Chris Collins :: a personal journal » change

the clash

cj69collins — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 03:12:14 +0000

‘Do I stay or do I go?’ Do I stay in Allentown, or do I move to the [not so] Great White North, [aka, Buffalo,] to continue my career with the ‘same’ employer I had for almost 19 years. Considering my current living standard, my current level of debt, my current level of comfort with my employer, and my current level of comfort with my overall life, that is not that easy of a decision. Stay where I am, and I could lose touch with the company I helped steer to the level they are. Move, and I could find myself without a job and without enough capital to relocate to find another that will hire someone born in the 1960s. What is worse is that my boss says, ‘sit on it until I return from Palm Springs.’ If it were an absolute answer, one way or another, that would be one thing. My job, my ‘career’, is about all I have that is reasonably solid. It is not solid enough at this stage for me to make a significant move, in this economy, to an area where my living costs and taxes will increase, in which I can see them increasing blindly. [sic] It is not an opportunity I wish to pass, considering that I have little if any life in Allentown. I am just not sure if Buffalo is the place where I want to age to retirement. this is such a tough call.

the 2009 purge

cj69collins — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 03:28:40 +0000

I have to hand it to social not-working devs. they always seem to try to come-up with new ways of doing the same things as the popular sites. the problem with that is that they never really live up to the expectation set by those popular sites. what is worse, even popular sites that do not improve with the times can fall victim to the effect. eventually, as quickly as things grow, they decline. pownce, jaiku and others fade into oblivion.
I am one to try just about anything. eventually, though, I get overhelmed by the numbers or bored by the offering. to that end, purged a number of links I felt were not offering me much of anything. Friendfeed, hi5, myspace, tumblr, livejournal accounts were all canceled in the last fortnight, along with the accounts of a number of smaller services. I never connected at myspace like I do at facebook; I connected even less at hi5, which seemed predominantly hispanics; I connected even less with friendfeed; livejournal and tumblr were repeats of this blog or twitter, which seemed a waste. Most of the smaller twitter wannabes just never cut it. What profiles I could not close, I simply walked away from. tagged made the cut, since there is some interaction. plurk made the cut, just barely, for the same reason. Both socialvibe and realjock have purpose beyond social not-working. the hookup sites entice me, yet scare me still. all in all, the purge was good, since I know predominantly focus on two site, facebook and twitter. I am even using twitter clients Syinx on Mac and PockeTwit on Blackjack. I will be less enticed to try the new service when the old seems to do the trick.

change, defeat, stagnation – an update

cj69collins — Sun, 04 May 2008 03:18:11 +0000

what has this blog become? damn. As you can tell, I have been ‘blogging’, chronicling my life either from my LiveJournal or from the likes of Twitter and Facebook, which I can update from HelloTxt.

Briefly…

I have been going to the gym since late January. I am building muscle, but not losing weight. My legs have improved greatly, but my upper body has not. I work with a personal trainer, a Cuban immigrant, who has been tough on my when needed. I would not have gotten as far by myself. Still, I am only going to the gym three times a week, and only on workout days. Any extra days are infrequent. I need to go more.
It is Spring, and allergy season is in full force. While I am suffering, I am not suffering enough to warrant a visit to the doctor.
The skill set in the IT department of my employer is weak. The only person who knows how to do any one person’s job is the person oneself. The sole exception is the main System Admin and myself, who share a skill set, and whom I have been able to pass tasks off to in the past seven years. While the company would suffer should one of them depart, I am convinced the company could not survive if I departed. [period.] While this makes me ‘indispensable’, this also makes me the slave to the whim of others. I feel I have no corporate purpose, no corporate role. I keep hearing positives from important people. I keep hearing them ring hollow.
I would not wish to date a person who, in his early forties, still lives with his parents, despite making good money, or who was arrested for DUI in 1994 and cannot travel to Canada, and may not be able to travel too many other places in the near future. I do not want to date anyone else’s heavy baggage. Why would I want them do date mine. This weighs on me to this day. It, more than any other reason, more than the possibility of rejection or failure, is the reason I am afraid to truly date someone. This may be the reason I may become old and emotionally destitute if I do not change double quick.
I concede that to succeed, one must let oneself fail, and to win, one must let oneself lose. Thus is the psychology of one day’s leg workout as twitted. The fear of rejection, of failure, has prevented me changing. It has lead to a stagnation that I can only seem to defeat, somewhat, when I do travel. Considering my former mode of escape, the weekend drive-about, is not doing much for me anymore, I am wondering how long it is before I am ‘back in the closet’. Even the social networking [not-working?] thing is wearing on me.
I have over 500 ‘friends’ on facebook, along with over 100 on hi5, over 50 on tagged, over 60 followers on twitter. I had over two dozen on pownce, but now have only 14. I have not one single person, outside family and co-workers, with whom I socialize in-person on a regular basis.

That is alot to get off my chest. Some of this I wanted to say at-length for some time. You may think of me more a loser after reading this. I expect as much. I ask you not to judge, lest you be judged more harshly yourself. I also ask that you get to know me, in-person, before you draw a conclusion.

I will be in Seattle the weekend after Memorial Day. That is 2008 May 30 to June 3.