Stress Management...

I've been doing pretty well with the subject title recently considering the issues that I've been dealing with in the last three months. Today my stress was apparent to the guard I was relieving at today's post. I opened up with him and explained a little of my situation.

Now that I've explained my situation to G, I feel less reserved about my issues as well. I explained to my co-worker that I was served with a restraining order and divorce papers at the same time at the beginning of the year. I explained that because I'm an armed guard my lawyer put in for a stipulation, approved by my estranged wife, allowing me to possess a firearm for work purposes. Typically once a restraining order is in effect, even if there was no arrest, no abuse, no threats, the adverse party is not allowed to possess a firearm or ammunition. Until yesterday evening, I was under the impression that I was good to go. Then I sgot an e-mail from my lawyer, the judge wants to have a hearing with my employer present. The stress kicked in this morning, I have to work, I have to make that paper, but because my super cool estranged wife wanted me out of the house really really bad, I have to deal with issues like this. Thats all I have to say about that.

Time is the master

Lately I've felt like my sense of time is lost. Right now I'm in my 10th hour of work and it's 5:30 in the morning. This shift is long and uneventful. After I wake up tomarrow, the day will fly past me. No doubt, It will be time to go to bed and I will feel as though I still need to do something else. I've been feeling as though some responsibility has not been met. There are unresolved issues in my life right now, and they cloud my brain. If they didn't, then I would have some kind of problem. I have Faith, that balance will come. . . . . ....... I need to get ahead in my online class. .. Worked on that some tonite. ... . Need to reduce pork barrel spending. . . . These are birds among the clouds, that fog my skull.

There's things I want for myself. I always try to keep the concept of Karma in mind (minus any spiritual connotation) and a strong conscience makes that easy to do. Part of the problem I see with views on The church, is preconceptions towards moral indemnification. A pre-disposition is set that anyone from outside whatever set of beliefs is below par out of the gate. At man's fault this happens, and the indemnification should come from within, not out of pressure. Back on track though(and back from patrol), I try to keep the 'do unto others' mindset. Today will be a follow through.

Almost 7 now. I wonder if it's possible to get dizzy from the earth's rotation. I'm ready for today. I wish I could not nap, without feeling like a piece of poo later. I think I've only done it one other time, I don't remember what it was that kept me from napping, it had to have been something good though. I didn't periodically doze off today, for 10 minutes at a time as I usually do. The third wind is in effect. For full effect, I'm gonna have to eat a good breakfast, run and then bathe. I think I just convinced myself. Hell, I drag ass after the naps for a good hour or more anyway. I need papertowels, and cheese, and a new dog leash, and tortillas.

Cleaning and Parenting

I had a fun day today. Thursday's I pick up Hunter at 715 in the morn, and we get to spend the whole day together. Then I drop him off in the morning before work. Today we started off with some good breakfast, supplemental for him. His mom gives him poptarts or cold cereal or oatmeal, with not much deviation. So even though hes had something, he always wants some breakfast burrito that Dada makes. After some grub and puppy hijinx, a trike ride was in order. Hunter is very adamant about his bike rides. I know he rides his bike a lot at mommys, and he doesnt go more than two hours without desiring a bike ride at my place. We went a ways this morning, and even though we went so far that he started asking to go back to the house, once we got there, he sat on the trike for a minute and wanted to ride more. I reminded him that he was tired, and we went inside. Not too long after we laid down for a nap. I love naps, and taking a nap with a toddler is the best. They'll cry if you tell them they have to take a nap and make them lay down. If you lay down with them, they think its fun. If Dada is tired, Hunter is tired. Waking up is probly the best part, I always tend to wake up before him and just lay there til he wakes up. When he does wake up though, he's ready to go, no laying around. Once he's up, all I hear is 'git up Dada' until my derby weary bag of bones gets up to play. After some lunch and an attempt at watching Dr.Doolittle, I started overhauling my fish tanks. Hunter helped, he was in charge of the gravel. That is making sure the dog stayed away from it, for some reason my dog was taking mouthfuls of it out of the bucket it was in. The tank venture took a few hours, much longer than it would have without a toddler assistant. A trip to the dogpark was our last activity of the day. Booch was his typical rowdy puppy self, he had a couple good rasslin' buddies tonite. The one that stood out though was a 8 month old english bulldog. The bull dog growled at first(they tend to have attitudes), but then decided it would be fun to play. I don't know what it was that triggered Booch, but he started getting vocal like I havnt heard before. He was playing a little rougher than normal, but growling at the same time. For the mostpart his roughhousing has been with bigger dogs and he doesn't growl and is easily submitted. I think he felt dominance with a dog more similiar to him in age and size(not heighth), hence the growling. They were both doing some growling, but more from Booch and it almost made me wanna break them up, which I've never had to do with any other dog, but I felt almost like he was being mean. The Bulldogs owner and I were talking though, and we were both in agreeance that they were both having fun and maybe just practicing being grownup dogs.

