Vail Life

I brought my MINI to the shop to be worked on. I have been told it should be done by next Friday the 8th. I plan on having a bit of added work done to it, basically fixing the keying in my trunk at the same time so hopefully that will all be done at the same time and that date won't change.

So I got a rental Malibu car for two weeks.

I miss my MINI already. This car is a 2006 model. I think my mom drive a 2004 or 2005 Malibu. I hate this car. When you turn or swerve you can feel the top heavy car roll from side to side. And the steering is so sloppy. It is like I am driving on a big pile of pillows. When you try and get your vehicle to do something it happens 1/2 a second later and half-heartedly. I can't wait to get my sports car back.



I spent some time trying to re-center myself today. Left work 1/2 an hour early and took the rental off-roading up into the mountains heading towards Piney Lake. There is a trail up there that allows you to drive around the crown of the mountain in on one side you are looking at the most beautiful backdrop of mountains and 5 minutes away you are looking down at Vail Mountain.

To get there is a real bitch though. I am so glad I had the rental to bottom it out a couple of times. The MINI is so low to the ground that she would have never made it. So the rental is all muddy and abused now.

So what did I learn in my mountain exodus to try and analyze my thoughts?

I know that I can change the way I feel about a person if I want to. I have before and I could again. It is all a matter of perspective on how I view a person. I can consciously decide if I want to view the good qualities or bad qualities of a person.

Everyone I know has both good and bad traits about them. Typically when I think about a person I think about the last encounter I had with them. Was that encounter good or bad? A good encounter will make you think of good qualities about that person (nice smile, bought me that beer, called me a friend) while a bad encounter will play the opposite (horrible haircut, ignored me when I walked in, made that crude remark about my mother). It is these collections of "good times" and "bad times" that allow you to focus on how you feel about a person.

By the way, I am making these good and bad traits up. All characters are wholly fictional and any resemblance to any person living or dead is just a coincidence.

My value of a person is a collection of do I see more good things or more bad things in them. Even though I will sometimes get analytical about my personal views and feelings I know there is some randomness tossed into this mix. Sometimes you just really like a person in a method you just can not break down and sometimes you just get rubbed the wrong way by a person.

But even still I thought back on my history and thought back on how I have dealt with problems. I have been able to change the way I feel about a person by exploring these feelings. By weighing out memories and consciously choosing what values to remember or forget I have been able to decide if I like someone or not. I have done it before on multiple occasions and I can point to specific times in my life where I flipped a completely different direction on how I felt about someone.




One of my friends and forum posters talked about how I started posting a lot more on my blog lately. Talking about "drama" and having these really long posts. Rachel has changed my personality over the last week. I really like this girl and made her feel awkward. Things I would not do before I find myself doing even without conscious thought. Increased blog posts are just one metric by which you can measure that.

This is why I have the post above of needing to re-center myself. I'm acting out of character and I needed to ask myself, why? And I am pretty sure I know why, how do I stop or moderate that change?




So finally the big question, did I find my center again? I don't know yet. The one descision I came out of it with is that I don't want to change how I feel about this girl. Instead of changing how I think about her, I need to change how I react to my own feelings.

My thoughts are pretty tore up right now. Like breaking a bone to re-set it, I have to see how I heal now to see the final product.

Posted by Coign at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments

News updates

First the good news, we won trivia again last night.

Now for the good and bad, Of my two female friends that had cervical growths, one of them has cancer, the other has shown hers to benign and she will be fine.

And for the final bad news, one of my online friends from Canada was hit by a drunk driver. Here is the article and a picture of the bicycle he was riding at the time he got hit.

Kamloops Paper

Posted by Coign at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments

To Shaman Princess,

Just because you can not catch a pixie, it doesn't prevent you from wanting to dance with them.

Posted by Coign at 3:05 PM | Permalink | Comments

Bored out of my flipping mind

I don't want to watch TV, Diablo is just a chore, and I don't feel like doing the thinking that is required of me to work on my D&D campaign. I would go hang out at the tattoo shop but I have a feeling no one is there because Watcher doesn't have the cam up and he didn't answer his phone. And now I can not get a certain Shaman Princess out of my head.

Maybe I am not going so slowly crazy; more likely I am spiraling into madness.

