“Not all those who wander are lost.” – J.R.R. Tolkien

One of the things that I got sucked into believing about dating was that it would be far easier for me to meet likeminded people online than in real life, because life was simply too random and chaotic for me to easily find the kind of people I could relate to and hang out with (especially hot looking wimmins.) I mean seriously, am I really gonna run into an avid fan of Sarah Palin (who also happens to look just like Jessica Alba) at the local supermarket, in NEW YORK? The odds simply don’t work like that in my favor.

Or does it?

One thing about pursuing this new hobby of geocaching, it’s definitely taken me to some interesting places. Last weekend I climbed to the top of a lighthouse, then drove to a Target and found a space right next to the door, shopped around and went to an empty checkout, all this only a day after Black Friday too. Then I ran into a tea party that was having a demonstration inside a Lowe’s parking lot of all places. It was amazing. I simply did not expect to see any Tea Party dudes in New York, but there they were, protesting against Obamacare and the corruption of Albany, with Derringer’s “I am a Real American” blasting in the background. It was a wild scene. And I never would have found them either had I not been out geocaching.

The day after that, each cache I hunted took me on a trip down memory lane, one at a park where I used to be a camp counselor, which also happened to be the same park where my grandfather used to maintain the grounds. Another took me to my old college, where I also took the LSAT exam that would start me on my failed journey to law school, and still another took me right past the house I was once evicted from so many years ago. So many memories, most of them painful too. And yet when I revisited all these places from my past, it was like I had never really been there. It all seemed only vaguely familiar to me now, like trying to remember an old dream, the faded memories of a distant life best left forgotten.

After I had wrapped up my cache hunting, I drove off and stopped by a 7-11 nearby for a drink. It was past midnight, yet even then I saw a cute girl behind me coming in as well. I held the door open for her and though she ignored me, I wondered: if I simply did this long enough and often enough, eventually the pieces would all fall together, and someday I’d be holding the door open for the girl of my dreams, and she certainly won’t ignore me then. Or maybe I would meet her at the top of a lighthouse. Or at a Target. Or at a tea party. The geocaching hunts that I’ve been doing all weekend were randomly put together, and yet they didn’t seem very random at all. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that the true value of things is often found in the journey itself, rather than the destination. I’ve been avoiding the journey too long, trying to live it out instead on the Internet. But I’m beginning to realize it should have been the other way around.

Tags: college, cute girl, demonstration, geocaching, girl of my dreams, internet, journey, life, lighthouse, memories, online, remember, tea party
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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Another Thanksgiving draws near, and once again it’s time to reflect on what I should be thankful for.

… well I got nothing.

No seriously, I do have a lot to be thankful for, especially this year. This was after all the year I finally became debt free, after having paid off my credit card, car and my college loan. It was the year my earnings from this blog reached inconceivable heights, making it possible for me to travel more frequently now and enjoy life in a way I never could before. For this I have you, my readers to thank. I still can’t quit my job just yet, but the extra income coupled with a debt free existence has made it possible now for me to go out and experience new and different things, and better yet, write about it too.

My health has also gotten much better as well. I thought I would be too tired, too sick to take on exhausting road trips and weekend getaways to God only knows where, but instead it’s become the exact opposite. The more I moved around, the better I felt and the more energy I had. In a way it broke my depression and lifted me out of this mental prison that I’ve built for myself for so long.

I’m thankful for finding a new hobby in geocaching too, to keep things interesting on my trips and find new places to explore that never would have occurred to me otherwise.

I’m thankful for my parents, who are all that I have left of a once huge family that had been lost through hate, estrangement and betrayal.

I am thankful for my beautiful and reliable SUV, which continues to guzzle gas and proudly leave it’s wide load of a carbon footprint for all to see.

I am thankful for Yankee Candles, pizza and cupcakes. And occasionally brownies too.

And of course, I am thankful to God my Father and my savior Jesus Christ, who has made all of the above things possible.