Where's global warming when you need it?

I need a damn haircut. I got a reference, got ready for work early, went to the place and realized as I got out of my truck that I didn't have my wallet. I almost panicked, partly because I didn't remember where I put my wallet and more so because I was mentally prepared to let yet another stranger fuck with my hair. My stylist is one of my best friends. Since returning from the Army, I have either shaved my head or traveled to Chico for a haircut. The bitch moved to ventura though. So hopefully tomarrow after work, I can get my situation taken care of. Right now I look like Sonic the Hedgehog with a receding hairline.
Work today was boring as all hell. The unemployment office is hands down the worst of my posts. Primarily, because I don't know the employees there and I don't really care if I know them. I spend five hours a week there. I quess I just like the posts where there is minumal human interaction. Not that I don't like people, just that I don't like getting to know people that see me as a tool, or maybe I just feel like a tool. All I do is sit there with a 38 and read the paper, or walk around. Anyway, boring 5 hours, and I need to work on changing that.
Went to the dog park after work today. I was really hoping the weather would be warmer. It was windy though, and cloud cover accumulated. I stayed for a while, Booch had fun. He always seems to find a dog thats older than him, thats just as frisky and willing to play. Today it was a small lab mix with long hair. The mix seemed like one of those dogs that likes to be snappy, one that would nip at a kid if it annoyed him enough. Booch did pretty well with him, he always gets control with his paws around the other dog, but then loses control because of the other dogs strength in size.
I'm thankful for my messenger buddies. I'm still alone, but they make me laugh. Derby practice tomarrow, I love it more every time I go. I think I'm just hooked on skating. I remember going as a kid and skating my brains out all day. I would only go like once a year though for the school field trip or someones B-day party. That kid instinct comes out when I'm out there, and I just want to have fun. Alright, its nite nite time.

Today...

Today was a good day. Dad showed around 12 to hang out. Hunter and I were waking up from a good nap. We played for a while and I did some laundry. We went for a trike ride and to the dog park. Grandpa tried to get out the video camera for the trike ride and ended up missing most of it due to his notorious disposition of being unprepared with the damn thing. Everytime he goes for it the battery is dead, or the tape is finished, or he can't get it to work right. I've told him several times he has to be one of the last people in the country still using one of those things and that a digital camera with a decent video option would be his best bet. Whatever though. He got the dinosaur up and running and got some good tape of the ride. Then he took it to our dog park adventure. His cat lady wife, bless her soul, stayed in the car while we went to the park. I know she had a surgery recently on an ankle so I'm sure that's why she stayed. So grandpa walked out to the field, video camera secured to his neck via lanyard. There wasnt too many dogs out today. We did come across a lady and her lab and two young children. Hunter kinda went up to them and watched for a few minutes. I watched and it made me reflect, I wondered if H would be better off with a sibling. I had two younger brothers growing up, and I know it was beneficial. My heart sunk a little as he watched them, not going up and socializing immediately, but standing back and waiting for the older of the two to come up to him and then an almost awkward toddler style greeting. It made me want him to be in a typical daycare situation if anything. He needs the social atmosphere. He doesn't get enough of it from kids close to his age. He does great around adults, and I know he'll do great once he's in school, but for the next three years I honestly think he needs more than he gets now. The visit with grandpa ended with a trip to Walmart. They wanted to buy me a lamp for the living room, I expressed a need for one last time he was here and it must have stuck. When leaving Walmart to drop him off with his mom, he gave hugs goodbye and blew kisses as we left. He's so awesome.
I went to class tonite, and pleasantly discovered my teacher had basically cancelled both classes for the nite. That means dinner and some time before derby practice tonite. Practice was awesome, I got kneepads and new wheels beforehand. I think with the new accessories I lost some inhibition about falling and definately improved some skills. My new derby/messenger buddy let me borrow her tool to put on my new wheels. If she doesn't read this it would surprise me, seeing as how I'm a new follower to her blog. Aside, she's expressed her fondness for me which is both flattering and welcomed. At the same time she's apprehensive, with good reason. Derby practice for me is still very new to me and I hold it as self improvement/stress relief, so despite our enjoyable text-versations, I havn't asserted a decent conversation. I do owe her some face to face at this point though, and by Grace she'll be a new friend at the least.

