The above photo is my response to the funk I’ve been in for some months now. I am finally making some good progress on changes to my personal schedule to do more regular writing, entertaining videos, frequent blog posts and catching up on my media viewing [TV shows, movies, magazines, books].

As I’ve said many times here on this blog, Stay tuned.

I am on vacation this week in Park City, which is about 30 minutes from where I live. So in a way, it’s kind of like a staycation, but without actually being at home.

Every other year, I retreat with my wife to the mountains to try and regroup, relax and attempt to get caught up with some things I want to do but don’t during normal days at home. Things like reading books and magazines, blog posting, swimming, drinking, hiking and just plain down time. Most of the reason why I pick this time is that it’s both my birthday (Aug 6th) and my wife’s birthday (Aug 3rd). Like automatic birthday gifts for both of us.

And each year, I actually do some of things on my list. It’s not a chore and I don’t beat myself up if I don’t do everything, but I do take notice of my overall state of mind before, during and after this week off. Then I try to change things in my life to help me reduce my stress, change how I deal with daily matters and learning how to relax during non-vacation hours.

Why do I do this? Because I know myself well enough that if I don’t, I feel like I will crack under the pressure of normal daily life. Or as I have come to realize, I am a very nervous person. If you’ve met me in person, you might be questioning this, since I appear to be a calm, cool and easy going person. And I really am. But for me, I have a lot of worries that fuck with my nervous system. Way short of a being a nervous wreck, but enough to constantly give me cause to rattle my nerves. Let me give you a couple of examples.

Even on vacation, I’m connected. Maybe not while at the pool or out hiking, but I do at least have one type of gadget with me, normally an internet-connected phone. My phone checks email for me a couple times a day, my day job email included. On Monday, an email from our VP of IT came in asking for an update on something he’s asked for. I had updated him, but not before I left. Unlike some that can ignore this thing until they get back from vacation, I let it weight heavy in my mind and seriously contemplated replying and drafting a response. After a few hours of going back and forth, I finally decided that I was on vacation and that if it was serious enough to address, a phone call would be made to me asking to take care of it.

Here’s another example. I had promised to help someone in a move on Sunday afternoon, but due to being out of town on Saturday night [a quick and cheap Wendover, NV trip] and leaving for Park City on Sunday night – combined with a family issue that came up, I wasn’t able to help, which combined with the work email I received, further added to my nervous state.

Wireless Goes Wired

Adding to all of this, my Palm Pre [which I have yet to blog about here in greater detail] is on the fritz, with the screen being non-responsive most of the time, and the earpiece being completing broken, needing both a USB cable and a wired headset plugged in at all times to use the phone. My frustration level trying to use this Frankenstein-looking device, topped with worries and concerns about a work email, and a broken promise to help someone move left me a bit rattled at the start of my vacation. Not wanting to set the tone for the entire week, I decided I had to deal with my anxieties. So I took a couple of hours while my wife rested in Park City and drove down the 25 minutes back into Salt Lake valley. I helped with the move, I got a replacement cell phone ordered and drafted and deleted four different responses to the work email. Since then, my worries and concerns have gone down drastically, only coming up once while waiting for dinner on Tuesday night.

Self Torture

So why in the fuck do I do this to myself? Why do I let all of these items weigh so heavy on my mind? I know part of is that I feel like I have to take care of things all the time. While I know I don’t have to, I’ve edged myself into a place where I feel I need to. I’m not a controlling person at all, so this surprises me that I have let myself meld into this type of mindset. Most of the time, it’s just easier to do things then to let my mind worry about doing them or letting someone else do them. Trust me, I would prefer to let others do the stuff I do. I’ve blogged about fixing computers and would be more than pleased to have others know just as much or more than I do so that they can either fix their own issues or help others that I normally would. I’ve gotten better at saying no to many people I used to help, which has helped, but still, there’s enough other items that cause my nerves to jumble that affect me much more adversely.