And I am thankful for the new year to come, the endless possibilities it might bright, and a hope that refuses to die, the hope that I will someday soon meet my dream girl.

Tags: christ, college loan, debt, depression, dream girl, energy, family, geocaching, God, health, income, Jesus, life, new year, parents, pizza, readers, road trip, thankful, thanks, Thanksgiving, travel, yankee candles
Categories: Gone Mobile
 
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Or more specifically, poison ivy rashes, which I somehow got from geocaching in the woods of Pennsylvania. The irony of this? These “woods” were actually right next to a Walmart parking lot, making me think it would be an easy find. Instead I stepped into a batch of poison ivy, resulting in my leaving the state covered in itchy rashes and misery. I guess this is what I get for rooting for the Yankees in Phillies land. Oh, and also for shopping at Walmart (I realized too late there was a Target nearby all along that I could have stopped at instead. Sigh.) I won’t be making THAT mistake again. Then I come home to find a letter from the town court containing the fine amount due after I got ticketed by state police on my last vacation.

$150?!??! FOR A PARKING TICKET??? SON OF A___ YEEEEEEEARRFRBVGHHGh…

Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be driving through that town again. Dillweeds.

I certainly seem to get a run of bad luck every time I put myself out there and try to enjoy life. If I just did my usual thing, instead of going out there and enduring all this misery, I could be safe at home, hiding under my bed while playing Nancy Drew games on my laptop and sipping hot cocoa. At least then I wouldn’t have to worry about getting pulled over by cops, or rolling in poison ivy, or getting mowed down by crazy drivers in the city, or wearing out an aging SUV that just cost me $1500 to fix up.

But then again, I wouldn’t have had beautiful women somehow find their way into my hotel room three times in a row either. Two that brought me room service, and one that helped get my fireplace going. Nor would I have enjoyed some of the beautiful scenery I came across either in my travels.

It occurred to me then that hiding under my bed and surfing eHarmony is probably not the best way to meet or find a nice girl. Besides, I was missing out on life, and even with all the dangers out there, the rewards often trump the risks.

So despite my itching all over as I type this post, I’m determined to continue living the life I’ve always wanted to live, to go places I’ve never been to before, to explore the world and meet new people, and maybe somewhere in all that I’ll someday meet my dream girl too.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go put some ointment on and scream for a little while…

Tags: geocaching, life, parking ticket, Pennsylvania, poison ivy, police, risks, travel, travels, vacation, walmart, women
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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Only a few days left before I dropkick my eHarmony subscription in the face, and already I’m ready to take a vow of celibacy and join Al Bundy’s activist group NO MA’AM.

I get matched to a few lawyers, mental health professionals and other women working in full time careers that keep them ridiculously busy, but still I sent them all communication requests, since they seemed to pretty much have it together and were cute. You think I get a response? Of course not. They haven’t closed the match though, they’re just too busy to do much of anything, see.

And right away I know what they really want. They don’t want a relationship. What they DO want is a weekend boy toy, somebody to fill in those gaps of what little free time they have left over after working their jobs, a secondhand cuddle toy that they can squeeze like a Tickle Me Elmo doll for a few minutes before running right back to work or other commitments, leaving me in the lurch to twiddle my thumbs and wait until they’re finally free to hang out again.

I’ve seen this attitude before, women who would tell me they’ll be right back on IM and then disappear for a day, two days, a week, 2 weeks, before finally popping up again, no apology, no explanation, totally oblivious to their bad manners. What really chaps my Calvin Kleins about it all is that when you call them out on it, they accuse you of being a sissy boy who can’t handle being alone for more than 30 seconds, and real men wouldn’t be so clingy and if I can’t handle it then I don’t deserve them, blah blah blah. They exhaust every excuse to justify their rudeness, honestly believing that I am to sit down, shut up and wait patiently until they’re ready to finally bestow me with the greatness of their presence once again. For a few minutes that is.

