Been a while since I've posted.



So I thought that I would throw a little party.





A few of my friends decided to show up

Barely disguised peddlers of snake oil and butchers of human flesh. And those are the nice ones. As some of you know, I've been on medication for a while now. And while it has helped, I've managed to hit the jackpot and get all the really rare ones. So I go in and get diagnosed as having hypothyroidism. I've gone from a person who wouldn't take medicine at all except for the occasional advil to one who takes 5-6 pills of one medicine a day, one pill to get to sleep and one to make sure he can get up in the morning.

Yes, I'm mad about it.

I can't help but look at the past year and realize that, in many ways, it has been the single worst year for me and my family. I've done many things that have only hurt the ones that I should love and protect over the years but it culminated finally in this last year when even I could not hide from myself how out of control I had gotten. Ok, actually, I didn't realized it at the time. What happened is that I became concerned at basically not sleeping for 5 1/2 months which led to going to a doctor and being diagnosed and put on medication. It's on my mind partly because it's the end of the year and I just finished my first bottle of medicine. A rather sobering thought, that is. To realize that this was the first bottle of medicine of a very long series of bottles of medicine that I'll be taking for the rest of my life. Though it's a sobering thought, it's not a despairing thought. I've come to view it as though it were any other chronic human illness, though not as potentially life threatening as not receiving dialysis or not taking insulin for a diabetic, in my case.

Part of the reason that I mention this is that I would again like to apologize to my wife and kids whom I love very much. I am sorry that I didn't go to the doctor sooner and spare you all the pain and suffering that I've caused you.

Also, I would like to thank the people that have helped me and supported my efforts, starting with my wife and kids whose love and forbearance gives me the courage to go on.

But there are others from work and from my circle of friends who have shown me kindness and I thank you. A special thanks goes out to those who have gone the extra mile, Dave, Rich and Dustin. I am in your debt.

And if you are a friend (or were a friend) that I've hurt, let me know. I'll talk to you (well, e-mail is more likely) and attempt to explain and apologize to you. No, this is not a twelve step anything. This is me realizing that some of my less than sterling moments may have been fueled by nothing more than the whispering of moonbeams .

Finally, for my list of resolutions for the year. I don't have many because I intend to work very hard to keep these:
1) The first resolution is to give up drinking. Yup, you heard it. I don't need it and besides, even though it doesn't react with the lithium, it doesn't feel so good anymore in my tummy.
2) Continue to take my medicine. Sure, even though this seems easy now, I imagine at some point I'll resent the meds. So I'm being pro-active and saying I'm staying on them.
3) Start a regular exercise program. Um, I'm getting old and need to stay in shape?

That's all and to all that read this far, you get my sincerest wish that all the good things that you desire for the new year happen and that only the sufficient number of bad things that you need to grow into a wiser, better human being happen. Well, that's enough New Age claptrap.

I am starting on the 4th week of an increasing dose of lithium and I've been doing a lot of introspection as I try to piece together my compartmentalized existence. I wanted to write down some of my thoughts on my wife and kids.

---

We have five children who I love with all my heart. They are all smart, artistic, attractive, talented and caring, and we are blessed to have them. They play musical instruments and are voracious readers.

Sharon is my eldest child, an artist and a college student. I remember how Sharon was such a cute, curly-haired little girl, who reminded everyone of Shirley Temple. Now she has grown up to be a tall, beautiful woman. I am so proud of her and her accomplishments. I hate that I haven't been a very good father to her. I would very much like to fix things between us.

My next two children are handsome high school students. David is the second oldest child. He has many talents such as drawing, sculpting, music and math. Stephen is my third child who is becoming quite the musician. He is kind, really good at getting along with others, and he loves
science and history. I wish I had stayed as involved with my older sons as they were growing up as my wife Marie always encouraged me to from the time they were little boys. I also wish I had been a better role model, and can only hope it's not too late for me to change and improve our relationships.

My last two children are cute little boys. Seeing the younger two together reminds me of my older sons, a set of brothers close in age and always together. Aidan is our fourth child and third son, and loves being in 1st grade. He gets along with all his classmates, and his teachers find him a joy to be around. He's smart, loving, bright and creative. Kieran is our youngest son, and can't wait to start school next year. He is well-known as the one with curly hair. He loves to run around and is just as adorable as can be. Kieran is mischievous,
yet so funny and sweet no one can stay mad at him. Both of them love to follow me around, when I am around, that is. I need to spend more time with them, kids grow up so fast.

My wife is Marie, who I've known for 27 years, since high school. We were not dating or anything in high school but she was the sweetest, prettiest, smartest and funniest girl I had ever met. She even has proof of that because I wrote that in her senior yearbook and the words are as true today as when I wrote them. Marie went away to college as a National Merit Scholar at Washington U. in St. Louis. When she came back with a B.S. in engineering and started grad
school, we ran into each other. I couldn't believe the good fortune that Marie liked me and actually wanted to date me after she came home from college. In fact, my friends couldn't believe it, either, and were clearly surprised when we announced that we were getting married. I've never seen anybody as beautiful as Marie on our wedding day.

After our marriage, Marie literally put me through college, even to the point of intervening to resolve some issues when it looked like I would not be able to graduate. I doubt I would have been able to ever graduate without her help because I know I just felt like giving up. After that, she supported my dreams and goals and gave me wonderful children. At the same time she was working on advanced degrees in engineering, earning membership into two academic honor
societies in the process. She taught at a university for several years, winning awards for
her innovations. The original plan was that Marie would work in the industry while I would make games and be a househusband. I think that it was a lucky break for the kids that my career started taking off, and Marie remained their primary care-giver.

Marie has been the best parent any child could wish for. She has been THE hands-on involved parent, allowing me to pursue my career, at her expense. She was a Girl Scout leader for several years, and has always been involved with, and encouraged me to get more involved with,
our children's many activities, including scouting, sports, music, and science clubs. She has been a dedicated volunteer, and has instilled that in our children. There are many more things that I love and cherish about Marie, things like her wonderful cooking, her love of travel, the way she took care of her younger siblings when their father died, the way she took care of her
grandmother, and then her mother, when they were dying. There is so much I admire about her, but mostly how she raised our children and kept our family together, with regrettably little help from me. I wish I had been able to show her the love she deserved.

This year had been a really hard year, filled with many tumultuous events. I've since taken time to really think about several things about myself and my relationship to the people around me and what I don't like about myself and how I treat my loved ones.

I'm Victor, computer hack, husband and father. To my shame and regret, I have spent too much time as a first thing and far, far too little on the last two. I've also recently been diagnosed as bi-polar and not just a little, but a lot. It probably does not surprise anyone who knows me. I've started on lithium therapy, which is suppose to change how I react, something that most people probably would find frightening. Considering that I never even recognized how extreme my behavior was, I'm betting that I won't even notice. I am really hoping that it improves me, for my sake and that of the people around me. Especially for my long-suffering wife and children. They have borne the brunt of my illness, an affliction that has left me viewing my life as a long series of separate shards of existence that if only I piece together like a stained-glass window, I'd be able to examine and make sense of my life. But that evades me and I end up dealing with my life in bits and pieces, hurting the ones I should be protecting and loving.

I've become very good at hiding my nature. I've been dealing with this for a long time. A lot of people probably even see me as a fun person, a "good guy". I'm not. I'm hard to deal with and get along. I've gotten to the point of drinking way to much in a vain attempt to self medicate. One good thing about being on the medicine that I'm one is that I don't feel the need to drink that much anymore. One good thing. I've been selfish, uncaring and mean - I can only hope to be able to make it up to the people I've hurt that should have come first in my life, my family. I've had to travel a lot these last few years, which has only served to make me worse due to the stress and loneliness. I think that this last year, I was home for a total of 3 weeks time (not all together) over a period of 6 months. That's quite a chunk of time for a 4 year old that just wants to see his dad. And even when I was home, I spent all my time doing other things. I've basically acted as though I didn't have a family. I really need to make them a priority.

I hope it's not too late to change.

My daughter entered 3 paintings into her first ever juried art exhibit. Out of a field of 70 artists and 140 paintings, she only got 1 picture accepted. Which proceeded to win "Best of Show"!!!!

Woohoo!

She had a week to create these. The constraints were that they had to be black and white only. I'm very proud of her.

Persephone: 16 x 20, Acrylic on canvas



The other paintings she entered are ( here. )

I'm trying to convince her to give me the Inner Dialog one to hang in my office.

Well, I did it. I signed up for NaNoWriMo (I pronounce it NA-no-wri(short i)-mo). Dumb?

Oh yes.

Pointless? Probably.

Will I get anywhere 50K words written. Hell no. But I've got an outline going. We'll see.

So in my last post, I put down that my location was the City of Dis. LJ very nicely set up a hotlink to Google maps for it. Interested in where Dis may be found on Earth (seeing as I thought it was on the Sixth Circle), I clicked on it. Imagine my disappointment.

However, it did lead to this which when I took the test, interestingly enough, did place me in that aforementioned place.

Coincidence? Hmm....

Ok, I'm finally on Thursday of last week. Late of course, but I'm home. There's a bunch of things that need to be done around the home, one which involves fixing a window on the car. It has fallen off the track and won't go up and down. So I take the door apart, get the requisite pieces to fix the window and start putting the door back together. To fit the panel on, you need to push down on it hard. Probably need a deadfall hammer, which I don't have handy. No problem. I figure that my not inconsiderable weight can do it. So I "nudge" it. It doesn't go down. I take a close look and notice that there is a portion of the lip that has not overlapped the guide. So I take a screwdriver out and try to worry the lip in place while "nudging" the panel on. Nudging consists of me jumping up about six inches and coming down on the panel on my forearm, always maintaining contact. Well, I slipped.

