yeah busy and moving and I might not be around for a bit ... duly noted.

I hardly update this thing anymore. I don't know I feel like I've run out of thigns to say I guess. I mean my job is pretty repetitive and so there's really no news to update there. I am trying to get all my stuff together because I am moving hopefully most of my stuff this Saturday. With moving in progress all crafty creative projects are kind of put on hold for the moment and so I don't have any videos or pictures or things to share.

I kind of feel like this was a wasted and pointless update.

Ok so this is probably going to be super long. I apologize in advance. I am going to sit down and try to write out a bunch of thoughts so you all can hopefully get a better understanding of where I am coming from and where I am at.

I am using this medium to do it in because it reaches a large amount of the group at once and there is some distance so I feel safer and more willing to share harder things.

Feel free to direct people who this does not reach to read this. Like Kenny, GOSH GET WITH THE TIMES KENNY! [See I am even joking :p]

First and foremost I am a emotional person. I am actually kind of glad about this because I think hiding your emotions is in a sense being fake.

As many of you know this past week end Travis Swartz and Whitney Lindgren got married. Travis is a trusted and valued friend of mine. I actually don't know Whitney all that well. I honestly wasn't really thinking I was going to go to the wedding because it was a long drive, I was going to have to take a day off from work etc. etc. This changed when Travis asked me to be the video the wedding.

It actually threw me off guard when he asked me to because well I don't know it just did.

I kind of got excited to do the video. I want to try and explain this more because I don't want you to skip over this simple sentence and not understand. I don't get excited very often. I often joke about this a lot. I have issues with getting excited, with hoping, with having dreams, with willing to believe in something good, with having a sense of adventure and romance. I have trouble taking risks and being bold and initiative. This is probably why I am afraid of going back to school or finding a career or being involved because I'd rather just be mediocre and exist then live a daring life.

So this was in my mind a opportunity to be trusted and I let my heart get into the idea of it. I was excited when I got to go shop for a tripod and excited to look through a video editing program and start to plan some of what I could do.

The video however was pretty much a failure. I guess I'll try to shed some light on that even though it is painful to recount. All I really had to do was wait for the ushers to start escorting the family members to their spots hit record and then just record all the way till the ceremony was over. I guess part of the problem was that I was kind of worried about the battery and I have not used my video camera a ton. So I hit record when I think it is starting but then I was unsure if the music had simply just changed or if in fact the ceremony was starting so then I hit stop. When I was sure things had started I thought I hit record but I did not. Yeah so for most of it my camera was not even recording. Looking back on it I can't figure out how I could have been that dumb. My camera shows you how much time is left on the hard drive and that did not go down. There was also a green pause sign to signify the camera was in paused mode where when it is recording it has a red sphere [like record on a remote]. But my brain associated green with go and so I thought the green meant it was recording.

You can argue that anyone given my position could have made the same mistakes and well to put it bluntly I disagree. My mind says heck you could train a monkey to hit a button and then not mess with it and that monkey probably would have done a better job at videoing the wedding because well there probably would actually BE a video of the wedding.

I am not mad because I was expecting a perfect video, I knew it was going to be far from perfect. There were spots where I wanted to zoom out and I accidentally hit zoom in. There were spots where I was like um yeah in this section I will use Nicole's footage because I just messed that up. A imperfect video was a acceptable mistake. But to not video the entire wedding? I simply had no way to deal with that bad of a mistake.

It's not that I think the video is tremendously important. It was just something I was excited for, hoped to do well in, put my heart on the line for and all those things got hit by a semi truck of a mistake.

So I got hit by a semi truck and now I'm kind of crumpled at the moment. On Monday when I found this out my emotions took over and I got fairly irrational. I'm glad I have sisters in Christ because you all probably understand this a little more then most guys [I'll touch on this more later]. So my emotions were way out of hand on Monday and I was hurt really really really badly. So hurt that I did not want any interaction with anyone. I sent out a emotional e-mail to people with irrational things like that I was leaving this group, that I was a failure, etc etc. I deleted my live journal and facebook accounts because I did not want any comments. People tried to come and talk to me and this just made my emotions go into super overdrive. I have horrible coping methods I truly do. One of these horrible coping methods is self injury which I actually did not do that night. I did however choose to drink a lot. Yeah bad idea. My friends for good reason were worried about me, I apologize for making you worry so much and saying irrational things like I said that night my emotions were on super over drive. So my emotions were high and this opened the floodgates for identity attacks from Satan.

