Whyte Ave

Ok... seriously... what the crap just happened?

So I was looking for a little "I just got home" adventure.

I end up online, meet a brand new girl. chat with her for less than 5 minutes... her and her friends are going to some bar. So I'm like ... here we go!

Show up; meet some girl in a bar's lineup, run into a buddy from highschool... which was cool. Phone rings, its that girl again. She's at a different bar. So I head over there.

A few days ago I was thinking "i havn't had anyone approach me and say 'do I know you from somewhere?' for a while, I need some of that to happen soon" and some chick walks up to me. Says that her boyfriend and her know me. I was like "awesome! check 1 for the check list"

Get in, meet the girl. She was a little bit of a dissapointment. But whatever. I'm looking for some one to dance with and here she is.

Her phone rang like a dozen times, apperently wants to go across the street to another bar. She's like "lets go there, I'm going to grab my girlfriend, but if we do, you can't leave us and I need a ride home cause we're ditching all my friends." and I don't care, figure its a good idea.

It wasn't.

I bribe the bouncers to let us in with no line; we get in. Surrounded by hot chicks; I'm with this girl and her short, slightly horizontally challenged native drunk friend. The girl's phone rings, so she leaves me with "+1" who apperently wants to grind.

I threw up in my mouth.

So I spent the next 20 minutes energetically giving this short girl an upset stomache and creating an impermiable "don't touch me" barrier between us.

Find the friend, who needs to go somewhere else to find her friend and I guess wants to leave after that.

Finds the friend (surprise! she was at the last bar we were at) who looses it on said girl. Apperently leaving a bar with a complete male stranger is dangerous. *smile* who knew?!?

They get in a screaming match; the girl turns to me and says "we're leaving I guess.... I hope you have a good night, will you call me later?"

*laughing*

so I had an adventure. just not the type I was looking for.

Grrr! and there were all sorts of hot girls sizing me up at that last bar too.

A bit "welcome back to the city".

----

Speaking about which, I need a girlfriend. Apperently you can go for a canoe trip down this major river that runs through town. They drive you up stream and you sorta paddle down to your vehicles.

That'll be in a few weekends I'm guessing.

The Bar

So I went to the bar tonight.

*smile* i didn't want to go, but before I left the house, I saw things... indicators that it was required. And after I left; not only did I have that feeling of completion, but I saw a massive shooting star in the sky.

I've been working on my conversational skill tonight. Talking with all sorts of people and seeing whats going on in their lives.

what did I do?

Well, I gave out a few hugs. Was in quite a few photos. I gave one girl a back massage and did a bunch of dancing.

Things struck me. A few guys gave me that... nod. I had one guy leech off of my energy, go for the 'thanks bro, see you later' hand shake situation. Another guy called me the man. One guy wouldn't stop talking to me about the back rub.

The two girls I had in front of me; (one was the security blanket) were texting back and forth... the one without the back rub said "this is creepy" (I was sorta reading over her shoulder) and the other was like "it might be creepy, but is feels so good".

I dunno.

Accomplishments?

I'm not so sure.

I think I need a different goal... something to keep my eyes on and accidentally accomplish what I'm really setting out to achieve.

Tomorrow night? if I go out dancing; I think I'm going to attempt to convince a girl to buy me a drink.

Hot Dog Head

You ever get that slow thought process immediately after you've eaten a hot dog?

What causes that?

I think it only actually happens after you've eaten too many too fast.

Maybe a hotdog an hour over a day wouldn't cause that; but the 3 hot dogs I just ate one after another... yup.

Slow thoughts; feels sorta like I'm on Tylenol night time.

wow... they shouldn't sell drowsy medicine for cold relief; they should sell hot dogs.

Blockbuster girl.

so I was dancing (last time I was in town) with these nursing girls; one of them looked like a girl who works at the local blockbusters. I've been trying to schedule my blockbuster visit to co-inside with her working and maybe strike up a little conversation.

Just to see if she's the same and maybe link up with a cool group of girls to go party with.

So I popped in; found her and managed to start off the conversation in the wrong direction. Which is cool. I'm rather nicely dressed today, had my bike with me and just got my hair foiled; freshly tanned from skydiving... so I figure I'm pretty attractive.

Which is great; unfortunately, she's not that girl. Regardless, i got my flirt on. Proceeded to save-on-foods to pickup some smokies, got my flirt on there too. Maybe i just look weird or soemthing, because like everything female keeps looking at me. I think I got 3 double takes. And I've only been out of the house for like an hour or so.

Skydiving

Ok; so I went out skydiving on the weekend.

Strangely enough, I was more worked up on the ground than I was in the plane about the whole "getting out of the plane" situation.

Got in, flew up, stepped out... and here we go!

I don't know if it was fun or not, I feel strangely blank about the whole thing.

So I wanted to give it a second go. Signed up for the AFF jump 1 for Sunday. Instead of jumping at 3500 feet, you jump at 11,000 feet. You have to deploy your own chute, though there are two instructors jumping with you to make sure everything goes alright. And you free fall for 40ish seconds.

The plane went up, I jumped out... it was sorta strange. Good strange, but strange. After I relaxed into it, it felt good; flying through the air. Almost like being on my bike going really fast... but it was a good touch faster than that; and you didn't feel the acceleration. your just... weightless.

There were a few moments of panic; I have to be honest... which was nice to work though. And I couldn't find my pilot chute (which deploys the main chute) so the primary instructor (who was awesome) had to deploy for me.

