Vail Life

Religion

So my girlfriend and I had a talk last night about religion. Our discussion was nothing extremely serious, just trying to feel out where each other stood on it and what base beliefs were. As it stands I am a non-practicing Roman Catholic from a deep Roman Catholic background and she is a New Age Buddhist from a Presbyterian background.

Both of us interpret and alter our personal beliefs from any one particular dogma or teaching.

A typical Buddhist varies in beliefs but one of their central tenets is not to let a "belief" blind you a truth. And the truths they talk about are suffering, causation of suffering, cessation of suffering, and the path. Basically they try to use meditation and pure living to make themselves better people and attempt to reach a spiritual awareness and calm.

As she asked me my beliefs I had to reply that when it comes to what I believe that I am very wishy-washy. I believe that if a person feels bad about themself, feels they need to "clean up" their life, or make changes in their attitude or living style then they should seek help in any form possible that preaches and guides a person to better living. I believe that religion can help people that seek change or guidance because they are having problems seeing the way on their own.

Personally I love myself. I told her I would not change a thing about myself and I do not need any one to show me a path to better living because my life, for me, in the way I am living it, is the best method. And because I do not need to change I do not need religion to tell me that I am not living my life correctly.

I also have an innate prejudice against religion. I do not feel any person has the right to tell another person how they should feel or live their life.

Now of course there are limitations to this thinking, I am not saying that a person has the right to harm or kill another unless that person if defending themself or another from physical harm. But I feel people take the "attack in defense" to protect people from beliefs or ways of living.

I do not believe we need to wipe out a couple of million Muslims and force them into a democracy if the majority of them want to live in a theocracy. I do not believe that any person has the right to condemn gays because of their lifestyle. And I do not believe that any religion knows what happens to you when you die and what you need to do to achieve salvation.

All religion was written, interpreted, and built on by mankind. Humans are a flawed race and self destructive. If we had a "perfect" creator then he would not have made us flawed.



I wrote the next line talking about flaws vs. free will and my thoughts about the difference 4 times. Each time I back spaced it out thinking about how to explain a difference between the two rationally. How can you say that a creator giving us free will to do evil is a flaw? And how can you explain the ability to do evil and the desire for that evil to be done to others is not a good thing and if people can not see that then it is a bug in our programming? Then how do you make that case to a religious person?

Then I remembered. Religious people are not rational. To argue with them about religion proves your point to a rational mind and proves that faith solves all to a religious mind. Only when arguing about religion can two people walk away from the argument knowing that they were right and that they felt they changed the other person for the better by fighting about it.

Now tell me that isn't a flaw.

Posted by Coign at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments

Well my girlfriend made her first appearance in the comic. I also looked over my finances and decided I would purchase myself a few more Stikfas to expand my cast. I also don't really care for my cast picture and setup so I will re-do that once I get the new figures. (The cast picture is too wide and out of focus.)

One of the things I am getting is a red G2 figure. I am debating if I want to change the color of Watcher's character to the new red figure. I know he has complained about being yellow and I even made a comic about it. But he has been yellow for so long now I think I have to keep him yellow.

One of the big motivators in the new figures is to permanently assign a figure for the girl that is always picking on me at work, Robin Cradle. And now that my girlfriend is hanging around me more I am assuming she will make more appearances in the comic so I figure I would get a permanent figure to designate as her so there is less confusion about who is who. I also have to decide an online identity/name for her.

In two weeks I leave for Minnesota. I hope it warms up a bit by the time I get there. When I called my parents for Thanksgiving they said it was a high of 15 degrees. I don't think it has gotten that cold as a low here in Vail.

Posted by Coign at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments

It has been absolutely crazy at work this last month and doesn't look like it will slow down any time soon. I wanted to do the comic I did today on Monday. I got swamped by stuff to do instead. At work I recently set up a new server and I am currently attempting to finish projects on 3 other servers.

Everyone needs to eat up the last of their budget along with figuring out what budget they need for next year. Add to that that fact that we have hired 10 more people in the last couple of months and I need to set them up and try and find and configure hardware for them, well I try and breath when I can.

Posted by Coign at 4:42 PM | Permalink | Comments

Oh my God! Riding today was so freaking awesome! They had opened up Northwoods. Northwoods is a tree run that has sweet hidden nooks and crannies where you can find powder all day long. I got some pics of me in the trees and will post them when I remember to bring my laptop to work on Monday.

And I have an official complaint I would like to voice here. Stop calling powder days and powder "pow."

I know it sounds "cool" and your are one of the "in" crowd and think because you rode opening day you are now a local. But god damn it, it makes you sound like an idiot surfer from California. And for the most part all the "Valley Kids" that hit the beach think you sound like an idiot to. The locals that use that word are idiots trying to act like tourists or they are the idiot freshmen here. You do not sound like you know what you are talking about when you say, "I ride the pow."

Posted by Coign at 3:51 PM | Permalink | Comments

I got more work done on my tattoo this Saturday. Justin wanted to do the bicep and roll around to the triceps. After I got the bicep finished four hours later I had enough though.