I'm not going to lie to you I am still very crumpled and hurt. Really only time can heal this so you can't really do anything but be patient with me.

I want to try and seek come counseling to try and learn better coping methods. This is a scary thing for me for many reasons. You might think because the idea is new and well actually no it is not. I just have not had good experiences with trying to seek out help. First there is only so much I as a crumpled person can do. Even writing this note is taking a lot out of me in my current state and so after I finish it I will probably just cry and maybe sleep. Seeking out help first means trying to find something I can afford to do which has issues of its own. Counseling is not cheap and even though I do have insurance I don't know really how much that is going to cover. So I spent a lot of yesterday web browsing and I wanted to make sure the help I receive has a Christian perspective. My brother went through some counseling for his issues and I feel because it was not Christian it might have actually done more harm then good. So yeah now the search is even more refined to counseling that I can afford that also has a Christian perspective. I found some web sites and sent out a fair amount of e-mails and well nothing so far. I know it is early but I was discouraged by that fact. I guess my next step when I have the energy is to ask pastors and such to see if they can direct me to more resources.

I have a lot of issues with identity and self hatred and not wanting to take any risks. The most prominent of these issues is self injury. I have pictures of wounds I caused that would honestly scare you. I am not going to really touch deeply on self injury at the time because that issue in itself is a very deep thing and has many side notes and issues and what not.

Okay now it's time to do a random tangent kind of. I wanted to touch a little more on emotions. Part of the reason I am not coming to group this week is because my emotions are still really high and I just think I need a bit more time to let them ebb. I plan on coming to team next week and I will probably still be pretty emotional because I am hurt. I am still being attacked with identity and still feel like a failure and it is hard to face people you love when you feel like a failure. I'm not going to lie I will probably break down crying and it will probably be awkward. You may hug me or tell me God loves me or pray for me and I will probably cry harder. And new people who don't know me all that well are going to feel even more awkward. You want to help and want me to be back to normal Joel but like I said really this is going to take a good amount of time so yeah you get crumpled emotional Joel.

Soap box time

This is kind of a side tangent that I kind of want to challenge guys on. I know that the joke of the man card has been around a while and honestly I kind of want to punch whoever started it in the face. [Take that face [see I even tried to joke :p]] Real men cry, real men are real, real men fail, real men have emotions. But there is this stigma out there that men need to be strong and not weak and showing emotions is weak and if you cried during Breakfast Club you get your man card taken away. Men need to "man up" and stop complaining or letting emotions effect them. I have even fallen into this trap. But I think this a dangerous stigma and it is not beneficial to real relationships which is what we are called to have with one another.

I'm scared of going to team next week because I KNOW I am going to be emotional and cry in front of people who know me and in front of people who don't know me. Satan is attacking me already with the lies : you are not a man, you weak thing look at you and your crying emotional pathetic shell.

But I am hurt I am in pain I am crushed I am crumpled and I don't want to put on some happy face and tell you I am ok because I'm not ok.

Real men tell you when they are not ok.

So please for my sake stop encouraging the stigma. It makes me stumble with identity, it makes me stumble in being real and encourages me to hide my feelings which are a valid and honest part of me.

I don't think we should joke about Eric liking Breakfast Club [I'm not even really sure if he does like it or not but I know this is a running joke which even I took part in]. I love the Breakfast Club I cried when I first saw it because I connected so much with Allison's character. I think you should borrow it and watch it because you might understand more about me through her character.

Real men like The Breakfast Club :p [Ok maybe that is going a bit far, see more joking!]

So yeah I think that is all I have energy to write at the moment. I am praying that this will help you understand more.

I appreciate your e-mails and prayers and look forward to seeing you next week though scared at the same time because I'm going to be a emotional wreck.

~Joel

All I do is fail people.

I don't deserve friends not even virtual ones. This account is de-activated.

I hope you all enjoy :D



~Joel

Oh what to update on. Hmm.

First sad news I seem to have lost my interest in reading books, I just don't find to many that keep my interest anymore. Maybe I have become a more picky reader or maybe my likes have changed and I'm not to sure where the interest is headed. I have done fairly well at reading non fiction science stuff and I just picked up a few non fiction war books that look pretty interesting. I find it interesting that my interest has switched from purely fiction to purely non fiction.