It explains the attraction to aloof guys, and the amusing logical result of it when they wring their hands trying to figure out why such a guy doesn’t yearn for them and was so easily able to dump them like bad coffee, having already moved on to his next conquest.

And here’s the thing: if you don’t have 2 minutes of free time to reply to a request to communicate on eHarmony, just how much free time are you going to have for a real relationship? And I’m sorry, I am not going to be anybody’s weekend boyfriend, so if that’s your angle, you can go suck the ass of a moose. That’s not how I roll.

And before people start whining about how men do this all the time to women, I’m not excusing that either. It’s wrong when either side does it, and if it’s wrong when men do it, why would it be ok when women do it too? If you have a busy job, but you want a relationship and someone special in your life but you ain’t got the time, then MAKE time. Simple as that. You want it bad enough, you’ll find a way. I sacrifice my time to be with someone I care about, why can’t you? You say I’m too clingy? *bleep* you.

So women want a guy who is secure and happy without the need for girlie wubs, and therefore not clingy or piney or whatever the hell it is that offends you women so much that we would have the audacity to yearn for your presence. Since that’s the case, where would you expect to find such a secure-without-a-woman dude willing to put up with your mind bending neurosis? Uranus??

So how ’bout this then, I cling to my money and a single life free of your mind games and bull donkey turd, and you can cling to your precious careers and your never-ending search for one-sided wubs. See which one of us will end up happier, biznatches.

I leave you now with this Youtube vid that exemplifies for all time why women these days are just not worth the trouble anymore.

Tags: attitude, boy toy, boyfriend, career, eharmony, free time, life, profession, relationship, vow of celibacy, women, YouTube
Categories: Romance and Relationships
 
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It was a dark and stormy night.

Actually no, it was a sunny and illuminous day here, with the weather dipping to the low 70s and the skies dancing with the billowing remnant clouds of Tropical Storm Danny. What a great way to end August and unofficially, the end of summer.

This was my week to leave the office for what we call THE RUN. Basically it involves stopping at a slew of government offices for pickups and dropoffs, and while I’m usually not crazy about this part of my job, I definitely welcomed the opportunity today. If you’re quick about it, The Run usually takes about an hour and 45 minutes to do, so naturally it takes me about 3 hours. It also gave me a chance to enjoy the weather and get away from the office’s resident hens, who cannot help but talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk talk talky talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk…

So I’m driving around far and away from the mindless, white noises of the office, and I’m thinking about things. I had been so desperate to move out on my own that I hadn’t really thought about another possibility: What if I could move out of state for real?

I was ready to give up on the idea that I would ever get another job or move out of state, and in that frame of mind I was looking around for any kind of apartment I could find simply to get away from my parents, resigning myself to the reality that my job now was the only job I’d ever have, and while I was lucky to have it, in another sense it was a blackhole too. There’s no promotional path, no training seminars, no chance to expand my skill set at all. In 9 years, I have learned nothing new. And because of it I was pretty much unemployable as far as the private sector goes.

But the public sector… well now, they actually EXPECT you not to have any skills whatsoever.

It also occurred to me that I was in the most ideal place you could ask to be in if your objective was to make a life altering, dramatic move and career change. I have no wife and kids, no debt, no property that I owned, not even furniture. I could up and leave a moment’s notice, literally. And while I’ve been building up my nest egg in preparation to move out, I wonder now if I should stick around for the time being and invest in something even bigger, not simply just to move out and find my own place, but move out of my job and my state altogether.

I always thought the Feds would be my ultimate destiny, mostly because since I graduated it had been my dream to work as a special agent for a law enforcement agency, whether it was the FBI or somebody else, a dream I had to give up on partly because of my disability, and partly because I’m, well, pretty much an idiot.

