Two years ago today I was on vacation in San Diego. At the precise hour of this writing in fact I was in my interview of a certain large Japanese gaming company; it had been bumped from 11am to 8:30am and I was definitely still feeling the effects of splitting a bottle of Jack with Dorian and Spaz the night before. I wasn’t hungover and I wasn’t drunk, I was just really REALLY thirsty. We’re talking Saraha during the dry season here. So what if I did fall back in bed the first time I tried to get up; don’t judge me. The point is tipsy me apparently knocked it out of the park (or I was cheapest) and I got an offer before I flew home on my birthday two days from now.

I first visited San Diego probably close to 4 years ago now. I don’t remember what I was thinking when I flew in, but I do remember what I thought when I flew out; I knew beyond any doubt that I WOULD live here. San Diego clicked with me in ways I couldn’t fathom or explain. Everything looked somehow familiar and yet was glisteningshinywetnew at the same time, and that feeling that hasn’t dimmed in the slightest over the past two years. I’m perfectly content to sit at home reading while ocean breezes waft through the apartment, driving to work along the 101 with surfers as my fellow commuters, or even walking around downtown looking at the unwashed masses of humanity. I’ve never encountered such a diversity of experience in such a concentrated area- seals and sea lions basking 3 feet away from you in La Jolla, sharks and dolphins nosing you while surfing in North County, coyotes skirting you with their sideways walk out in the desert, the list goes on and on. Even after all the time I’ve spent here I MIGHT have seen maybe 10% of what there is to see here. The idea of moving and leaving it all behind was pretty lackluster to say the least.

Frankly it went way beyond just not appealing to me; I outright dreaded it with the cold shivering certainty that I’d hate it. It was the cold and clammy lump of iron dread coupled with the blind unreasoning panic that prehistoric man felt in the dark. I was grumpy and I certainly wasn’t sleeping well. I kept trying to reassure myself that it would be fine, that I would come down to visit San Diego on the weekends like that would somehow make it OK. It didn’t work of course; it was a repetitive mantra that was overlaid with an overpowering stench of fear and a subtle touch of desperation. Why was I so determinedly unhappy with this? Was it because it San Diego first city that I ever felt like I fit in, somewhere I could call home? As it turns out, that was pretty close to the truth- I had put down roots in San Diego in 2 short years which was something I hadn’t ever managed in 30 odd years while living in Alabama. Perspective is a bitch; this must be what most people went through when leaving home for the first time. Once I realized that everything began to make sense. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t want to move up to the Bay Area, I felt safe and secure here and I didn’t want to give that up. I was more fighting mentally for that security and comfort than anything specific to San Diego. I was willfully locking myself in complacency, like the little kid with their eyes screwed up tight and fingers in their ears singing at the top of their lungs.

I like to think that’s not me. While I don’t espouse change for the sake of change, I don’t think we as human beings can grow without constant change and stimulation. We should fear stagnation in our lives; it’s an insidious rot that erodes you from the inside out and we’re generally incapable of seeing it in ourselves until it’s too late. I made the conscious decision to embrace this move as a chance for that and haven’t looked back. It might be a year, it might be for 10, but it’s a new experience and I want to learn from it and enjoy it to every extent I’m capable of. I’m trying to approach it with the same outlook and enthusiasm as I did moving here and it’s working. I’ve already got stuff lined up to do in September and October, including trips to Yosemite, Monterrey Bay, San Francisco, scuba diving, and going out to see the giant redwoods. I’m sure there’s a Napa trip going to be wedged in there somewheres. *ahem*

My friends here are still my friends, just like my friends back in Alabama. I can easily come down to visit just like I go back to the South now. The mistake that I almost made is in assuming that my old life would be somehow closed to me now, and I don’t think it has to be like that. There are people who will write you off for sure- I saw that firsthand when I moved to San Diego originally. Some folks just take you leaving personally, like they’re only in your social circle due to physical proximity. I expect it’s some a heady cocktail of subconscious envy and feelings akin to betrayal. They’ll either get over it or not; so far in my limited experience it’s been roughly a 50% turnover rate.

Funny how life comes full circle. Why does it seem I always move on Labor Day? In two days I’ll be camping out in my apartment in San Diego with most of my worldly goods making the trip to Sunnyvale. In one week I’ll be on a sightseeing tour bus in San Francisco. In two weeks I’ll (hopefully) have started unpacking. With all that living to do, I should probably get out of this freezing Starbucks and start getting ready for the packers and movers huh?

photo credit: nDevilTV

Traditionally this is the time of year that I do the typical year in review type post. I broke tradition the past several years by either not posting at all or posting my todo list / resolutions for the year. Since the todo thing worked out well last year, I’m going to be wild and do both this year, though not in the same post. I’m writing this amid dirty looks and calls of “see you next year!” at a crowded Starbucks. The dirty looks are probably because I’m taking up an entire couch thingy with my feet propped up. Too bad! It’s near a power outlet. Finders keepers and all that.