Family

Today my Dad and his wife came to visit. They showed around 2 this afternoon, I was still in bed, since I work the graveyard on the weekend. When they rang the doorbell, I wasn't ready to get up. I was still tired and just wanted to lay there, and I'm always a little apprehensive when my Dad comes to town. I love my Dad, but our relationship is a little awkward sometimes. His dad wasn't really around when he was growing up so the way he raised me and my siblings lacked certain aspects.

Sondra dropped Hunter off at 3, and he obviously needed a nap. I think she makes a point not to let him take a full nap before she drops him off. I asked her if he had a nap and she said something like ' a little bit'. That means no nap. I wasn't sure how Hunter would interact with grandpa and Paula. He was a little shy at first, but then he warmed up. He's an awesome kid with a great personality. This was definately the most time he has had with them one on one. In no time, I had him saying grandpa, and on the way to dinner and back, he was asking 'where danpa?'. I would like there to be a good relationship between them, it just feels a little awkward right now. The sense of awkward comes from the hint of uncomfort on my part though. Uncomfort with his cat-lady wife, memories of lacking support, and the big one, the fact that he never really established a good Father-Son bond past the time I was 8. I guess I should look at it in a positive way, as I try to do with all situations. If I wasn't so influenced by his tendencies of high-stress, and low tolerance level anger triggers, I probably wouldn't be the laid back person I am. I learned at a young age that most things aren't worth getting worked up about, and even the things that are worth a fight don't usually require one.

Today's visit was a good one, and it will continue tomarrow. I'm glad Hunter gets a clean slate with his grandpa, and I hope to feed off of it and naturalize my relationship with danpa.

Blog Shmog

So the last month or so I've been trying to balance going to school, working full time, having my son almost 50 percent, a new pup, and volunteering as a ref for the Roller girls. It's going pretty well. My only real problem so far has been the online class that I started this blog for. My issue is that I don't check the class site regularly enough. I'll check it, and try and just remember what needs to happen and when. So I started this blog back when I first realized it was going to be an assignment. Apparently the part about having to write 12 entries, 200 words each and ONE A DAY didn't stick. So I'm going to get the 12 entries in, but there not going to be one a day since I didn't start soon enough.
So my primary issue in this blog entry, is the imbalance of the grading rubric for this assignment. The assignment heavily favors Myspace or Facebook. So if you already have myspace, chances are you have a pic of yourself , you've got 100 or more "friends", a list of movies you like, and your description. Thats 22 points already. All of those things you can get points for on Myspace, you can't on the blog. On Myspace to make up the rest of the points you don't already have, all you have to do is 6 blog entries. So that means you could start the project later as well. Also the self description of yourself on a blog is worth less points!!!!!! This grading system is an outrage. I don't persecute those with myspace, but the instructor of this class persecutes those that choose the blog option. I used to have myspace. It started to make me sick though. I was deployed last year, and the blatant nature of betrayal of wives and girlfriends by fellow soldiers facilitated by Myspace, caused me to cancel my account so I would never have to talk to or be reminded of the vile human waste calling themselves soldiers again. I might start another account, but for right now I'm outraged!!!! I will be bringing this assignment to the attention of the proper TMCC authorities if I am not reassured that fairness and change has been brought to this assignment!!

Work ...

Every weekend for the last two months, I've been stuck at the NDOT yard. Not next weekend, its derby time. Since January I've come to loath my weekends. I sit in a guard shack, fighting the z-monster all night with the help of sugar and caffeine. The only drugs allowable in my fine occupation. Three or four times a nite I make the rounds, roming through the main NDOT office and the yards. I find it interesting the levels of order I witness in the different offices. For the mostpart cleanliness and order is kept at a decent standard. There are multiple offices that make me wonder if there is a direct link between the individuals and the issues with our roads and highways. One that specifically stands out in my mind is the District Traffic Engineer. One office, one desk, one outrageous mess of paperwork and disorderly mayhem. This guy is undoubtedly in charge of some serious shit, so why isn't his serious shit paperwork organized and taken care of. I realize the budget is tight, but somebody get this guy an assistant. I can't help but wonder, who is in charge of him? Is it a political figure? Is it a higher DOT official out of the office? I'm sure this guy answers to no one in the building, there's no way, or else they would tell him to pull his head out of his ass and get his shit straight. The second case of madness in the building is a corner cubicle in an office upstairs of which there is three or four cubicles. This person must be the tick on the dogs ass in their department. Shelves typically used for paperwork or books, are filled with over 100 types of nail polish, boxes and boxes of tea,and cheap tacky decorative figurines and memorabilia. The desktop is equally cluttered with more personal items than actual work related mess. Under the desk she could actually use a laundry basket to organize the pile of shoes and clothes therein.
I don't work at NDOT, I simply roam the premises, and observe. But If i did, I would get in the asses of those above, if I had any regular eyes on. Gross displays of this kind need a thorn in their side.