That and money issues are popping up again. I am surviving but it seems like each week is getting a little tighter and that is a constant worry in the back of my mind. I think it is making me more frantic each day and it makes me panic when I am not occupied with something.

I have reduced my spending but I think I need to do more. I will be working at least this Saturday at Any Occasion and most likely every Saturday this month. That should help a lot. I appreciate Terri calling me and liking my work enough to continue to ask me back even though I feel horrible about being late last time I worked there. I really felt like I let my friends down that day. I am going to try my hardest not to do that again.

In between this paragraph and the one above my friends, IdFungus and his wife Terri, invited me out for a quick drink. It was just what I needed. Thanks. I appreciate you asking me out to join you on your night without the kids. It helps all my worries melt away and I can relax knowing that my friends are there for me.

Posted by Coign at 10:32 PM | Permalink | Comments

Slowly going crazy.

I thought about this last night. Like when you light a campfire and the paper lights up and throws off a ton of heat and light? That is what I feel like right now. Of course I am also aware that it will soon burn down. Good thing I am so good at making fires that I can guarantee the logs will light and make a lasting hearth.

OK, now I really am egotistical. At least I hope I have the wood to keep a fire burning. (No pun was intended until after I wrote that. Now it is intended.)

Posted by Coign at 3:44 PM | Permalink | Comments

Happy

Meet the "MySpace" girl again and we went to a concert in Carbondale. Her name is Rachel for those of you who don't know yet.

Happy

She introduced me to a shamanic rock band called Kan'Nal. MySpace - Kan'Nal

Happy

So she told me I had to blog this because she wanted my opinion of the band, show, and night. I am currently listening to their three songs from their MySpace account so I can try and recapture the feelings.

Happy

I keep getting lost in the memories so it is hard to write.

Happy

OK, I give up; I can not tell you how it was or how it feels because unless you go to the show with a shaman princess, you will not be able to feel the joy I had at that concert. It was not the music, the dancers, the people, the show, and beautiful woman I was with, but it was that combination and blend that will make this a night I will cherish.

Happy

Posted by Coign at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments

So I have been commanded to blog. Since I had this started from Friday night and I want to keep my blogs in chronological order I will post this first.






Hung out with my ex tonight.

Actually I really hate that term, ex-girlfriend. For a lot of people who don't know us, it places our relationship in their mind with that one word. They know that we made a run of it and it didn't work out and since we are still hanging out we are still friends. But just the whole term of ex bugs me. She may be an ex, but that doesn’t mean she isn't my friend any more. Screw it, from this point forward she is no longer my ex, she is now, friend, or Kat, or Kelly.

Hung out with my friend tonight.

Sometimes I miss the times we had together and then other times I am happier knowing they are over. In the end I am happier being friends then a couple.

Los turned 30 tonight. Not a huge deal in itself, basically it was just another excuse to go out to Vail and go drinking. So it was Kelly, Los, and me all head out to dinner. After we meet with a couple we know at Finnegan’s, then we pick up another of their co-workers and go to the The Club at Vail. Afterwards we attempt to get into Samonas and Kelly gets the boot due to a balancing problem. So I drive us all back to Paddy's in Avon where we finish out the night.

But this story is not about Kelly or Los or even our bar hop. It is about a conversation Los, Wink, Kelly, and I had outside of Finnegan's and how my attitude towards Kelly and girls in general plays out. I will get to our conversation in a bit.

Most of the people we meet up with and know us, know we are a couple that had broken up. When we do meet up again we fall back into those motions. We dance, we stand close to each other, we are aware of each others presence in a room. The big difference is the sparks that used be between us burned out two months ago.

The one thing I am always thinking is I do not want to be the reason for Kelly to miss meeting someone, but I am also willing to play being the "boyfriend" if she needs an out of a conversation. On this particular night she didn't meet anyone at Vail so for the most part we hung together. Then when we got to Paddy's she meet a guy she had been meeting with for a while. I stayed at her side just long enough to make sure she would be safe and then joined Los outside for the rest of the evening for drinking and merriment.

That is a perfect example of a few of my past relationships. If I am not the person to make you happy I want someone else to be your perfect match, and I will activity work to make that happen.

Now back to our conversation earlier that evening.