So how I do stop this level of self torture? Or at least significantly reduce it to a manageable level? That’s the question I am looking for an answer to. My concern is that if I don’t find a way to effectively reduce and eliminate the nerve-induced trauma I experience on a regular basis, that it can get worse and start affecting other aspects of my life that it hasn’t already touched.

My first plan of attack is to find ways to de-stress over situations I don’t need to worry about. Once I can get a grip on that, I think all other situations that I do need to manage will be much easier, without the weight of worry. Then sometime before the end of 2010, I hope to be a much calmer person, at least internally to my own self. Wish me luck.

It’s not too often that I share something of a personal nature on my blog. This is one of those times.

My wife manages just about everything financially for us. My entire paycheck goes into her bank account. She pays [just about] all of the bills. When we go most places, it’s her credit card and debit card that gets used to purchase the various goods and services we consume. And to be completely honest, I’m ok with this, with some minor exceptions.

She’s got a proven track record, having been in accounting for over 20 years, knowing how to manage money and all of the financial matters. We’ve paid off several credit cards and my car loan, so I’ve seen her management of this first hand. And we’ve been able to travel and do some things with the house and still manage to have coffee, creamer, milk, juice and oatmeal available for me to fix each morning. All in all, it’s a system that works, with some minor exceptions.

Exceptions

But even the best of operations have their gotchas. And this is where mine come in here.

There’s something to be said for having your own money – without restrictions. Not just spending like a mad man, but without having to check in with the finance manager and just being able to purchase something. This is my exception to the almost perfect system of our financial management.

I have my own credits cards, including one that I still make my own payment – not coming from my day job income. It’s a nice independence to have a card that I can just make a purchase, without consulting my wife before hand.

But there is the issue of making the payment, how much I put on the card, keeping my balance at a reasonable level. So far, making the payment hasn’t been an issue as I’ve been able to do little side jobs here and there, or pull from savings. Up until now this has worked, but I can foresee the day when this flexibility of having my own little financial piece of management will be limited even more.

Since my wife and I have separate bank accounts as well, the issue of managing my own financial part hasn’t come into play, regardless of the bulk of what I make not being 100% available to me. But if it were to go away completely, I could see how that would bother me. I liken it to an older person that’s been driving for years, then being told they can’t drive anymore. Having that independence removed tends to be a difficult adjustment.

Compromises

But there are compromises that we have made so far. One is I now have a debit card that is linked to my wife’s checking account. This has made it possible for me to make various store, food and other purchases without having to pull from my personal accounts. I admit that it’s helped in having some direct access to the money I make that contributes to our household.

Also, with most of my credit cards being paid out of my wife’s checking account, I still have use of them, keeping my purchases [and their amounts] to a manageable level. This helps in knowing that at least I’m financially contributing to not only what I spend, but to our overall debt.

And this also doesn’t discount that my wife and I discuss financial matters on a regular basis. Things such as major purchases are things that we debate, making sure we don’t over extend ourselves and ensuring we are both on the same page.

Bonus

The bonus to all of this is that I’ve become a much better manager of my own finances. Not that I was horrible with my money before, but I do appreciate to know more about being able to better keep track of what I spend and make. Add to that the ability that I’ve had of getting 0% credit cards to do balance transfers to reduce the amount of interest I pay, I feel a bit more liberated in being able to feel like I’ve contributed to our overall financial picture.

In The End

So while I may balk at concerns with my reduction of managing my own finances, I’ve learned to adjust with the few little bits I still have control over. And in the future, I’m sure I will try my best to be open to more changes, just as long as they are not too drastic.

To be more accurate, it’s been twenty days since the last time I [me personally] posted a real blog post. Sure, there was the post of photos that I put up here on my last day in Hawaii, but March 5th was the last time I posted anything of substance out here.

It’s not that I don’t love blogging. And it most certainly isn’t that I don’t like making videos and posting them here for my readers. Because I still love doing both.

A planned episode of Snowy Sunday still sits on my hard drive, almost completed.