But now there’s no better time than the present to shoot for the stars again, and maybe even if I couldn’t work as a sworn agent, I could still serve in a civilian capacity somewhere. I have the luxury now of being able to apply and go to any job in the country (except New Jersey, cuz, ewwww). I could also take a salary hit without feeling the squeeze now that all my debts have been taken care of as well.

I think I owe it to myself to at least give it a try before accepting the sentence of life imprisonment in New York. Maybe there is a faux log cabin and a bonnie lass waiting for me in Colorado after all.

Tags: apartment, career, debts, destiny, dream, government, job, law enforcement, life, new york, parents, public sector, weather, white noise
Categories: In The Coal Mine
 
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With all the news about the economy being in the toilet and people left and right losing their jobs (and unable to find new ones), I’m reminded of the personal recession I once experienced shortly after I graduated college, waaaaaay back in ‘98.

I had just wrapped up my undergraduate “career” and finished with a degree in computer science, all during a time when the IT industry was BOOM-ING, BABY, OW! You couldn’t so much as turn without smacking right into an IT/computer related job. I had made the right choice for a degree, patted my back for a job well done, and at 21 years of age I was ready to take on the world and start on my way to becoming a buff, studly FBI hacker who would single-handedly capture Russian bad dudes with nary a few taps on the keyboard. The world was my oyster, baby!

Well…

One job interview went by. Then another. Then another, and yet no one got back to me. Soon I started getting rejection letters, and it wasn’t long before my post-college bravado gave way to concern, and then outright fear. I was going to job fairs, handing out resumes like candy, responding to newspaper ads, emailing companies, literally knocking door to door, and all I was beginning to show for it was a growing stack of rejection letters (which I still have by the way.)

What was I doing wrong? The industry was booming, I had picked the right field, the demand was high, and yet no one wanted to hire me?

One month became two, then six, then before I knew it a whole year had gone by and I was still gainfully unemployed. My relationship with my parents was really taking a turn for the worse too. At some point things got so bad between us that they eventually became convinced that I wasn’t serious about finding work, that the only thing I was really doing all day was playing games on the internet. So as punishment they took my speedy 28.8 dialup modem away.

There’s probably nothing more demoralizing to a 22 year old college graduate than to have not only his modem taken away, but access to a car as well (since my parents both worked during the day.) So there I was, with no access to the internet and no access to a car, and yet I was still expected to somehow find a job.

Their suspicion that I would only spend the day playing Battlezone 2 or surfing Usenet groups to argue with stupid Christians was totally unfounded too. Ok… MOSTLY unfounded. It said nothing of the fact that I was desperate, DESPERATE to get the holy FRICK away from my parents and get my own place so I could live my own life. You think they’d understand that ALONE was more than enough incentive for me. I wasn’t gaming all day long on the internet. I was trying to network, research and brainstorm ways I could find a job. Then when I needed a break, I’d play a round or two of Wolfenstein. What else could I do, really?

But still they locked up my 28.8 dialup modem in their bedroom before leaving for work every day, and my only means of transportation then was a 20 year old woman’s bicycle (with a flowery basket in front) that we kept on the porch. Thank God YouTubers weren’t around then to capture the comical display of me riding around in a suit on a girlie bike with a stack of resumes crammed in my basket. I never would have lived it down.

Most of the time when I wasn’t out riding into town and feeling really stupid about myself, I was left to twiddle my thumbs while I stared blankly at the wall, wondering why God hated me so much.

I think the first low point then was when I managed to get a part time job delivering flowers, only to get fired a week later when I asked to come in later than usual so I could go to a job interview. When they realized I had graduated college and was spending time going to interviews they figured I wouldn’t be around long term and fired me. My parents blamed me for it because I shouldn’t have said anything about a job interview, but I wasn’t street smart enough to know about these things. Their harsh criticism and the embarrassment of being fired from a florist delivery job made me hate myself more than anything. I thought I was the most worthless idiot on the planet. Everyone else was landing jobs left and right and here I couldn’t even hold on to flowers.