Wink met up with us outside and after the initial greetings and asking of how things were going informed us of his recent break up with his girlfriend. Then he was talking how it was tough to go to a bar and see her with other guys. He said that she would be talking and laughing with some guy and he was upset because just a couple of days earlier she was crying. His comment was, "Why is she laughing? She is not supposed to be this happy this soon."

That got us on the topic of jealousy.

Los mentioned that he likes to see a mourning period after a breakup. Wink tended to agree with him. As for me, I am the opposite. I don't get jealous. I never have. I have had this same conversation many times over the years with many guys. Of all the conversations I have had, every one of the guys I have talked to about this subject have said they get jealous, or I have personally seen them in jealous moods.

Is it strange that I am the only guy I have ever met to never get jealous?

I have been asked, "If I don't get jealous how do I feel if a girl I like or am dating leaves me for another guy?"

I have been on all three sides of that situation. I HAVE had a girl leave me and I have been the one to leave another relationship for someone else, and I have been the guy the girl left a relationship to go to. I won't say I have never "cheated" on a girl or had a girl "cheat" on her boyfriend with me. Sometimes the timing is to close to call. I will say that I have never had an extended "affair" with someone else in a relationship. If I get involved the lines of who is dating who get re-arranged quickly so everyone knows where we stand.

But that does not answer the question of if I am not jealous, do I feel anything?

I do have a heart and it can be broken. But it is that feeling I get. If a girl leaves me I don't get angry, I get sad.

My very first relationship, it was a mutual breakup. Relationship number two, she left me for another guy. Relationship number three, I was the guy some girl left her boyfriend for. I think these first relationships made me the person I am today. I am one who believes that it is women that have all the power in a relationship.

Fighting some guy over some girl is not going to get me the girl; it is going to get me jail time.

Posted by Coign at 9:08 AM | Permalink | Comments

Today. A stream of consciousness.

Had a work meeting that went from Noon to 5. Then a work party that started at 6:30. I went home, had a bite to eat and got sleepy. Screw it. I will go late to the party. Wake at 7:15. I'm sad. Why, I ask myself? Not sure. I just feel down. Sadness leads to thoughts of life. Thoughts of unfinished projects. Thoughts of things I have to do at work. What does it all mean? Am I going to get fired for some late project? What would I do if I lost my job? What keeps me in this valley other then my financial investment? What are my friends up to? Do I really want to go to this "party" feeling down? Will it pull me out of my sadness or just make me think more about it? Screw it I won't go. No I have to. Even if I am feeling down I need to go and hope that it will cheer me up. No, I might bring others down, I won't go.

I go. I have a couple of beers, take a couple of pictures. There I have done my duty. I made the rounds I said hi and I played a quick game of "washers."

I come home. It is 8:30. I sit and stare at a blank screen. Why?

It is not a pointed why, it is a why "anything". Why here, why me, why my life, why do I feel this way?

Oh yeah, that is why. It is "because".

It is because I love this life in the mountains. Not the valley, and not the people but the views. I look at a ski lift and I love the fact that I can walk out my door to Beaver Creek.

It is because I had the courage to leave Minnesota. It is because I have the courage to go where people mock my accent and not only do I not mind it but I take pride in it. I may not be a hero but I have courage. I have the courage to go out and see the world.

It is because my life is filled with a low number of friends but those friends are so supportive and understanding. It is because my life has potential. Even in a period of my life that I feel should be on the "down slope" it has the feeling of a potential to take a drastic change either financially or emotionally. Compared to my parents, when they were at my age they had it all figured out. They were married and two kids ages 10 and 6. They knew where their life was and what they needed to do to secure the future of their children. I don't have that lighthouse. I am a ship on the shore and I have a sea of opportunities in front of me at the old age of thirty.

It is because I feel this way. I feel this way because of lost relationships and possible new ones. It is because I feel wind blowing on my face that comes from a coming emotional storm. My idyllic life of being an island has the potential to be swept away in a hurricane of feelings.

It is "why" that I feel down, it is "because" that I will emerge in to the sunlight.

Posted by Coign at 9:15 PM | Permalink | Comments

First off, you know me and music and you know that I don't like webpages that have it playing automatically on your page. But as I drove home tonight from Trivia this was what was playing and it almost brought a tear to my eye. I don't know why exactly but I have loved this song since I first heard it and it just made me think of my life, where things are going, and what my future may hold.

Right-click and choose "Save As" download it. Play it as you read my next entry.

