Kids…

Kids are great… funny, cute, make you melt… So why don't I want them?

For so long bringing this up in front of my parents has caused nothing but a frown and a reply along the lines of "you need to change your attitude." It's weird how some people think that, you either get married and have kids, or you stay single your whole life. Why is it that when someone wants to break away from the norm in their family (my norm being all 3 siblings of mine having three biological kids) it's frowned upon?

Maybe I do have a bad attitude about it… maybe I'm being selfish. But isn't it more selfish to have a kid someday and then treat them wrong, or screw up in their life cuz you didn't want a kid in the first place?

I digress…

My reasoning is not completely out of selfishness. I know for a fact that I would be the last person on the face of the earth cut out for parenting. Having 14 nephews and nieces has showed me that time and time again. On top of that, I don't think I would have the patience to deal with a "mini-me." I was no easy kid to parent… My mom will verify that one. My 3^rd and final point (for the time being) is this: I don't want to pass on my shitty genes. Bad joints and a list of diseases and disorders that's longer than I even want to get in to. Is it right for me to have kids and curse them with a future of probable bad health?

There is a part of me that's been wondering, though… thinking in the long term. Do I really want to be buried with no one left? Do I want to not have a legacy?

I guess I don't know… only time (and my wife, whoever she'll be) will tell.

Until next time…

Currently Listening To: Meteora – Linkin Park

Testing…

So I'm pretty much just testing the blogging capabilities of Word 2007. That's pretty much the only reason for this post… sooo… enjoy!

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Life is Good

Well, I never thought that I would actually be posting this, but, since I'm pretty sure no one reads this, what the hell.

Short version: I have a girlfriend!

Sparknotes version: I met a girl a few years back on the KJ-52 message board, and a few weeks ago we discovered we liked each other, and the rest is, as they say, history.

Now, if you're up for it, here is the long version: [Note: Please take this time to go grab something to munch on and drink, cuz this could get long.]

About two and a half years ago I joined the KJ-52 message board after both listening to the first CD of his that I owned, and seeing him live at ATF '05. Back then that message board was a grand old place. About a month after I joined, a user joined that went by the name of "KJ52 RoCkS mY sOcKs." Shortly after she had been on the board for awhile, we started talking... typically in threads such as BA (Boarders Anonymous, for those addicted to spam). At one point, however, we even did a rap battle (which, by the by, she won by knock-out). Ah yes, back then we were such dorks.

As time went on, we eventually moved our conversations to MSN Messenger, where I learned her name was actually Sharlene and that she lived in Oklahoma. We became pretty good friends (considering we met online at all).

[random events during this period of friendship excluded for sake of brevity]

After Bethany and I broke up back in February, we started talking more and more... she was pretty good at helping me smile, and always seemed to be there when I needed someone to talk to. I told her everything and not once did she judge me.

Sometime over the summer I picked up a Guitar Hero addiction. Not owning a PS2, I sought an alternative and found one: Frets On Fire. This game I eventually shared with everyone on the message board. It was rapidly picked up by Sharlene. For awhile this common interest dominated our conversation. Dare I say I obsessed over the game, which I'm sure sometimes drove her nuts.

Over the summer both of us also picked up web cams which greatly changed the face of our friendship. The problem, however, was the her parents were not to keen on the whole online thing... they didn't even know she was on a message board, let alone talking to some guy she met on one. However, we worked around this, and still managed to have a web cam conversation. Eventually, it worked out that her parents weren't home, and we actually had an web call where we talked "face to face" for the first time. It was pretty awesome...

As time passed, we started talking more and more. We eventually started saying "love ya!"s before one of us had to leave. As some of you may know, I say "I love ya" to most of my female friends. Well, eventually I noticed that her casual "I love ya!" turned into a more serious "I love you." At which point I began to wonder: "Is it possible that she likes me?" We had talked before about personality and stuff, and how that if we lived in the same town maybe something would work out, but never had we talked seriously about anything.

Well, on Saturday night about 3 weeks ago I brought up the topic... after talking some, we realized that we were both attracted to each other... but at that distance, what could you do? We talked a lot about it that night... and decided that it would be best to stay "close friends with a mutual attraction." Needless to say, that only lasted about a week. We talked about it again last week... and came to the mutual decision that we should just give it a try.

So here I am... 2 weeks in to a relationship with a girl that I met online that lives 900 miles away. Am I crazy? Probably... But for now, it's what feels right. It feels weird... but it's not the distance or having never met that feels weird. What feels weird is how alright I am with it all. And why shouldn't I feel alright? She's an amazing girl. She's a Christian with very similar beliefs, she was home schooled, she loves photography, she loves Guitar Hero (lol), she's beautiful, and more importantly, she loves me, and accepts me for who I am. What's more is this... Why is distance such a big issue? I'm 20 years old... No longer severely bound by distance... she's 18 and applying to a college in my area... What's could stop me from moving to where she is besides fear; fear of starting a new life, fear of breaking away from the family tradition of staying close.

Life has twists and turns... and this situation is by no means simple; in fact it's very complicated. But for once in my life, I'm going to sit back, and enjoy being with the girl I love. And why can I do that? Because I, no, because we know that God is in control, and that He will not let anything happen that isn't supposed to happen in our lives.

So for now at least... to my wonderful Sharlene: I love you. :)

Well, my social life ends tonight. On top of school I now have 15-20 hours per week of ASP.NET programming on my plate. I guess I need the job, I need the experience, I need the money... and I guess it keeps me from sitting and doing nothing. It should be pretty interesting, though. All I need in the short term is just to learn the language, which I will do with the help of my supervisor, Matt. After that, I will start upgrading the company website from ASP to ASP.NET. Which in a way makes things easier... the structure is already there, I just need to rewrite the syntaxes.

It's still gonna take up a lot of my life though... and a lot of time from my newest purchase: Guitar Hero 3. Yeah, that's right, I bought it! I can't wait to get my hands on it. According to the UPS website, it should be waiting for me when I get home from school on Wed.

Anyway... for tonight... I don't have much more to say. I guess I will update you more as I know more.

Opportunities

Life is so unsure at times... And I'm one that hates it I don't know what's gonna happen.

My boss contacted me over the weekend... Their other intern had to leave to go back to school and they want me to learn ASP, and pick up where she left off. This would mean 15-20 hours per week of ASP coding, in other words, much needed money. The problem is, aside from shell scripts, I have no programming background. Apparently the intern that left was able to learn it in 2 weeks... so that promising. However, even then there's a catch. The IT boss wants me to go down to Chicago for 2 weeks. Now, I would find that fun... if I didn't have school to worry about. So now I'm just sitting and waiting for a teleconference on Friday that will decide how matters will be taken care of.

Programming is something I kinda wanna learn; especially ASP and other server side languages. Later in life when I switch over to photography, I can use all the knowledge I gain to build my own website.

I guess we'll have to see where it goes. Hopefully we can get something figured out, cuz I really want to do it.

:edit:
By the by, I tried using different cables for my RAID.... and it actually built an array now! Now all I need to do is figure out why the network install isn't working, and I'll be on my way to my multipurpose server: DNS Caching, IPv6 DHCP, Web Server, and short term backup.