Personal posts page 58

Post-Suicide Q&A

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It would be nice if you could field questions after killing yourself. Then maybe people could understand why and perhaps be better able to handle others in similar situations who might be considering offing themselves as well. You can write up all that you want before you off yourself, but you can never really know what people would actually ask or who would even be interested enough to ask. There are many nuances in conveying information, and you probably won’t be able to convey your messages in exactly the way that the people you are sending them to need them to be to truly understand what you are trying to say. There can be no follow up questions, which are usually very important for homing in on what the asker wants to know and the answerer wants to say. And of course there is no guarantee that the people who you are sending those messages to or who want to know some answers will actually read them. Reading can be quite tedious, especially the voluminous amounts that a suicidal has to convey and the great boringness it most likely has to most other people. It is, of course, also tedious to write, and you probably in the end just won’t right all you want to before you go through with it. Most people probably have some hope or feeling that it won’t actually happen, and the last bit where they are sure it will happen, they are in poor condition for writing profusely and well. There is, of course, no way to really implement this idea, just thinking.

Class Reunion: Ten Years

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I had my high school ten year class reunion just on Saturday, for those of us who graduated from Woodridge in 2000. We had it at the Lion’s Lodge (or something like that, my first time there) in Cuyahoga Falls. It was organized by classmate Rebecca Gerstenberger (now Setty).

The turnout was very low. I think 10-15 classmates plus some spouses and kids showed up. That’s from a pool of around 91 classmates. I have to wonder how many normally come to these things. One made it from Texas, the rest were pretty local. There was even a girl from my brother’s class who’m I had worked with at the Lizard for a while and even went on GOBA with once, so in a way I knew her better than my classmates. She was married to someone from my class.

I did miss the “second part” of the shindig though, held at the Wing Warehouse or something like that. It was set up after the original event was and there were more likely other people there. I had to feed and walk my parents’ dogs though. They probably could have waited for me to at least appear for a bit at the second part: Oh well.

A few people I didn’t recognize at first (John Parker looks very different with short hair and beard and several more years), but most people looked pretty similar or just a bit older and more heavy set.

I got to talk for a bit with several of the people who showed up, but not in depth, and there were a number I didn’t talk to at all. With the ones I talked to, it was mostly a “hi there, what are you up to these days, I’m …” kind of thing, and then I fell back to my usual quiet sitting and listening. John Rummel happened to be a web developer like me, working with ASP.NET on a company’s intranet: I talked to him briefly about it, but not much more of a conversation than with others really. I guess developers don’t get together though for coding parties or anything like that. It seems like I won’t be seeing any of those folk for another ten years though. I might hear an occasional bit of news on The Facebook, but that seems to be it.

I was somewhat hopeful this event could change things. Seems like things are made to keep me on this path.

The Facebook With Friends

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Only one day after my initial post about The Facebook, I got my first friend request. It was a Woodridge person, and one that I hadn’t talked to that much in the later years there (as if I really talked to anyone there much). Since that first “friend”, I’ve continued to receive a fairly steady stream. Most have been from Woodridge, but I’ve gotten one from my Tri-C days and one from my Winking Lizard days. Perhaps a that’s a sign of just how much less present I was after Woodridge.

I currently have 26 “friends” there. A number of them I haven’t even communicated with, just “friended”. Many of them, like my first “friend”, I hadn’t talked to much in the later years. I’ve had three people from another class and one teacher “friend” me even. I’ve made two friend requests now. One was after my recent high school reunion, where I saw my first real love, who I hadn’t seen in about six years. She said to contact her on The Facebook, so I did. The other happens to be another girl I was/slightly-am-still in love with from the Winking Lizard. I’m pretty sure she never wants to contact me again, but she was “suggested” by that Lizard person who did “friend” me. She hasn’t responded yet, and I guess I don’t get a message if she doesn’t want to be my friend: Oh well.

So far it seems like, for me anyway, The Facebook is a place where you contact old friends with brief messages of “how are you, haven’t seen you in a while” when you first “friend” them, then you probably won’t message them for a year or two. As I said, some I haven’t even contacted yet. I’m making it a point to contact everybody though, just at a comfortable pace. They shouldn’t be my “friend” if I don’t contact them at least once I’d think (probably more would seem most right).