I failed that jump, so I have to do it again if I'm to proceed with the process.

But... but but but.

I don't know if I want to do it again. It was fun. But a strange fun. Compelling fun. One of those "I enjoyed myself, but I'm not sure how or where" types of fun.

Adrenalin rush...

Well; unfortunately, I've spent years in ninja class training that whole adrenal response out of my body. Not that I don't dump a huge amount of adrenalin into my system when about to jump out of a plane; but that it doesn't really make me feel good. I just notice my reactions being a little off unless threatened.

Two things the instructor noticed. 1) my hands are a lot different than most people he deals with. Apparently i have a rather large muscle between my thumb and index finger on both hands. Its a grip muscle I think. From hours of hitting things with sticks and stuff. (which is why its developed on both hands, instead of just my right) 2) even though I was in panic mode when I fell out of the plane, that my co-ordination was a little off and my thought process wasn't right; my awareness of everything was bang on.

He said that was very strange and amazing that I could remember anything at all. I recounted things like my altimeter reading when I checked it each time, what signals everyone made, in what sequence... things like that. I replayed the entire jump for him using words; the only details I got skewed were things I couldn't see and described using feel alone.

Awareness training - 1; adrenalin blindness - 0.

Summary; the skydivers at the club were awesome. Everyone was crazy cool about everything. threw the football around before the jump and some Frisbee after the jump; there was a fire with beer (which I didn't go to cause i was tired) Saturday evening and the atmosphere was wicked friendly.

The jumps themselves, while doing an incredibly dangerous thing (ignored until I heard some of the stories of whats happened on previous jumps) were elevated to an incredibly fool proof and safe level. (well... as safe as they can be.)

The cost? my first jump (with photos) cost $200. That included like 6 hours of class time, equipment and the jump itself. My AFF level 1 which included 2 hours of training and 2 instructors jumping with me (all equipment as well) ran $250.

All in all; I'd say that it was a good adventure.

Will I do it again? if I'm in town next weekend... I just may be persuaded to jump once or twice more.

(once you finish the training, its like $65 a jump... once you have your own equipment its $35 a jump!)

Power

There are several heads to power.

Among them are containment, release and generation.

I was faced with some new exercises over the last few days which sorta twigged my thoughts on how I've been attempting to generate power.

I've been really following Wind's path. The path of emptiness, if you would. Not holding any power for myself but remaining empty. That when I need power; I grab it from my immediate surroundings and expel it completely (like a breath) into my subject or target.

What are the other ways?

I spent years studying fire. The act of consuming something; transmuting potential into actual power through its expendature.

I spent a while on water. The act of being in perpetual flow. Never changing, only changing shape if you would. Never consuming or absorbing; only existing in a state of hamony with my environment and balance.

I think its about time to move into the earth.

Moments before sleep, I have dreams; fantasies about being buried until thin soil. Speaking and comuning with the earth.

What lesson does the earth hold for us? That of stored power. The rock slide; immutable, unstopable.

Building and holding; with a sudden release.

Fire can be explosive, but fire typically burns, consumes something over a period of time.

Earth... well; I don't fully understand it yet. I havn't lived its lesson to be able to relate to you all.

I was like the wind, I guess its about time to establish some roots.

Funny story.

A story that I guess most of my "people I've seen in the last 3 days" friends have heard, I was shopping at Derks Formals; found some shoes that I really wanted.

They didn't have em in my size.

But I was on my way to Winners (like a clothing outlet store, just selling the left over's of seasonal wear for other companies at cheap prices) to pickup a hawaiian shirt. (for the wedding the next day)

And what did they have? The $200 shoes from Derks; reduced to $50 and just in the right size. I bought two styles that I'm very fond of.

I think thats where I'm shoe hunting in the future.

Stress

*smile* thanks Fated for the reminder.

I think its hard for me to share stress and discord.

Whats going on?

Well; I had last week off. Apperently we had 3 failures in a row after I left that last job; so we lost that pad and rig. Work going out the door.

Should I be concerned? not because of that, no.

But I messed up pretty bad when leaving the shop; brought the wrong tools out. Why? cause I've been working so much.

According to the guys at the office; I've got the highest utilization (I dunno what that means) out of anyone for the company in the last 8 years.

Which is quite the title; I would guess.

The result? I made small strange mistakes.

Oops.

After a week of days off; I'm not at all rested. More stressed than anything else.

So I walked in and they told me to take another week off.

Which is good.

My throat is still healing up from all the rowdy on the weekend and general adventuring over the last few days.

I'm a little crabby and tired, but working on my sleep schedule first, then maybe my activity routine.

Putting myself back together one piece at a time.

Fortunately, my next month is going to be quite lazy. I've got this week off... another potential 2 weeks of work (which I'm going to apply a little pressure to get in somewhere) and then I'm off for another week.

Don't really need the cash, just need to stop spending it quite so efficiently.

Days off

Well crap. I was going to get relief today. Talked to the office and I guess the guy's leaving tomorrow.

Another day.

Its a bad sign. I've been speaking with alot of guys from the company. Just shaking hands; that sort of talk. And everyone is disgruntled.

Overworked... that sort of disgruntled. But! So far I'm winning with days out in the field. Yeah for me!

So! a link to todays motivational poster for all you who need it.

Potential

I hope you like it!