There’s another almost completed post where I will tell you all about my trip to Hawaii.

And there’s a bonus video of some footage I took in Hawaii that I’m sure everyone will like. [a suggestion by a few of you]

But there’s no hiding the obvious: I’ve been pretty quiet here this month.

In my defense, I do have some good reasons.

I was ordered not to blog or make videos while on vacation in Hawaii, which was an order I willingly obeyed. I twittered some and updated Facebook from my phone a few times, but left the blogging to my guest hosts.

I can attribute some of it to being busy at my day job, which gets credit for doing a great job at saving almost all of the work on my projects until I returned back from Hawaii. I’m catching up, but still have a monster load of work to do in a short period of time.

I have spent time working on some of my stories, one of which looks like it will see publication here soon [more details coming soon].

I also have my share of personal interruptions from all sides: family, friends and others who have various questions, physical needs [moving desks for sister-in-law] and help with random tech needs. No complaints, but in reality, it’s time that takes me away from blogging.

I really didn’t plan to let this happen. Perhaps I really needed a break, even after a vacation.

I’m not stressed about it. Really, I’m not. I’m more wanting to make sure that I don’t turn this into some unplanned, extended hiatus. No worries… I don’t think that will happen.

I’ll be back to posting on a regular basis again [which is at least two posts a week]. In fact, I should have my Hawaii vacation recap post and a new Snowy Sunday video up here soon, [hopefully before this coming Sunday] as well as that bonus video I mentioned above. But for now, this is what it is – for the last twenty days and most likely until the end of the month.

I’ve got a great month planned in April for this place. So sit tight, enjoy the temporary silence, and I will post again soon. I promise.

The pattern has repeated itself multiple times over the course of my adult life. I start off with a great plan of attack. Get myself prepared. Sit down and attempt to make some creation come to life. But then a phone call happens. Or I’m at my desk at work and a bevy of people need something fixed. I get home and there’s things to do, clothes to fold, food to make, errands to be run. It’s a non-stop series of distractions.

I then think, “That’s ok. I can finish work on this tomorrow.” Then it’s tomorrow and more distractions come into my world. Some the same, others completely different. And no matter what I do, the thing I wanted to do and planned to do, doesn’t get completed.

And therein lies where some of the major issues I have with myself. Having lots of plans that I want to do, but letting too much get in the way and ending up with unfinished works of greatness.

Oh sure, some things get done and I normally can accomplish most tasks on time, pending any serious distractions like technical issues, family concerns or reasonable obligations. But it’s much larger than that.

Most people that know me well, know that there is one major thing in life that I want to do:

• Become a full-time writer

Of course, having shared that on a regular basis with others many times over the years, it’s become more of something I say, rather than something I do.

My true frustration of what I want to do in life can be summed up with two things:

• I used to be published years ago
• I’ve got stories that I want to complete

So, you say, if you really wanted to do it, why not make it happen? I mean, if it happened before, it can happen again, right? Let’s take a ride in the way back machine for a moment and see how I got here, at this moment in time.

Starting Gate

Back in 1991, I was 28. It was the year my daughter was born. Life actually was pretty good. I was happily married, had a decent job and didn’t have much stress. And I was self-published. I did a newsletter called Take It With You, which covered palmtops, PDAs and electronic organizers. I published this newsletter for almost two years before halting publication. I loved writing and I spent lots of time learning Aldus PageMaker on my Mac IIcx and getting very good at desktop publishing.

But in April 1992, financial issues hit and I filed for a Chapter 13 bankruptcy. It wasn’t easy going through that financial stress and eventually, it took a sizable toll on my creative side. Most of my focus returned to my day job [I worked at WordPerfect as an IT professional and software tester in the Macintosh group]. But I still managed to direct some focus on my writing career.

