Keeping the tradition alive

Back during my JS days, someone had a meme and I loved it, took it, made it mine and did it every year. Last year, I had started this blog and did not have many entries, so I posted it here but with JS data.

A whole year later, I do have enough data to have a WordPress-only meme so I will keep up the tradition. JS being dead anyway, there is no reason to even say anything about that.

What was the first line from your blog the first day of each month in 2008?

January: So, the first day of 2008 is already 12 hours old.

February: A shout out for my cyberespace daughter, although she has forgotten about me…

March: What is the use of spending hours in front of the TV, watching all the FoodTV shows and still not being able to cook?

April: … and I don’t know how to scratch it.

May: Time is flying way too fast.

June: Yves Henri Donat Mathieu Saint Laurent

July: I am a Democrat.

August: We’re in Orlando, paying the mouse a visit.

September: A couple of things from this week.

October: I had a request for a picture of me and I went looking in my vast collection, only to realize in my half-amazement that I don’t have any good pictures of myself.

November: I woke up early this morning, thing I hardly ever do on a Saturday but since I was up, I started to check my e-mails and read some blogs.

December: Boss a.k.a Papo

There, I did it! I usually don’t wait until the last minute to do this but I am glad I was able to squeeze it in before the new year.

Till then…

No, I am not an ungrateful sonofabitch!

2008 is living its last hours, almost on life support but since there is a DNR (do not resuscitate) order, we are really getting a new year.

On my way to work this morning, I suddenly felt overwhelmed. Up to today, I never really felt that this had been a great year for me. Well, great might be slightly exaggerated but it was a good year. My son was born, work was pretty amazing and I met the most wonderful person in the world, my new friend Jay.

And although things are not always rosy and they will not always be, I have to be thankful that I have a job that allows me to pay for the roof on our heads, for the car that I take to go to work, for being rather healthy even though the old demons are still present, for the children that are my pride and joy, no matter how much my daughter pushes my buttons. I am thankful to have few friends but they are there for good times as well as bad times. I am thankful that I did not have to attend any funerals as I had highly expected at this time last year. I am thankful for the tough times in whatever category because it is life’s way to teach us how to be stronger and face whatever is thrown at us.  And I am thankful just to be alive and to be able to enjoy all of these things and more.

I know I do have a horrible tendency to bitch and moan and complain about lots of things, mainly things that I do not or cannot control but it is something that I need to learn to change and let go. I do know that there are things that can be changed and it is up to other people to step up and be sincere and show willingness to really fix what is broken and not to just apply another patch to it.

So, as 2008 approaches renal failure and is closer to death, let’s rejoice and bring in the new year with joy. Let 2009 be bright and full of hope even though we are facing very uncertain times.

May you all have a wonderful New Year 2009.

Till then…

Journalspace is dead

It is official, Journalspace died from a silly death due to laxness and incompetence. I know that the die-hard users would hang me high and dry if they read this but I have been very vocal about everything since they started messing up with the user interface down to the weekly “unplanned maintenance” and long Saturday morning downtimes.

I had moved away from JS several times only to go crawling back because none of the blogging sites out there were interesting or easy enough to use until I found WordPress. And it became my home ever since. I did go back to JS but none of my posts were original ones since they were copies of the posts from here. But there are people who poured their hearts out every day, posting several times a day and not just short two-liners but real long posts that took them countless hours to write. JS was prone to “lose” your post while writing it, since it didn’t have a draft mode and nothing was saved until the save button was clicked. And the save blog feature was not one of the most intuitive ones to use so many people either did not know about the feature or did not use it at all. So years of blogging have vanished, unless the users want to go through the Google archives and hope for the best to get something back.

Another thing was the fact that the community was a small, close-knitted one. It had the advantage that everybody knew what was going on in someone’s life, but it was also terrible because of the fighting and bickering that would go on sometimes. Now, the users are going to have to find a new location and it will be harder to keep in touch unless they decide to have a Facebook account, for example. Some users have created a blog here, some others hate it or are completely lost because of all the features available here. I am in direct contact with some users so we will keep in touch no matter what. But for all the other users I would follow because they were right there, it will be very difficult to be hopping from one site to another.

And on December 16th was the 4th anniversary of my blog. I did not get to see the updated button in my profile. I was looking forward to see that but it will never happen now.

So a part of our lives just disappeared. Gone are my blogs where I would vent and curse and let it all out in total anonymity. And in some way, I am not too upset since I could not really get myself to close those sites down. And for the others, it is going to be a challenge, either to keep in touch with everybody or to start from scratch. But at least I hope now that they should be a little pickier with their choice next time.

R.I.P. Journalspace.

Till then…

Taking advantage

Yes, it’s 5:40am and I am already blogging. I am actually sitting at my desk at work since I am on-call and was called in the middle of the night to take care of a user. It is the first time ever that this happened to me. I had been very fortunate to be called while I was still awake but never before I received a call at such time. And since it doesn’t make any sense at all going back home, might as well try to kill the time in a pleasurable way.