The Smiths - How Soon Is Now


You ever meet someone and just seem to click?

Now the first thing that runs through my head is, "You met this girl. She seems to get you. Don't screw this up."

Now comes the balancing act. Let her know that what little I know about her, I want to know more about. It is that feeling that even if we never make anything of our relationship beyond a friendship, I would be perfectly happy in that role. She is just such a cool person that I want to hang out with her.

So to fill some of you in the details, the girl I said messaged me on MySpace, she came to trivia at my invitation. She only messaged me Monday night and it sparked a flurry of messages that got tossed back and forth today.

I have motioned in an old blog that I do not let my friends pick my friends. But if someone I meet does not get along with my friends I will not hang out with that person. It is not that I am shallow in that sense, it is the fact that I have hung out with my friends for so long that I know that their attitudes and likes are my attitudes and likes. If someone can not get along with them, they could not get along with me in a long period of time.

Not only did she click with me, she clicked with Watcher when we talked for a bit after trivia night.

After she left Watcher and I talked a little bit I filled him in on how we met and some of the things that really got me interested in meeting her.

To begin with she contacted me. I am not a forward person so her making the first reach out means that she broke through my barrier of talking to someone.

Then her first comment was about liking my likes and she made mention of role-playing. Now she was not aware that when I talk about role-playing it is D&D and not dressing up for Ren fest. But when I explained to her it was about D&D not only was she not turned away she was kind enough to ask a bit more about it.

Another point was the fact that she knew what my handle of Coign meant. Like I told Watcher and her, most people don't even know how to pronounce it much less what it means. (It is pronounced coin and means key stone or corner stone for those of you wondering)

The next message from her was how she was a Buffy fan and was not afraid to mention her "nerdy-ness." Of course I can not relinquish the title of King of the Nerds so I revealed to her my DVD collection of comic book and sci-fi series. And not only did she not get turned off by that but she said that those collections sound like they would be fun to watch.

Then tonight I met her in person. Not only is she a beautiful person but she was fun to be around and had a great smile.

So here's to trying to met a new friend and hopefully found a new lasting friendship.



The Smiths - How Soon Is Now?

I am the son
And the heir
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
I am the son and heir
Of nothing in particular

You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way ?
I am human and i need to be loved
Just like everybody else does


I am the son
And the heir
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
I am the son and heir
Oh, of nothing in particular


You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way ?
I am human and i need to be loved
Just like everybody else does


Oh ...
Oh ...


There's a club, if you'd like to go
You could meet somebody who really loves you
So you go, and you stand on your own
And you leave on your own
And you go home, and you cry
And you want to die


When you say it's gonna happen "now"
Well, when exactly do you mean ?
See, i've already waited too long
And all my hope is gone


Oh ...
Oh ...


You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way ?
I am human and i need to be loved
Just like everybody else does



P.S. Lyrics get a little sappy. But every human wants to feel wanted and I think it is that feeling that got to me.

Posted by Coign at 1:12 AM | Permalink | Comments

It is time for another episode for drunken blogging. Actually I am only tipsy but still it loosens me up for some loosening of inhibitions allows me to get some things off of my chest.

First I found out today while surfing that a second girl I know has cancer. In both cases it is cervical cancer and in both cases the girls are in their young twenties. Both of them are on the road to improvement but it still makes me sad. I want to tell them I am praying for you but in 30 years of life I have lost my faith in a higher power. Growing up Catholic and specifically growing up a strong Catholic being confirmed and all I had at one time a strong faith in God. That faith has been shaken time and time again to the point that I realize, praying for salvation will not come in this mortal world. It is my solid belief that each person must make his own destiny and praying will not give you the personal strength to get through life. That comes from planning, hard work, and making your own destiny by grabbing life and forcing it to work for you.

I feel more then relying on some higher faith and belief I believe in my friends and family. They are my strength and my heroes. They are someone I can put faith into for always being there for me when I need them. Sometimes in a financial method, thanks Mom and Dad I swear I will start paying you back, and sometimes in a spiritual way. I know Justin, someday I will kick my smoking habit and trust me it is your strength that will help me.

So the update since I last made my mark here.