I don’t know if this Facebook will really amount to anything for me. The discussions have been brief and mostly provided me with little hope of even increasing the number of people I regularly communicate with, let alone real world friends. One a number of recent events or things in my life I had hope for but have proven to just be the same old thing. I think the problem is me

The Facebook

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I managed to make it for several years in the face of The Facebook without joining it while people all around did. With my lack of real life friends and of interest in an online social network, I saw no need. There’s also the privacy and security concerns. But in recent months I had some of my cousins and a few others suggest I join. Last week, a chance encounter with a former classmate from high school pushed me over the edge to finally join. She said she’d friend me if I joined, and our conversation was brief enough that I figured at that point joining might allow me to at least briefly reacquaint myself with her and perhaps other people from the past, who for all intents and purposes no longer exist. I didn’t join immediately due to apprehension about the whole thing and because I was fairly busy trying to spend time with my brother on his short visit.

I finally gave in and joined a few days ago. I gave my name and email address, then chose to delve deeper by providing my location, schooling and job history, and attempted to provide my favorite music, movies, books, and activities.

The Facebook now has a nice beginning understanding of Toby Mackenzie. However, none of The Facebook members do, at least not through The Facebook. I have no The Facebook friends. 0. This is, again, not too different from real life, but I was hoping to at least “friend” some of the folk who suggested I join. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find them. In searching for the former Woodridge friend who pushed me over that hump of joining, I found four people with that name, and based on photos, three definitely weren’t her and one as discernible as a shadow on the side of a tent, which is what the photo looked like. I could not find my cousins either, with similar results.

I did find some people I knew. The most recent was one of my teachers at Tri-C, but I don’t really talk to her anymore and knew her more in a school and web design capacity, maybe not the best first move into the “social” world that I envision “The Facebook” to be. I also found some other Woodridge people, but I haven’t talked to almost any of them in a long long time. I can still be shy on The Internet. There aren’t too many other people I could really look for. I found a handful of Winking Lizard people, but we didn’t get far in conversation even in real life (I guess that’s true of most everybody though anyway).

I did find my one most friend-like non-family friend, my former guitarist and multi-time roommate. I do still talk to him on the phone from time to time. I’ll let him “friend” me if he’d find that of benefit. I’ll let these people who know how to work The Facebook to handle the “friending”. Otherwise, I’ll see how long I can maintain 0 friends.

Besides for the friend bit, there really isn’t much of interest on The Facebook. There seems to be applications and games, but I have those outside of The Facebook. So far it’s not seeming worthwhile to have joined.

Google finance adds split handling

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Looks like it’s been a good while since I’ve posted on this blog. My “professional” blog, which gets much more traffic, has been getting my focus, and I’m still not sure what will be happening with this blog.

Anyway, on with the post.  I use Google Finance for my everyday checks on my stock portfolio and the market in general.  I check for prices and news.  It gives me a basic idea of my returns for each stock and for my overall portfolio, though it doesn’t seem to match perfectly with my tracking in Quicken.

A while back they began tracking dividend payouts.  They are not entirely accurate, which is probably why the numbers are off.  They also are not applied to the returns of individual stocks, only the whole portfolio.  Since Quicken can show me per-stock returns with dividends, this provides a nice comparison between market returns and overall returns.

So just today I looked at my portfolio after having not payed attention to it for several days or so, and suddenly my returns were way up (from around 60% overall to 80%).  I was somewhat excited for a second, but confused because the overall market had not jumped that much, and as I looked through prices, none seemed that different from where they were.

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Applied for Job: Bluestar

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Angela Berlingeri, my instructor for my Web II class, forwarded me an email about a potential PHP developer job at bluestar-design.com.  There weren’t any details about the job, including information about what skill levels and sets were required, so I went ahead and sent my resume.  Julia Brigg sent me an email fairly quickly saying she might have an entry level position (the kind I’d need) in the near future.  Yay.

She also forwarded my resume to an associate, who called me immediately.  He needed a full time developer, which would conflict with my schooling, so I was unable to meet his need.  But he did say that he might be interested once I graduate.  Yay again.

Suddenly I have some job prospects here.  That is a good thing.  I was just starting to get a little concerned about going through my savings.  This was by far my most positive job application yet.

Potential Freelance Group

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I am very excited about this.  Last week I asked Nadia, a girl from my Web II class who is good with design, if she would like to form a freelance-like group with me.  She had mentioned earlier in the semester that she didn’t like the idea of going fully freelance, being totally alone.  She liked to have people to critique ideas and collaborate with, as well as to share expertise.  I had thought when she mentioned that to ask her about forming a group, but my shyness and unsurity made me wait.  I finally did it, and she said yes, and was excited about it as well.

We talked a bit (via email) and she wondered who else we could include in this group, so I mentioned Jason, another good designer from our class.  We asked him the next day of class, and he said yes.  He, of course, was also excited by the prospects.  And he has had experience with freelance design.

They are both very good at design, which I am not.  They can do flash and drawings and what not.  I am fairly good working with scripting and data, and have, and have some experience turning designs into HTML/CSS.  So we should complement each other well.  We seem to work together in class well as well, which will hopefully make things work smoothly.

So we’ve been talking a bit via email and class.  We have to figure out things such as what sort of business entity to become, how we will handle money (don’t want any disputes with this), what sort of contract we will use, etc.   We will probably want to become an entity like a partnership, with a separate name from our own, so that we have a brand and people can pay that single entity.  This will also make sense for tax purposes.

Part of the idea of this is to be like freelancing, but with the support and image of the other members of the group, so we don’t want it to start off as something complicated and expensive.  It is also going to be set up as something that can be done on the side of a full time job.  We want it to be easy for people to come and go if need be, and maybe even have only part of the team work on some projects.  Our entity and other choices will have to reflect this.

We’ve discussed where to find clients, and we may start with some free sites, such as for non-profits, to figure out how things will work and get a group portfolio going.  Those shouldn’t be too hard to find.

We will continue talking, get things going, and hopefully it’ll work out.

Unemployed

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This is a little late perhaps, but I am now unemployed. My internship at RPM had been done for school purposes at the end of spring semester, but I had continued on to train the next intern. I of course had quit out at the Lizard around the end of spring as well. I finished at RPM at the end of August there, and have since been without a job.

I haven’t really been looking that hard for a new one. I have little motivation to at the moment, and am working on doing some things around the house and some other personal issues for the moment. I also want to get together a good portfolio before I really start looking.

Ronda Leffel, who is the new director of the eBusiness program I am in at Tri-C, has been and will continue to look for jobs for me. There is the possibility of a job at Sherwin Williams, who is headquartered in Cleveland and recently partnered with the school. The program is touted as having a 100% placement rate for students. Though I do know one who never got placed, I am fairly confident that I’ll get something at some point.

I luckily have a fair amount of savings from my years of working at the Lizard combined with thrifty spending and careful saving. I should be fine for about six months. I’m not sure if I really want to eat all of my savings that isn’t in stocks or cds, but I may risk it. If I get worried about available funds, I’m sure I could quickly find a job at a restaurant again.

Dwight moved out

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After a year and a half of living with me, my roommate Dwight finally moved out. His girlfriend got a “real” job in Texas, so he moved down there with her. His stay here was supposed to be temporary, but he liked the low living expenses so much he decided to stay.

This has been quite a change for me. The change in my cost of living is quite significant: My basic expenses will increase by an estimated 34%, not a small number. This is at a time when I’m about to lose my job. I have money saved, and could easily get a job at a restaurant in no time I’m sure, but it still could be rough, especially on some of my planned extra type expenditures.

Living alone is quite different from living with someone. There was someone there most of the time to do stuff with before, but now I have to put effort into finding someone to do stuff with, especially since I no longer have any real friends (he was the only one that I actually did stuff with excluding family). He had a good collection of movies and frequently rented some, so we often watched them. We also played card and other games. It was nice to have an additional person to help with some stuff: It meant I didn’t have to always be there to look for and deal with everything. It can be very lonely sitting at home alone.

Of course, it can be nice as well. I can have lots of alone time without worrying about someone popping in. Dwight could be quite the talker and sometimes would talk for hours, sometimes about things I wasn’t especially interested in. The dishes were a shared duty and they ended up being quite a mess as well as a lot of work. My house is much cleaner now and I plan to keep it that way.

On the cleaner note, I have moved some of the stuff from my front room into his old bedroom. The front room had been piled with stuff and virtually unusable, but now it is rather clean. It will be an entertainment room (video, board, and card games, chairs to chat, etc). His old room is rather clean still as well, and may become an office. I hope to get rid of a lot of stuff and make the house cleaner still.

We’ll see how this works out.

Oil change trouble

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After running through a few tanks to see the pre-change MPG of my Saturn, I changed the oil to a synthetic high MPG formulation. I had used the same oil in my Corolla and had noticed a definite increase, and wanted to verify that this increase was indeed happening. I haven’t verified the increase yet.

Unfortunately, the oil change itself was the worst I’ve ever done. It probably took me at least three hours. I had to clean some oil spilled from my leaky oil catcher pan. The biggest time consumer, though, was the filter: It was on there ridiculously tight and the Saturn has almost no space around it. I ended up stabbing it in numerous places with a screwdriver, hurting my hand, and getting soaked in oil. A filter wrench finally did it.

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