“I have the keyboards!” – in my best He-Man voice

I had started to freelance for various publications, all of them computer related: Service News, ComputorEdge [San Diego-based weekly tech rag], Mobile Technology Review, Network News, NetWare Solutions, Pen Computing Magazine, Connect Magazine [my own column, called "Staying Connected For About A Pound" appeared monthly], Intelligent Newton and a few others. From the end of 1993 to around the end of 1996, I had enough freelance writing jobs that it was looking like I could take the next step, jump in with both feet and make a living at it.

Ummmm… not so fast.

The first part of 1996 was pretty rough. I worked for a local hospital as their Network Administrator. But it wasn’t what I did or where I worked. It was WHO I worked for. Stress was a large part of my day, having to answer to someone that didn’t give two shits about me or what I did. I spent almost seven months in pure, fucking hell. I did a get a break in July 1996 when I went to work for Teltrust, which turned out to be a good thing. But the damage had been done to my wordsmith skills and I quit doing most of the freelance work I did.

Fast forward about three years. It’s now February 2000. A lot of changes are going on in my life. I am going through a divorce and am now more concerned about my daughter and trying to find myself in life than I am trying to write the next great novel or pen a work of brilliance in a monthly rag. My job at Teltrust came to a screeching halt [another story for another blog post]. Fortunately, I found a Systems Admin job at Cimarron Software and had no interruption of employment, although nothing was being published on the writing front.

But in 2001, something happened. A good friend of mine and I were chatting via ICQ one day. During our chat, she asked me what I wanted to do in life. And even though I hadn’t done any regular writing for a few years, there was no hesitation when I said, “I want to be a full-time writer.” So she asked if I had anything to share with her. I did not have any of my previous work in electronic format available. Instead, I came up with a story and started typing it out, one IM chat window at a time. After a few days of this, I ended up with the first chapter to a story that I continue to work on today – “Heaven Forrest”

The feeling I got from creating this story from scratch – complete with characters, story line and overall plot – was incredible. I continued to write and finished three chapters in less than two weeks.

So what happened? You would think with that burst of creativity, I would have continued with my writing and finished the story. Alas, once again, there was a distraction.

October 2001, I was laid off from that job. I then spent the next 18 months doing various side jobs, breaking up with my girlfriend [now my wife] and trying to stay afloat financially. Too much doom and gloom for you? Hang on. There’s a positive spin here.

I signed up over at Blogger.com in February 2002 and started blogging. It wasn’t anything regular [I wouldn't post my next four entries until October 2002], but it was a step in the right direction, even though most of my posts were venting about my disassembled life. My postings were semi-regular until December 2006, when I went into a ten month dry spell. I wanted to get past this irregular writing pattern and work towards writing on a regular basis. That’s when I decided to get serious and start a dedicated blog site.

On April 1, 2008, I started Banal Leakage [which is what you are reading now], which has always been and always will be the main venue for moving me into the direction of writing on a full time basis. Sure, my posts are a mix of funny, trivial, entertainment and sometimes a stolen meme, but it’s me writing on a regular basis.

But it’s still not a paid gig. That is my ultimate goal. Not the money part, but being published again. Don’t get me wrong. Benefitting financially from my writing is needed to sustain myself in life, but it’s writing on a regular basis beyond the confines of my own blog that is of greater importance.

Fortunately, I get those moments where a surge to write again happens.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I were at dinner. We talk a lot during dinner, mostly between bites of food. I mentioned the stories I am working on and how I actually have been working on them, just not talking about them. That lead to a discussion of my story “Heaven Forrest”, which my wife knows a good deal about [She's read the first three chapters and knows the plot]. By the end of dinner, she had made some extremely groundbreaking suggestions for the story that elated me beyond words. Seriously, it was so great to have something added to this story. It’s these burst of ideas that keep the story going. They may only last a few days until the next surge of thought, but it keeps me working on them.