I must say there isn’t much to say. I’ve been by myself at home since Sunday morning and I admit I enjoy being alone and having such a quiet place. I wish I could enjoy it more before everybody is back on Wednesday. And I have been seriously considering taking a few days off in January and go somewhere and rest. The problem with that is that I don’t want to use any of my vacation days before the end of February so I can have enough time to spend with family and friends when they come.

The New Year’s celebration will be a non-event since I do not intend to cook, I will still be on-call and will not be able to do any drinking at all. I have to say that I am also somewhat worried if I will have to take care of a call with all the drunk people on the roads. I need to be extra careful those two days.

It is still very early but I am starving! It is still dark and quiet and really nice. And I am getting the traffic reports on my phone because I am usually getting ready to leave the house at this time but today I am already out of the house!

Ok, I need to take care of some other stuff before the start of my workday, so I better take care of that now…

Till then…

Aliti, repeat after me

You are not God.

You cannot always help everybody.

Now snap out of it and move on.

Till then…

Time to go…

It has been a frustrating experience. I’ve been here all this time and the connection was slow and my friend Barb had computer issues. Try and troubleshoot a computer miles away from here! I think I was still able to help her AND I was able to finally post my “Ten Things” meme without being kicked out of here. Anyway, it’s time to go and see what new exciting adventures are in store.

Till then…

Ten Things

I was tagged with the Ten Things I Like That Begin With the Letter ” “_ game. Terri assigned me the letter “R”, who knows why. Anyway, a few days later, here is my selection.

1.) Rainbow

A rainbow is the sign of the end of the rain. It is sign of hope. And it is also magical for children as well as for some adults. It is a smile from the sky…

Rainbow

2.) Rigoletto

One of the rare operas that my dad would listen to and would make me laugh when I was a kid, especially when La Dona E Mobile would start. The LP cover was also nice and colorful but I could not find a picture of the one my dad owned. So I settled for this one.

Rigoletto

3.) Rome

Well, to be more precise, it should be Italy, but there has to be a start somewhere. I am really hoping my next new destination will be Italy and Rome would be the best place to start my trip.

Rome

4.) Reggae

Having roots in the Caribbean, it is no surprise that reggae music plays a big part in my life.

Reggae

5.) Rolling Stones

Yeah, The Beatles are nice and everybody love ‘em but the raw energy of the Stones is still rocking after all these years!

Rolling Stones

6.) Rum

Again, the Caribbean roots. And I am very partial to this particular brand:

Rum

7.) Ribs

Need to say more? YUM!

Ribs

8.) Rope

There is something very sensual about rope, especially white and thick. I think it has to do with the Japanese art of bondage. And since this is still a PG-13 site, you only get this.

Rope

9.) Russia

Russia is one of the countries I hope to visit before I die. I don’t know where this came from but it’s something that I’ve been wanting to do since I was a kid!

Russia

10.) Raphael

The Archangel. God heals. Someone you definitely want by your side…

Raphael

Till then…

Ow, this hurts!

I am once again at Panera and I was hoping to have a prolific day as the one I had a couple of weeks ago. It started with the same network issues I had but I was able to get things working smoothly after a while the last time. This time, I have been fighting like crazy and it is awfully slow. It is frustrating but hopefully it will not really hinder my efforts and somewhat ruing my mood…

Till then…

10MP

A 10 mega pixel camera is totally and absolutely unforgiving. I took a couple of self-portraits with my new camera and I will NEVER post them anywhere.

Till then…

The real story

My previous post was all nice and sweet, talking about Christmas and whatnot, but you know what? I hate Christmas. Well, I used to but now I just don’t like Christmas.  I’ve learned how to enjoy it a little more because of the children but I have a lot of contempt for that holiday. Christmas has become one big business where retailers keep bitching about how people are spending less and less and how we are pushed into buying all these things to make people happy. Do I really have to feel bad because this and this and this retailer did not match or exceed their numbers from the year before? No! And yet they keep pounding us in the news on how the season has been bad for everybody. Well, guess what? If the economy would not be in such a pitiful situation, maybe people would have more incentives to spend their hard-earned cash.

Besides the blatant and sickening commercialization of Christmas, there are people who are suffering terribly. People who are alone, people who cannot afford to put up a Christmas tree, lights and a nice meal on their dinner tables. People who go to sleep on December 24 and wake up on the 25th with nothing from no one. People who still have to work their 2 jobs or 2 shifts to make enough money to pay for the basic stuff. People who have been traumatized for whatever reason at Christmas time and who cannot or do not have enough strenght to put aside their pain and be merry. People who are half-way across the world and not being able to be with their loved ones because they are convinced or have been brainwashed into thinking they are doing the right thing when they should be home, being a productive person and a partner, parent or guidance for some other people.

Yes, I sound and I am bitter. Yes, Christmas is still a pain for me, personally but I now have children and I have to make sure they have this magic so that in a few years they do not turn into something like me. I always have the feeling I keep coming out with the same story at this time of the year so I will not go into details of why I am so bitter. And I asked my daughter about a dozen times if she was happy with her day, her presents and she said yes. And that is all I needed to hear.

I have now over 300 days of peace before having to go through this again.

Merry Christmas after all.

Till then…