With this decision made, my notice has been handed in at work and now I must decide how the 40 hours a week of keeping the roof over my head will soon be spent.  (Not that that roof will always keep my head dry, as it turns out.)  And the fact that “something completely different” comprises countless possibilities is somewhat daunting.

I’d like something that gets me away from a desk.  Something that involves movement.  Something that gets me dealing directly with people.  Something for which I can dress up a little, maybe.  Something that can present the opportunity for advancement.  Something that doesn’t drain me of all of my mental and physical energy.  And perhaps most importantly (at least for now), something that can’t come home with me once I punch out for the day.

Part of me wants to take this opportunity to scratch some itches and dabble (or maybe even settle) in some areas that interested me before computers decided to monopolise the picture.  I’ve loved trains and trams for as long as I can remember; it would be awesome to get involved there somehow.  I’m booked in for a Medium Rigid licence training course; perhaps I could look into some other facet of the transport industry.

Anything that won’t have me staring at a computer screen for hours at a time will be nice, though.

With almost suspiciously good timing, a real estate agent who is tasked with finding a new tenant for my apartment has asked me to get in touch if I might be interested in becoming a Property Manager.  That role looks like it might fit all of the criteria I’ve listed above.

I wonder what other employment ideas I’m missing right now?

With mental energy left after work, I’ll be in a better position to do something productive outside business hours.  It’d be nice to work on some personal programming projects and release some of my work to the open source community.  I have some ideas for some financial modules I could release on CPAN.

Or, you know, I could reacquaint myself with some friends and family who must certainly feel long forgotten by now after months (and in some cases, years) of neglect.

It’s going to be an interesting few months.  That is pretty much the only guaranteed constant for now.

What should you do when a light fitting in your apartment starts gushing litres of water?

You know, besides race to remove thousands of dollars of electronics from the area, along with your birth certificate and whatever other important documentation you may have on your desk because you’re in the middle of moving house?

Had this happened just an hour later, it would have been right in the middle of my real estate inspection.  Gold.

Had it happened even later, I may not have even been here to save my stuff.  Poor form, apartment; poor form.

Source: ESP-Disk’ 収集記

It greatly amuses me that someone thought this to be a good shot for an album cover.  Should it?

In the relatively distant past, someone close to me made that decision for us.  That decision still stands, because I respect their wishes and no longer have any means of knowing if those wishes change.  Recently, I was planning to make that decision with someone else.  Because it was my decision this time though, I spent many hours reflecting on it first.

And through this reflection I realised that with no committed view to restoring it, “temporarily” terminating a relationship with someone—whether friendship or otherwise—is neither temporary nor a solution at all.

With time away from someone who has hurt you, contempt can breed.  It doesn’t have to, but it can—and given that your reflections are likely to be focussing on the actions that caused that hurt, it probably will in more cases than it won’t.  With a rule of distance in place, it becomes much easier for you to vilify the other person.  It becomes impossible for the other person to actively influence your decision, because that requires contact with you—which would be a form of disrespect towards you because it goes against your previously announced wishes.

The other person is left powerless, and only you can advance the situation that is created.  Your desire to do that, however, will fall as time progresses because doing so will appear more and more unattractive.  After all, the other person isn’t doing anything to make further action seem worthwhile.  They can’t.

The result: lots of wasted energy on both sides of the equation, and permanent distance.

Having wanted to go down this path myself, I completely understand why it’s tempting.  It’s a non-confrontational, non-committal way out.  But either you know at that time that you want that distance to be permanent, or you don’t.

If you do know, then hopefully you see that person as deserving a truthful, immediate announcement to that effect so that they’re not left hanging with hope.

If you don’t know, then you probably ought to ask yourself if you want your own actions to seal that fate.  If the belief is there that things can work out in the future, set things in motion for that future to eventually reach the present.  Otherwise, like tomorrow, it will never come.

It’s a shame that people are driven to the point of wanting nothing more to do with another.  I regret having driven people in my past to seeing that outcome as the best one, but I respect their wishes and I will let sleeping dogs lie.

From this point forth though, my resolution is not to accept or instigate this scenario again.  I don’t want to run and hide from my problems, and if people matter to me, I don’t want to let them run and hide from theirs either—especially if those problems concern me, because I now have the hindsight to see where that leads.

Perhaps stopping things from reaching that point in the first place would be a better utilisation of time and effort.  One can still learn from what eventuates, though, even if those events aren’t ideal.  And as long as I’m learning until the day I die, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

My life was not completely fulfilled before I came across this video.  Thanks, Emily.

Wikipedia says that the “mumbled vocals were originally laid down as a rough skit with a view to writing ‘proper’ lyrics later but because many loved what he had recorded, they decided to keep the original version.”  I haven’t decided yet whether this enhances or spoils the experience.

When your Chux cloth starts to grow its own vegetables, you know it’s time to bin it.

Source: Overclockers Australia