Eventually after some more time passed, I had an idea. My modem was still being locked away safe and sound in their bedroom, but one evening I had to go to the supermarket to get some groceries for my parents and borrowed the car. When I went to get the keys, I realized one of them was the key to the bedroom.

Hmmmmm….

I had a bunch of extra quarters saved up in a can somewhere, so I grabbed those up, got in the car and stopped by the hardware store.

“Yeah I’d like to get an extra copy of this key?”

“Sure, be a few minutes.”

I watched him as he forged a magical key that would unlock the mysteries of the kingdom. I dropped a bunch of quarters on the counter while he threw a quizzical look at me, as if to say “Are you so cheap you can’t even pay in bills?” but thankfully took them anyway and gave me change.

YES!

The next morning I cheerfully waved my parents off as they went to work, then waited a few minutes to make sure neither of them came back in case they had forgotten something, and raced to their bedroom door.

*click*

You could hear the angels singing as I unlocked the door and the light from outside shone into the room. I started looking around and quickly found my beloved dialup modem. I was in the game again!

The thrill of sneaking around like that breathed some new life into me, and I would spend the next few weeks making the rounds of unlocking the bedroom door, grabbing my modem and then going through my daily routine of job hunting, networking and whatnot before I ended with a fast game of Battlezone, then quickly returning the modem back into the bedroom and locking the door again when the timer I set for myself buzzed, signaling the time I needed to get off so I wouldn’t get caught redhanded.

Once my internet time was up, I would break out the Ragu pizza sauce I kept hidden in my room and use the bread machine we had to make pizza. We had the same equipment restaurants used to make brick oven pizza, and with it all I was turning pizza-making into an art form, even learning how to toss it up to spread the dough. It was truly my source of comfort and joy. I would take a few hot slices, head over into the living room and watch General Hospital so I could catch a glimpse of my dream girl at the time, Rebecca Herbst. The fantasies of getting snuggly wubsy woos from her and the exquisite tastes of my homemade pizza helped get me through some very dark times then.

You could have had my pizza anytime, baby....

I’m not sure if my parents ever figured out I had been able to get into their bedroom, but they must have been suspicious. One day when I was going through the usual morning routine of unlocking their bedroom, I stepped in and suddenly saw an empty seltzer bottle rolling around on the floor.

Hmmmmmmm… where did that come from?

When I picked it up and tried to get a read on where it had been before, I realized it must have been right behind the door. There was no way to avoid knocking it down when you opened the door either, and that’s when it occurred to me that it was placed that way on purpose. My parents had set up a primitive boobytrap to see if I was indeed invading their bedroom while they were away at work. If it hadn’t rolled around in my view the way it did, I might have never noticed it, and it would have made for a very awkward conversation that day.

Ah well.

I took the bottle and placed it upright again behind the door before leaving and locking the room.

And so it went, week after week, unlocking their bedroom, knocking the bottle down, and then putting the modem back and setting the bottle upright just before I locked the room up again. I felt like James Bond. Fitting that they would use an empty bottle for this too. They always did see the glass half empty. *sound of corny 007 music playing*

I think after a while my parents finally started to mellow out and realize I was indeed going through a hard time here. After about 18 months of job searching, I hit my lowest point when I was even turned down for a job as a cashier, but not before enduring three humiliating interviews where they put me through a psych test, a counting test, and a few other tests to determine my knowledge of all things cashier related. I got the rejection letter 2 weeks later.

That last rejection had me throwing up my hands in defeat and ready to jump off a bridge somewhere, but shortly afterwards a recruiter found one of my resumes in a databank, at long last leading me to my first full time job, 19 months after I graduated college. Finally, my recession had come to an end.

Of course I would soon be laid off 5 months later, but that’s another story.

Tags: car, career, college, computer, economy, graduate, internet, job, jobs, life, networking, parents, part time, pizza, recession, rejection, work
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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