stretch between days off. Secondly, one of my clerks takes 24 PTO hours for this coming week, which has virtually the same effect. So here I sit on my one night off between two 48 hour weeks. Like I’m not gonna need a vacation after this?
In other news, Jacob starts in his Head Start Program today. I’ll be taking him there for the first time and get to meet his teacher this morning and watch him have a meltdown when his mother or I try to leave him alone with strangers…Not gonna be fun and I don’t envy the teacher.
Looks like I’ll have to alter the sleep schedule I’ve grown accustomed to over the years to spend time even a little time with him…Definitely harder than it sounds.
Anyway, I may come back from dropping him off and work on another youtube video…Probably goin’ country on this one but no, I won’t be wearin’ a damn cowboy hat!
Yeah, you. and you know who YOU are.
If you have the time to visit my site (repeatedly, I might add), then I’m pretty sure you have the time to respond to my email.
Don’t get me wrong, I like that you come here (BTW, I know when, for how long, and what pages you’re visiting), I’m not quite sure of your reasons but I can be an attention-whore at times so reasons don’t really matter much…So, is it that hard to type out an email?
OK, lets try this another way…
Get in touch or I’m plastering your name, address, phone number and any embarrassing fact I may know about you all over the damn internet…..kidding, of course…I wouldn’t share the address and phone
EDIT: OK, I guess you’re off the hook for now…email received
So much for trying to keep a current blog and fresh content…right?
I’m not about to make excuses for an almost 2 month absence. A lot of things in my life haven’t been going the way I want them to and instead of pissing and moaning about it I generally just clam up and contemplate doing harmful things to the “powers that be” that have this effect on my life…..So, if you are either, someone that contributes to my unhappiness or someone that thinks I should keep an updated blog…Kiss my ass! All others, welcome.
So what have I been up to?
Pretty much the same things I’m usually doing….Working, visiting Jacob, and sleeping.
There was a very cool break to that monotony from Jan. 25th to Feb. 3rd, which was my vacation spent as full time daddy and primary care giver to my awesome little boy. We didn’t do a helluva lot other than hang out and do the father/son bonding thing, but to me it felt like the best vacation I could’ve had. It also did wonders to squash my self-doubt about my abilities as a dad…Why?…’cause I fuckin rock and my little boy loves me! It was amazing to see the difference in relationship dynamics between him and I and him and his mother, it was pretty much night and day. I can honestly say that I don’t think I heard him cry once while he was here…whine a little, maybe…but we started working on curbing that with great success before vacation was over. How he behaves when in Mom’s presence though, pretty much the opposite since he knows it works.
So, enough gloating about the perfect baby since Mom has been known to snoop this blog from time to time….Besides, I already did my gloating in her face at the time.
Hmmm, what else…
Oh yeah, I just got over I nice little intestinal virus…..That was a fun week I’ll spare the details but given a choice, the virus or a high caliber bullet to the back of my head - the bullet sounds like a more pleasant option, in hindsight.
Ok, I was debating on writing about work for a couple reasons but, what the fuck….
Work sucks!!! I believe I’m coming up on a year since I expressed my desire to get off of 3rd shift and become a normal person and be a better dad and also the direction I’d like to take in my career. Since the last time I mentioned it in this blog, I was told about an opportunity available to me, this wonderful opportunity would not take me in the desired direction in my career, it would add about 1.5 hours travel time daily, would not give me the schedule I need to make things work with my son and last but not least would put me right under an asshole I’ve worked for before and had nearly gotten into a physical confrontation with…thanks but no thanks, fuckers!…I do my job well and they fuckin know it…. This is the kind of treatment/neglect that creates disgruntled armed assailants in the workplace!…Ok, end rant….See? that’s why I was debating about talking about work.
Anyway, enough for now. I think I’ll go break stuff.
Once again, I find myself trying to recap the year and seem to be measuring things by my son’s accomplishments…I guess a baby can do that to ya’.
My year had its ups and downs and I came to the conclusion sometime during 2006 that I’m pretty much done with working 3rd shift…My family life and social life have suffered far longer than they should have. I made my intentions known to management and they seemed (at the time) to be willing to get me into a daytime position which would mean a promotion and the monetary increase that goes with it….I was told “lets make it through the holidays and prepare my subordinates to be promotable and we’ll make it happen”…Did we make it through the holidays?…YES…Are my subordinates promotable?…Some yes, some No but there’s nothing saying that they need to be promoted for me to get what I want. So, as it stands, I wait…I do think I should be shopping for my daytime attire sometime in the coming weeks though..If you’re wondering what the daytime attire would be, it’s white shirts, ties and slacks that make my ass look great…lol
Anyway, I hope y’all had a happy and safe new year and best wishes for a great 2007.
I just wanted to take a moment to wish everyone that may stop by a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa….or whatever holiday you happen to celebrate.
I’ve never been too big on the whole Christmas season thing but since Jacob was born in 2005, I’ve been a bit happier than I used to be, this time of year…I hope you have someone in your life that makes the holidays better for you as my son has for me.
Well, maybe….
I’ve had the urge to work on my site again lately and possibly start blogging again….don’t know how long it will last or if anyone visits anymore….The website stats say “yes” but what they’re visiting, how they’re finding me, how long they stay, how many pages they check out, I don’t know….So, I guess I feel the need to make the site worthwhile again.
Which leads me to talking about the “makeover”….Firstly, I’ve acquired the new domain name VirtuallyTom.com as I felt that the site was lacking a personal touch due to being created under my pseudonym. tictoc5150 is/was a screen name that I used on various instant messengers and forums…. I may or may not still use it but when it comes to this site, I am the real me.
“Who’s that?”, you might ask… Thomas C. Taylor
I won’t get into my life story here, I’ll probably be setting up a bio page in the very near future to take care of all of that.
I’m really not sure where or how to start working on the site….I want to do things right and not just throw a bunch of pages to the server…..That kinda means actually planning it and the even harder part of learning how to do it. It seems that knowing some HTML is not enough to create a decent website. To do things right nowadays you need HTML, CSS, XHTML, FLASH…blah blah blah. I’ve been trying to learn CSS over the past couple days and while I’ve picked up a few things here and there, a lot of the information I find is not structured very well, making it even harder to understand….I’ll keep at it though.
I’ll spare the details but given a choice, the virus or a high caliber bullet to the back of my head - the bullet sounds like a more pleasant option, in hindsight.