One my car got hit by my neighbor upstairs. Brand new car with only 8500 miles on it I have had it keyed, had a large rock put a golf ball size shatter in the windshield and now the driver's side door has a 3 foot long crease in it. It reminds me that I live in a world where bad things happen. My problems are not as bad as others and it is not like I have been diagnosed with cancer but to each person it seems we are met with one hardship after another. And the hardship we meet always seems so insurmountable until you meet someone that has it worse.

I feel that each person feels they get it the worst. I have a friend that feels the lack of companionship and it tears him apart, another that worries about finances, and another that has to deal with just trying to put food on the table. To each of us it feels like we are constantly on the edge of what we can handle. But for each of us out there, including my two friends with cancer, there is someone worse off. Yet the human spirit always feels they have it the worst. It is just human nature to feel self-pity and I know I am no different then anyone else. I continue to remind myself that I have it good. I have a great job, a new car, and a new house. I know I will survive and I know those closest to me will also.

I am sorry I haven't been more active on my blogs but it has been crazy at work. I still do the comic and it really has become my one project that I make sure I make time for and keep updated. It is my outlet in to this world and I can not tell you how much pride it fills me with to know there is one part of my life I have stayed with and feel successful at. I don't care if no one reads it but just that fact that I know there are a few people who do, well that is my greatest success this far in this world. (By the way I mark about 80 unique visits a day and I am sure that means about 40 of those are web crawlers and 40 are readers.)

To you people that visit I give thanks and you are the people that make this life a memorable and happy one.

As for tonight, I got messaged by a random girl from MySpace. That is always a good feeling. I don't know if it is a potential friend or just someone that ran access my blog there. In any case it makes me feel good that the amount of time I spend reaching out on the web, I have touched another person. The fact that it is a member of the opposite sex always makes me think about my friends I have met through the Internet and those of my friends that have met those they fell in love with through the net. I have one friend that got married to someone they met on the net and my friend, Justin, knows of two couples that met and were married because of the net.

For someone who does not get out much and has a fear to open up in a public setting it is moments like these that I think that someday somewhere out there I will meet someone with my interests that meshes with me and that I might make a lasting connection with.

Then I remind myself, I am a strange, strange person and my chances are low of meeting someone that I have more then a passing exchange of messages. The odds are not in my favor and I am not a gambler. I just don't touch the lives of enough people to meet that one out there that would be my match. And no I am not the type of person to go hang out on eHarmony. Maybe in 10 years when I am 40 I will.

As I sit here and think over the last few paragraphs I realize how sad of a person I sound like. I blame TV and books. In all the great stories the hero meets a girls and some life threatening situation throws them in to a conflict that they must rely in each other to get out of. That comradeship and sense of danger brings them together and they end up leaving the story in each others arms to live happily ever after. You know if I had three wishes that would be one of them. Let me be the hero, or be the guy in a hero and hero-ess (because I believe the girl can rescue me as well as I can rescue her) in the story.

I will end this on a quote I heard long ago, "Bouncing back from a relationship does not mean that a person is on the "rebound," it just means that they will speed up the relationship that would normally take a longer to form."

Posted by Coign at 9:35 PM | Permalink | Comments

I have been to busy each morning at work to update. It is getting into budget time so I have been fielding a lot of sales calls.

Update:

Friday - Nothing
Saturday - Went to Mangos (a local bar) for the grand opening with a friend. It was crazy full, but fun.
Sunday - Went to a BBQ at Dredmon's. It was fun.
Monday - Nothing
Tuesday - Trivia night. Didn't win but still had one drink to many. I need to start sipping more.

Posted by Coign at 1:10 PM | Permalink | Comments

Trivia night is great unless you win.

Wooo! We won. Sweet $50 bar tab. How much do we have left? Thirty bucks? Fuck. OK, the three of us need to drink up we have 30 bucks to drink.

That is not too bad except one of us only drank a single $4.00 beer so it was up to Jenn and me to drink $30 dollars worth of beers.

Yeah. I got a little toasty last night.

Last weekend a friend of mine, John, did a live radio broadcast from the Eagle Vail Ink Lounge. It was a ton of fun and I even got to mention my website and talk a little bit on the show.

For pictures and a much better write up click the link below. (P.S. I took many of the pictures so I am not in any of them. P.P.S. Make sure to wait for Watcher's page to load so you can quickly scroll about 5 pages down the left to TURN OFF HIS DAMN MUSIC!!)


Watcher's Blog

Posted by Coign at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments