Chris Collins :: a personal journal » choice

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.

vacation choices

cj69collins — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 02:43:41 +0000

I am somewhat picky about my vacation choices. To the point that I will stew over them perhaps for too long. I wanted a warm weathr gay destination for my February weekend. I wanted someplace I could reasonably trust will be worth the trip. Here were my choices.

Puerto Vallarta was my first choice, but balked on the air travel. In the end, the two hotels did not pan. One was booked for the weekend. The other did not have one room for me. Changing rooms is a no-no for me.
Key West is too expensive to stay. My final choice was surprisingly cheaper than here.
I was not quite comfortable heading to San Juan, Puerto Rico. At least, not for the kind of trip I wish to make.
San Diego seems like a nice city, but not for a vacation weekend.
Palm Springs was my last choice, though someplace I wanted to visit ‘just once’, just for its reputation. Airfare and room rates seemed reasonable, especially for February, especially for California, especially for a place with te reputation it has. It is less than Key West!

Palm Springs is booked. First time I will make two connections to get to a destination. This was something I was resigned to for Puerto Vallarta from ABE, though driving to PHL gave me a time option. The same drive failed to do that for Palm Springs, even with USAirways. [I connect through CLT and PHX both ways, avoiding the guarantee of lost luggage with a connect at PHL.]

Now, I can worry about what to pack to Fort Lauderdale. That trip is in less than two weeks.

where the heart is not

cj69collins — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 01:29:55 +0000

I have never really liked living in the ‘greater Lehigh Valley, PA’. It was always a small region, living in the shadows of two large cities, and never really having anything that interested me. Traveling made me imagine that I could live in this or that city, largely becuase it was more interesting than where I live. Basically, I escaped by traveling, living a ‘life’ while away.

This weekend, though, I came to the conclusion, thinking back at all the places I visited, all the neighborhoods I was in, all the culture, the shopping, the nightlife, et al, that, maybe, just maybe, I would be just as bored living in those other cities as I am here. Why? I always suspected that I get bored easily, and have a difficult time trying to entertain myself. I am a person who needs stimulus. I get bored at work if I intellect or curiosity is not engaged. I am bored at the nightclub if by I have no one with whom to chat and no one who ‘interests’ me. I have been bored on vacation when I ran out of things I knew I wanted to do. TV and movies that invoke emotion over intellect disinterest me. Reading is much too passive for me. I cannot drive to the mall anymore to ‘shop’ and be entertained. Even the Interwebs, the WWWs, which you do not have to use, sometimes lacks the engagement stimulus I need, yet offers a boatload of unneccesary distraction. The gym, thankfully, has been physically engaging, as well as visually entertaining.

I always knew it was simple, but not easy, to entertain me. I always hoped against hope that I could overcome that, somehow. I am now resigned, in my advancing years, to ‘bear this cross’ myself. Without a strong social network in real life, and with only a fleeting one on the Interwebs, I have little choice. I must entertain myself as best as I can.