I think I have become addicted to backgammon it is my new game I used to play hearts all the time but a friend of mine played me a couple of times in backgammon and now I am hooked. Luck does have a big part in deciding the winner so I'm not a huge fan of that but there is enough skill in it to make it fun.

I'm not really sure I want to discuss the retreat thing .... a bunch of friends from the church group I am semi-involved with went on a retreat, I decided for many reasons [some good some not so good] not to go. I've been taken aside to discuss my blog entries before but in all honesty this is MY blog I can write what I want. If you don't like it then don't read it. I was told you have to be careful what you write in public forums and my response is no I actually don't see there is this thing in America called freedom of speech so sorry but you are wrong. I think that is all I am going to say on that.

I have ordered a digital camcorder but they have to wait for the DC cord to come in stock before they ship it off. Apparently this paticular model needs to be plugged in to the AC output with a DC cord to remove the media off the camcorders internal hard drive. Don't ask me why, it seems a bit annoying but on the plus side it has a decent 42x normal zoom internal hard drive [which I like you don't have to buy CD's or memory sticks or what not] and it was on sale so win.

I think I am done buying shoes at places like walmart or Kmart or such stores. I tend to try and find really cheap shoes for work because I know they are going to get all dirty and destroyed anyway but the shoes I bought like a month ago have already worn through the bottom and are useless. Hence I went to the mall and bought shoes .... why does this sound weird coming from a guy lol. It was a buy one get one half off so I just like tripled the number of shoes I own. I have 4 different pairs now lol. 1. work shoes - to destroy [need to be light weight and comfortable] 2. Dress shoes - nice looking um dress shoes lol. 3. Stylish shoes that I wear out on the town or not at work. [I have always wanted some stylish sketchers and now I have some.] and some sandals.

Wow this entry is long and time consuming how did it get this late?

I have to work tomorrow so off to bed I will try to finish this post tomorrow. I really want to try to get back into the habit of writing in this. Sorry if I have not commented I will try to do so more often

~Joel

I am bored hence you get randomness.

So if you don't know me to well here is one thing to know: I like to try new places when I go out to eat. I don't like going to the same place over and over, I would much rather try a new place even if it turns out not so great. So there was a new bar and grill that opened that was not to far away from my apartment and I was like heck sure let's try it out.

I knew the moment I stepped into the place it was going to be a awkward experience.

Getting a table for one at any sit down restaurant is a bit awkward but it is especially awkward when you realize this is a upscale place that people go on dates to or get martinis after work with fellow co-workers with ... such was the place I went. It was expensive and nice and well not the kind of place you get a table for 1 for. Things became increasingly awkward when the waitress tried to make conversation with me. It was the "I am your waitress at a expensive restaurant" type of conversation. I am really not used to people conversing with me. Can't you see I am alone and therefore have no social skills?

Things got even MORE awkward when a different waitress came up and tried to persuade me she knew me. Plus she brought me a paper to read while I waited for my food .... um ... ok ... thanks?

I was skeptical because well I am not the most social person and even less so when it comes to girls so yeah. She asked me where I went to school and how old I was and what area of Loveland I grew up in and who was my babysitter. Internally I was pressing the eject button but alas I was kind of stuck. But finally she left after concluding she probably knew me from elementary school which I still have my doubts about. Finally I got to drink beer and eat expensive food in silence. Well except the original waitress kept coming by to check on me [after all that is what they do in expensive places].

Then the cooks started talking to me ... what the hell? lol. At first I thought they were talking to each other and I was content to ignore them and drink my beer.
But then they raised their voices and I took notice and they tried to converse with me. At this point I was kind of done with conversing with strangers and I quickly paid, left and decided probably to never return.

The end

Oh oh oh a 2nd post in the same day ... I hope I didn't give you a heart attack lol.

This will be short and random.

I applied to take part in a improv job where actors go around to schools and act out stories that the kids from the school wrote. It sounds pretty fun I'm not sure anything will really come out of my application but it would be pretty sweet if it did.

If peri81 makes a Pacy / Joey theme and blames it on me don't listen to her :p

Cherry Dr. Pepper is pretty tasty.