It is one thing to get a tat that is all black like a tribal. This one is full color and he runs over each section for each color. That means he grinds in the ink 3-4 times over each section. It really hurts. And after it is done it continues to hurt for the next couple of days. With the bicep all tatted I can barely move my arm. If he would have done the triceps also I would have been immobilized for a couple of days.

Last night I entertained my first guests at my house. The little house warming party really doesn't count and up until this point I have only had people over one or two at a time. Last night I had my girlfriend and 4 of Shawn's friends. We checked out the first couple of episodes of Smallville. It was pretty cool but I really need to get more dining room chairs so I have places for everyone to sit. I pulled out my camping chairs and they are comfortable but they just take up tom much room in a living room.

Posted by Coign at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments

I Love My Friends

Since my little altercation at the bar it is amazing to see how many people are willing to get in to a fight for me.

I have been in a number of fights in my younger years and my last couple of years of high school were probably the worst. I think I was in about 6 fights my senior year all over girls. Hell, I think three of them were because of the same girl.

I have never been trained to fight, unless you count 6 months of karate where about all I learned was always turn sideways to your attacker and never throw roundhouse punches. My fighting experience has always been self taught and comes from remembering what mistakes others made and to not make those mistakes. I have a pretty high tolerance to pain and do not get upset easily so usually keep my head in a fight.

From what I remember I have never lost fight and have been in one fight that I went up against a trained fighter. That one I probably would have lost if people hadn't pulled us apart after 3 punches. For the most part, every person I have fought has been stupid and just comes into the fight straight on and throwing roundhouses. I can avoid and block those all day and mess a guy up who tries that tactic.

From my previous fights, if a man slaps you to begin a fight he is the type to be the straight forward, throw roundhouses, and has no sense of how to fight. The guy maybe had about 30 pounds on me but it was not 30 pounds of muscle. I was confident that if I did not win that fight, at least he would not think he would have won it either.

I made a conscious decision to not fight this person I was sure I could beat. I have been in enough fights that after 3 months have passed either the fight meant nothing, or you are only left with the negative results of beating someone. I have too many responsibilities to be able to afford an arrest, a fine, and/or a stay in jail.

What surprises me is how many of my friends who have the same responsibilities or even more to lose than I, that are willing to fight in a situation that I backed down from. One of my friends half-joking offered to drive out from Minnesota to find this guy. Now that is friendship.

To everyone who is willing to stand up for me, I really appreciate it and I love you all. Trust me, if I need you, I will ask.

Pride is not one of my sins.

Posted by Coign at 8:41 AM | Permalink | Comments

I Hate Dating

I know I haven't been updating here very frequently lately but what follows is the reason why. I have had a few new people that may or may not be visiting my website and I have had some events occur that I did not want spread around. By this point in time it has either become "old news" or there are too many people who know to keep it a secret.

In short, I started dating someone and that someone is a person I work with. She is a great person but I will not reveal who it is to respect her privacy. I don't care who knows about what goes on in my life, I just don't want to put any friends in awkward positions by me revealing what goes on between me and them. So this is me coming out about dating a girl.

One thing that all my friends here in Vail know about and one of the events I do have to talk about to get it off of my chest is something that happened at the bar I went to meet this girl at.

I had met this girl the week before and we had really hit it off and said that we would date each other and get to know each other better. I called her that following Friday and found out that she was at a local club. She was there catching up with a former roommate that has moved into the house she is living at. I asked her if it was alright if I showed up and she said sure.

Once I had gotten there she had invited another friend of hers that she knew before and he (guy1) showed up with his friend (guy2). We all sat down were enjoying ourselves having drinks. None of us had too much to drink and everyone seemed to be acting civil. We had all just closed our tab and were thinking about going home.

It was about 1 AM and I leaned over and kissed her forehead. I am not one for PDA (Public Display of Affection) and quick pecks, holding hands, and sitting next to someone is about as far as I usually go. My behavior that night was pretty mild and nothing showed that I was dating this girl until the very chaste peck.

What surprised me is that as I kissed her forehead I suddenly found my glasses knocked off my face as guy2 slapped my forehead and asked, "What the fuck do you think you are doing?"

My first thought in my head is what adult slaps another? The guy is at least 25 and I would put him closer to my age at 29. The second thought that came to me is I am not going to get in to another high school relationship where I fight over a girl. I did enough of that back in high school and I hated those years of my life.

I turned to both the girl and guy and replied, "I guess I am leaving. I am not going to fight you over a girl. You two need to work this out."

I then replaced my glasses, got up from the table, and walked out the door.

Following me out of the bar is the girl and behind her follows guy2, guy1, and her roommate. Ignoring all of them I ask her if she has a ride home or if she wants to come home with me. She replies that she will go home with me.

Guy2 asks her to talk with him and she says no. He asks again and she says no more forcefully and pushes him away. I guide her around to the passenger side of me car getting in between him and her and make sure she is safely in.

As I walk around to my side of the car I tell him for the second time, "I am not going to fight you over a girl."

He just tells me to get the fuck out of his face.

I shake my head, get into my car, and go home with the girl.




In the end it was a bad way to start off dating someone. I like this girl so I am going to continue to see her but I am not going to let myself get dragged into another bullshit relationship. I will let you know how it goes.

Posted by Coign at 2:21 PM | Permalink | Comments