In the most recent surge of urgency this past week, Winter of Sunlight Sucks and Lex Valentine, was a guest on The Jester Show on Talkshoe.com. She’s been one of my inspirations as a writer [Catherine at Seventh Notebook is my other] and has made incredible progress on getting herself published. She’s dedicated herself and carved out time in her busy life to make writing a priority. While she has used the word “sacrifice” to describe her process of making time to write, she has done it. Not only does she have several contracts for books with publishers like Pink Petal Books, she’s also continued to write her story- even including me as a character in one of her forthcoming works. Color me flattered.

Ok, stepping out of the ego-induced light I’m basking in.

If I am to make something happen, it’s got to be me making some changes. And while I get these bursts of renewed writing vigor, they haven’t produced permanent results. As I sit here writing this up, I am thinking of all sorts of ways to keep the many distractions I have in my life at bay, learning how to deal with them as they come my way and learning how to return to writing:

• When I get interrupted, write down what it was I was doing, then attend to the issue at hand. This will help me repoint my focus to my writing once I’ve removed the distraction
• Carve out a specified number of hours each week to write. This is the only way I feel I can make progress on my stories
• Take a break to unwind from the stress of the day before writing. Clearing one’s head of any bullshit is a critical step into focusing on the stories and allowing them to flow out of my head

Those are just a few steps I am going to apply in my life to re-focus my energies towards my writing. If they work, I will see some progress. If they do not, then I need to rethink my strategy.

Making Changes

Ok, I’m sure I’ve lost many of you about ten paragraphs ago, as most of you are just wanting to know when the next Snowy Sunday is getting posted [an all-new Episode 15 shows up this Sunday]. For those of you that stuck with me to the end, thank you and I hope to be showing off some of my writing talents here and in other places in the very near future.

It’s time I took all of the years and many attempts I’ve made to enter a full-time writing career and make this next one permanent. It can only mean great things for me in the end.

TINTFA

A lot of people will make New Year’s Resolutions. I’m not much into them. Sure, I’d like to have things I want to accomplish, but they seem too contrived and shallow to me, like something you hype up, only to fail at in the first few months of a new year. I’ve set many resolutions over the years, only to look back and see what never happened. So I got to thinking… maybe if I give them a new name, there will be more of an increased desire to complete them.

I came up with TINTFA. It stands for:

Things I Need To Fucking Accomplish.

Or if you want the sanitized version, it’s:

Things I Need To Finally Accomplish.

To avoid posting the f-bomb multiple times on this blog [now what fun is that?], I’ll just use the acronym each time I need to refer to that. Will it work? I have an entire year to find out.

So with that, let’s take a look at things I did in 2008 and what can be expected in 2009.

Blogging

2008

This was the year that I delved into the world of big time blogging. Before, my blog posts were as sporadic as sex between Hillary and Bill. Now with Banal Leakage, you get at least two posts a week from me. I try for more, but two a week is what it is for now.

2009

For the new year, I really want to post more per week. I have a lot of stuff in me that I need to get out, which includes [very soon] my 100th post. A TINTFA that I will make extra efforts on in the new year.

I will also announce a new blog. I eluded to it last year in this post and still have plans to make it happen. I will not keep everyone in suspense for much longer… I promise.

And finally, there will be some cosmetic changes here, mostly in the form of graphics and other fun updates.

Switching Jobs

2008

Although I didn’t blog about it, I switched jobs earlier this year. In October 2007, I left the company I currently work for for another company because I was burned out. After three months at the new company, I ended up going back to the previous company. Confused? Yeah, so were a few other people in my life. But it was a good move back and even though my current employer is going through some changes, it’s still a good job and I don’t mind hanging out there as long as I can.

2009

Unless this company I work for does something really stupid [more stupid than they usually set out to be], I won’t be switching jobs. So no TINTFA efforts needed [for now, at least].

Getting Married

2008

As most of my regular readers know, I got married this summer, which I blogged about here, here and here. It went off great, we had a lot of family and close friends with us and we had fun, too.

2009

Our plans for the new year include spending some fun times together and a few more updates to the house. For sure, some good TINTFA will happen in new year.