The end of the screwdriver caught my rib. There is that brief moment between when you go, "Ow" and realize that it hurts and then you feel the rib give away and you go "OOOOWWWWW!!" and you realize that it really hurts.

Well, I'm supposed to go on a trip on Monday. I go into work on Monday and tell them I don't want to travel, send somebody else, I broke a rib. They send somebody else.

Well, needless to say, I'm leaving today. I have in singular distinction of not even being able to use a broken bone to get out of doing something.

--EDIT--

Well, upon further consideration, the powers that be have decided that they aren't going to send me out. That's good.

BTW, thanks to the people who have called me today with their well wishes. I appreciate it.

Happy Birthday Jared!

Well, my first week of exile is drawing to a close. The internet, of course, is rather spotty here. It's been hard to get a connection, hence the lack of updates. Also, contributing to my disappearance without a doubt, I've been working 12-16 hour days, trying to get the project working. Overall, this is a pretty miserable trip. The pollution is terrible here. My throat has been sore and scratchy the whole time I've been here. I thought that I was coming down with something but the couple of days that the air cleared up enough to see the mountains, my throat was fine. It was also supposed to get really cold and possibly snow, two things that I neither am use to or enjoy. There are only a handful of places to eat and worst of all, there aren't any real bars around. Pretty much meets my definition of Hell.

I'm going to take half a day off tomorrow and go visit the big trees that they have around here. I'll keep you posted.

I'm looking forward to going back on Wednesday. The convention is just around the corner. Of course, I feel guilty at not being back there to help get ready. I know the final push is always pretty hectic and there's so much to do. I do have my sets picked out and ready for both Fresh Fish Lounge and Cyberia. The new sound card works great. I'm glad I'll be able to spin right off my laptop. Been practicing with the software so I think I'm pretty much ready at this point. I'm sure I'll say something about how it goes afterward.

Of course, I come back here immediately after the con and pretty much stay here until I have to go to GDC. Speaking of which, I've got my bottles that I'm bringing. Dave, Dustin, Rich, we problably should come up with a time and date and possibly a list of invitees. Also, I've tried to procur a couple of bottles of Absinthe. I don't know if they will be here in time for GDC, but it's also something to possible have a little gathering to enjoy. We should certainly invite Billy and Clarinda, Daniel, Neil, etc...

I know I missed it by one day. First day that I've had some time.
( Read more... )

Thanks to allroads, I thought I'd try Semagic. I'm testing it out now. Seems nice, has a lot of useful features.

I ran across this. I'm just not sure what to say. Just wow. And I don't mean that in a good way.

What do we have here?

Happy New Year!

ps. I've been drinking a bit

Another 365.25 days gone by. Why does the end of some marked time period cause these introspections? Why don't we have these more often? Is the purpose of these introspections to expose our inner selves to the unblinking eye of truth? Would it not make us better persons? Can we not stand to be better people? Or is the cost of self-examination too great a burden? Perhaps it takes too much time, or is too hard. I don't know what you have told yourself or (hubris on my part, I know) if you even think that this is a valid line of reasoning. I just know what I think. Sometimes.

Yesterday, I finished re-roofing about 1/4 of the roof of my house. We have a built-up roof. Basically, take all the old stuff off and dump new stuff on. Except that taking old stuff off means removing rocks and old tar and tar paper, all very heavy and hard. And then tacking down new paper and slopping tar all over and then dumping rocks on top. A lot of rocks. 40 bags to be precise. At roughly 80 lbs. a bag which I carried up a ladder, one at a time. I'm a wee bit tired.

Oh well, back to drinking. I'm thinking Colorado Mudslides. Maybe Irish Carbombs.

On a positive note, I think I could probably tend bar as my second career.

Before I forget, my eggnog recipe. Always a favorite at work. As the final days of December approach, in the last week before the holiday shutdown that we have every year, people anxiously start approaching me and asking when I'm bringing my eggnog in, so they can plan their last day at work. Incidentally, on occasion, people ask me if I spike the eggnog. I honestly answer them no. You can only spike something that is not suppose to have alcohol in it. It is akin to asking if a Martini is spiked.

BTW, my workplace has a strict policy of not allowing libations of any sort of, thanks to being a California based company. Ah California, the land of political correctness and other nincompoopery. Oh well. So I flaunt that rule. Well, I've always said, if you are going to flaunt a rule, make sure you give them something else to talk about, besides you flaunting the rule. I wore a suit (3 piece no less!) and tie. Guess what? Nobody talked about the clear and obvious violation of the rules taking place. People are so easily distracted.

And my sincere best wishes to my friends. May a little peace and happiness find its way into all our lives and the lives of loved ones and, yes, unloved ones too.

( Without further ado (and maudlin sentimentality), the recipe. )

Well, I'm in Tucson. Working second shift. Of course, I go in to work early. And I can't sleep. I was supposed to go back this Saturday. But it looks like it will be extended to next Saturday. Life sucks. Not ready for the Holidays. Nor my youngest's birthday, who was born on the 18.

I think I said it already. Life sucks.