Um I dunno I'm bored and kind of silly today.

So I've done a little cooking in the past few days and both days I was happy with how things turned out.

I can cook not the greatest cook there is but I at least have some skill. The thing that can get me into trouble is I like to experiment. For the most part these experiments turn out well but they can turn out not so great.

So I made a IBC black cherry cake which was good but I think next time I may incorporate some black cherry kool aid for a stronger black cherry flavor. I pretty much just used a yellow butter cake mix and added 3 eggs and a black cherry IBC pop and mixed it well and baked it to the instructions and added some strawberry frosting on top.

Today I was making a pasta dish where I added a can of spaghetti sauce, a can of sloppy joe mix, some garlic and cumin,black sesame seeds, and some french fried onions. I was a little worried how the sloppy joe sauce would effect it but it actually turned out yummy it smelled so good transporting it to a potluck type thing.

Anyways yeah both of these were good and I will probably add and experiment more with them since both turned out well.

Tagged by ratherbewater

Firstly: If you've been tagged, you must write your answers in your own LJ and replace any question that you dislike with a new, original question.

Secondly: Tag eight people. Don't refuse to do that. Don't tag who tagged you.

01. Make a list of 5 things you can see:
-My bike
-My digital camera
-A glass of wine
-A plastic storage bin
-A unopened package

02. What is your favorite pick-me-up movie?
The original Batman with Adam West, so funny.

03. Is there anything in your fridge right now that you would never eat/drink?
Not that I can think of . . .

04. What's your occupation?
Manager

05. Do you nap a lot?
Not a lot, sometimes on the week-ends

06. What was your first celebrity crush?
Ally Sheedy via Breakfast Club

07. What's your current fandom/obsession/addiction?
Boston Legal, Bones

08. What are you listening to right now?
Nothing

09. What food could you eat every day for weeks and not get sick of?
Salad

10. What websites do you always visit when you go online?
Facebook, craigslist

11. What was the last thing you bought?
Gas

12. What was the cutest thing you've seen today?
A oscar the grouch toy

13. Does the weather affect your mood?
Sometimes

14. Favorite hobby(ies)?
being random and creative, crafting

15. What is your favorite part of your daily routine?
The time right before I go to bed winding down reading, checking mail, etc.

16. Weird dream?
Probably lol

17. Do you have any siblings?
1 older brother and 1 older sister

18. What's something you'd like to say to someone right now?
Talk with me.

19. What are your plans for next weekend?
Not sure at the moment

20. Say something about the person who tagged you:
She is the awesome and I'm glad she updated! :D

Hmm I tag:

peri81
kathrynthegreat
dcksgomoo
novlomien
lest_we_forget_
kaleidopunk
bathofglitergrl
charlieissocool

It feels I have not updated this thing in forever. I apologize for not commenting and reading up much, I have no real excuse.

Hmm let's see what is up?

Well I am on the hunt for an apartment not to terribly fun but necessary.

We got a good amount of snow but it is pretty much gone now.

I went to our city's museum it was neat but we also have a discovery science center that I like better it has more interactive things you can do.

I have been at least trying to be social one night I apparently stayed out so late my room-mate sent me a text saying "Do I need to come pick you up at the police station?"

He he.

I need to finally fix my side view mirror so I'll try to write a more detailed post soon.

Again sorry I have not been around much.

~Joel

So far today I've:

1. Cleaned my room
2. Started laundry
3. Got a haircut
4. Filed taxes [$14 rebate from State, $40 rebate from federal]
5. Payed for registration renewal, tags will be sent soon.
6. Got Galileo's Daughter from the Library
7. Looked at the art and Science exhibit at the Guffman Gallery

And it's 12:40 Woot I'm doing good on my day off.

So the rest of the day will probably be

1. Read some
2. Work on graphics some
3. Finish laundry
4. clean a bit more
5. Hang out with people at 7pm
6. relax

~Joel

Tonight is one of those nights.

That sentence taken by itself often comes off as a bad thing. On the other hand I am not arguing that the sentence means a good thing either.

At this point something along the lines of what the hell are you talking about is crossing your mind or at least should have come close to crossing your mind perhaps waiting at a crosswalk for the little man to blink.