Scooter Sunday

2008

This year, I turned a weekly blog post into a weekly video of me riding my scooter around the Salt Lake valley. It was fun, I got some great comments and feedback from my readers and I got to expand my video making interest into something I did on a regular basis. In short, it’s become an addictive part of my life, in a sort of non-addictive way.

2009

As I’ve mentioned before, Scooter Sunday will make it’s return in late March. Expect all new episodes each week that continue well into the fall of ’09. [I may take a week or two off, but that's it] There will also be some contests I will throw in throughout the season. For those fans of Snowy Sunday, I will keep making weekly videos until Scooter Sunday returns.

Writing

2008

I’ve mentioned a few times that my greatest love in life is my writing [Sorry honey... I still love you] and starting this blog was to help me improve my writing skills and start pursuing a career in writing. I feel I’ve made a good start and even though I sometimes get writer’s block, I enjoy sitting down and coming with ideas to publish.

2009

Each year about this time, I reflect back on what TINTFA I wanted to do the previous year. So I find myself in the same position why I didn’t push myself harder to write more and spend more time honing my literary skills. This is one of those TINTFA that I so want to work on and I do, but it seems I let too many other things in life distract me and keep me from making my re-entry into the writing world. I’ve got so many stories, novels, screenplays that I want to do… I just need to focus and get myself in a good place to start writing on a regular basis. I did it with the videos, I can do it with my stories.

Reading Books

2008

I’m horrible at reading books. I love to read… love it. And I want to read. That’s not the issue. The issue is making time for it and to stop getting distracted when I need to sit down with a good book. My daughter will tell you that one of her greatest wishes is for me to finish reading some books. I have no less than ten books I’ve purchased over the last year and I’ve read two of them. Pitiful, I know. They sit there, I pick them up and then I put them back down. Sometimes I read 4 or 5 chapters, then I find something else that take away my time. Triple-dog pitiful.

2009

I’m going to do my best to make time for the growing stack of books. A very much needed TINTFA. Plus, there’s a lot of books that will be coming out in 2009 that I will want to read. So best to be caught up before adding more pulp-based bookends to the bookshelf.

Traveling

2008

This year, I’ve been to Lake Tahoe, Mesquite, NV, Las Vegas, Valley of Fire and San Francisco once. Not a lot of out-of-state traveling, but enough to have some good times. The first trip to Lake Tahoe was the week I started this blog and then a second time in June for my wedding. Mesquite NV has Lee’s Discount Liquor and my favored Tilt 8%. My daughter and I went to San Francisco in late August to see Radiohead in concert with 60,000 other people at Golden Gate Park. We also went across the bay to see an Oakland Raiders NFL game [my daughter's first NFL game].

2009

Travel plans for this year should be fun, with a trip planned in the first part of the year [which I will reveal where in the next few weeks] with a few others thrown in throughout the year. My daughter and I always try to find a place she’s not been before and of course, there’s always Mesquite NV. [got to stock up, you know]

Political

2008

What would a year end blog summary be if I didn’t mention politics? This was a heated year, in which I revealed that I am a bleeding liberal, sometimes speak more than my mind [which ruffled a few feathers], squash a few rumors and sound off on pre-election bullshit.

2009

As a very political person, you can be assured that I’ll post on various stories and news worthy topics I feel the need to be vocal about. I’ll try my best to not get heated in any of the comments, but I do get passionate about certain things that I feel strongly about. So I guess my TINTFA when it comes to anything political is to be vocal, but use some restraints.

—————————————————————-

Happy New Year

And this post ends the first year of Banal Leakage. To all of my readers, Scooter Sunday fans and commenters, thanks for visiting this year. Stick with me in 2009 and I’ll be here to provide the kind of blogging coverage you’ve come to expect. And maybe… just maybe… we’ll see some new faces here, too.

I wanted to get the first blog post of my workout regimen out, but it’s going to have to wait until next week. Scooter Sunday will still happen on Sunday.

Thanks for your patience.