I'm tempted to go into a poor explanation of the ending of many Boston Legals where James Spader's character Alan Shore and William Shatner's character Denny Crane drink a glass of alcohol, smoke a cigar and reflect in a sense. I will avoid such temptation because I think it would be poor justice and I'm not sure how well it would work.

On a side note that is somewhat relevant but not so much I much prefer Alan Shore as a character then any other on the show.

Suffice to say I envy the portrait. I envy the fictional depiction of that ending. Sitting on a balcony, sipping a glass of wine or perhaps gin, relaxing, reflecting, having a friend that I feel connected with without really having conversation.

Tonight is one of those nights were I wish I was Alan Shore sitting in a chair on a balcony.

I got bored last night and wanted to do crafty things. I was actually trying to figure out what to do with these wood squares I have that are like 1 inch squares. Anyways I thought it might be cool to use them as buttons but they were a *bit* to big. The wood tiles were laying next to some change and I got the idea of gluing pennies onto the buttons of a shirt and using them as buttons. I thought this idea was fantastic and I'm not sure why I have not seen it done or thought of it before.

Here are pictures of my penny shirt:

( A penny for your thoughts )

I was trying to be quiet about it to see how much reaction it would get. Most people noticed and thought it was awesome. The girl that took my order at the restaurant I went to had to ask me what I ordered again because she was amused with my shirt.

Overall I think it works and is cool :p

~Joel

He he it is apparently computer trouble week for Joel.

So I have been doing some animation and if I can find the right stuff I may try my hand at claymation as well. Here is the issue. I usually just snap a bunch of photos each with a slight movement change and then link them all up using Windows movie maker. I then add a sound layer that links up with the picture stills. The problem is that Windows movie maker can't seem to handle a lot of pictures in a project. It tends to stall until the point of not responding and then you have to control alt delete to get to the task menu and shut it down and hope you saved recently. Do any of you know of a program that is like windows movie maker but more stable? Something that will take a bunch of still shots and make them a video and allow you to add a sound layer?

~Joel

I have a tech question and hope someone can help.

So I either have an issue with my moniter or my graphic card and I am not sure which.

This is the description of what happens:

I am working and everything is fine then pretty much out of nowhere my screen settings get all screwed up. It becomes really dark and the aspect ratio is all messed up. Most the time I can see well enough to change the settings to a point where I can at least see what I am doing and then with a combination of the settings of the graphic properties and the options on the moniter itself I can get back to a normal state.

Not being a tech person per say I really have no idea why it would do this. It's not like I am running a program that uses the graphic card or anything so I am thinking my moniter is having issues? I would not really care except it has happened on multiple occasions and is quite annoying. Any ideas or suggestions? Should I just get a new moniter? Or could it be the graphic card?

~Joel

This was a fun little meme thing.

1. - Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random” or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article that comes up is the name of your band.

2 - Go to Quotations Page and select “random quotations” or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 - The last four or five words of the very LAST quote on the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days - The third picture in the top row, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.

5 - Post it to your livejournal.

Finished project =



~Joel

Sadly yesterday for the first time my computer died to the point of re-installing.

I guess really I did not loose to much and it reminds me to make recovery CDs. The most annoying part was loosing my music but I guess it could be worse since I am not a huge music fan. As I grow older I like music more and more ... interesting.

Anyways so I'm putting my CDS back on iTunes that should take a bit.

Apparently iTunes only lets you recover bought songs once. That is dumb. Oh well I only had purchased like maybe 5 songs max. $5 down the chute I guess.

I also no longer have the raw data on my videos so I should probably keep them up on youtube lol.

Bleh annoying but not devastating.

~Joel

Um so yeah I dreamt that I was helping Michelle Obama take a bunch of ruined furniture to the dump. Me and my brother were trying to figure out how to fit this piano in my truck. My brother didn't want to help because he thought Bill Clinton had a much better stimulas plan during his presidentcy.

I kept going online to see if I could get any of my IM and LJ friends to come and help us.

While moving the piano we discovered there were a bunch of really small cymbals in it and that is how a piano works when you hit a key it strikes a tiny cymbal that makes the noise.

Don't ask me I don't know lol.

On a completely different note I like local band Paper Bird
http://www.myspace.com/paperthebird

~Joel

I was bored so I did some question thingies from dcksgomoo

( answers )

Cookies if you read it all :p

~Joel