2009 in Rewind
I don’t think there’s any way I can describe 2009 other than frelling awesome. (Yes, I used frelling in a sentence. I’m aware it’s a made up word. So is grok and I plan to use that at some point too so shove off.) Overall I think 2009 has gone well for me

Where I succeeded:

• I got in better shape. It hasn’t been as quick as I wanted but I think I had some pretty unrealistic expectations going in. I’ve still got a long way to go but now I’m educated. I know more about muscle groups, exercises, and nutrition which will make this year even easier. It’s like running downhill I think; the further you go the easier it gets. Daily Burn and my trainer Dennis were vital parts of this process as was the support of my friends and family.
• I was better at managing my money. I’ve setup automatic transfers into savings each pay check and a small spending stipend for things like books and movies. Mint.com has been a huge bonus to getting this done. Mint is like an automated version of Quicken allowing for automatic transaction categorization and alerts for a variety of situations (pending credit card payments, over budget, etc).
• Get more into my hobbies. Another one for the “win” column. I’ve been delving more and more into amateur digital photography/art, even to the point of opening my own store to sell prints. I’ve read more too, thanks to the Kindle app for the PC and iPhone, and I’m keeping up with it all via GoodReads. I rebuilt my website into something I like and I’m willing to maintain. As a side benefit I’ve learned a ton more about WordPress and I’ve actually done some custom site work and hosting. Hiking and camping excursions continue to grow, though not quite to the level I’d like. Moving out to San Diego will probably help that quite a bit.
• I moved to San Diego. Oh yes, this was a goal and it was most definitely met.

Where I failed:

• Self improvement. I didn’t add a new technical skill or certification to my repertoire, and I didn’t learn a new language. Gonna have to bump this one into this coming year.

Everything else:

• I bought a new car.
• I got invaded by ants.
• I had a few issues with the neighbors.
• I (unsuccessfully) tried Rogaine. More on this later.
• Attended MetaCon ’09. Words cannot describe this event, ever. Probably because of the gag order from the judge. This year’s MetaCon 2010 promises to be better!
• I got a job with Sony and moved to San Diego.
• Got told the truth a lot. Example: : patience (you don’t have) is a virtue (again which you don’t have)
• Did a fair amount of blogging. God, I hate that word. How about we say writing instead?
• Gained (and lost) a roommate.
• Went camping twice. Must do more!
• Got closer to my family. (Yeah, a win/loss there right? )
• Did I mention I took a lot of pictures?
• Got inspired by a pretty awe-inspiring blog post related to Harry Potter. I kid you not. Thankfully it’s mostly due to the writer not the Harry Potter aspect.

Stay tuned for the 2010 todo list! Here’s to another awesome year.

I’m sorry I haven’t posted more. Life in California is pretty busy, so I don’t have a lot of free time to hang out on the internet. It’s somewhat ironic to me that I feel busier here than I did in Alabama when by and large the culture here is far more laid back and relaxed. Work hours start later and are far more relaxed, holidays are longer and there are more of them, and no one really ever appears to be in a hurry. I don’t know if this is true for most jobs here, just tech jobs, or just “game industry” jobs of which I’m on the very periphery of.

So what’s keeping me so busy you ask? The biggest push for me personally has been re-furnishing my pad. When I left Alabama I threw out just about everything that I didn’t personally pick out, or furniture that I didn’t like. I took pictures of my old apartment right before I left of everything packed up. It’s pretty drastic that when moving from a 989 sq foot, 2 bed/bath apartment to a 830 sq foot, 1 bed/bath apartment almost everything I moved fit in half my living room. I had 86 “items” for the movers to move. That’s it. I threw away a lot both physically and mentally to make this move, and one of my first orders of business has been to get my sense of “home” re-established. It’s still a work in progress, but I’m done enough to actually show it to people and not feel like I’m living in a dorm room. You can see the full album on my photos page. Here’s a few samples:

Some of my free time has been devoted to working on my official blog of course (www.thefirestarter.org), working on my dad’s photography site (www.thruthelenz.com), and I just finished a website for Dennis my old personal trainer (www.1on1personaltrainingnow.com). Website work is sort of hit or miss for me, I don’t generally enjoy it and have to be “in the mood” to get anything done. I need to finish Thru the Lenz and one more site for a friend’s computer consulting gig before I can quit for another year or two. Hopefully. What’s left of my free time has been split between gym, various social events, reading, and a renewed interest in gaming. I’m still trying to find a good multiplayer (co-op) RPG, so if anyone has recommendations I’m all ears. Gym is indirectly taking up more time than I’m used to; eating 3000 (or more!) calories a day while trying to bulk is not as easy as I would hoped. There’s food prep time, sleep time, longer gym sessions.. but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think it was worth it and didn’t enjoy every minute of it.

The only thing I’d like to do more of that I haven’t is hiking. I got to do a quick 2 hour trip to Torrey Pines a few weekends back (photos here), but I haven’t done any real stuff yet. I’m trying to get a group together to do a hike at Volcan Mountain this weekend but those pesky social obligations I mentioned keep cropping up =). Along with the hiking comes photography of course, but that’s still very much a shelved project until all my website work finishes up.

Next post will be sometime this week and will probably be a Rogaine update. Stay tuned!

The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become. – Charles DuBois

This quote holds a pretty deep meaning for me. I came across it late last summer when I started to get antsy with life in Mobile. It made me think long and hard on both what I had achieved and what I wanted out of life. This single quote opened up the realization that my future, for good or for ill, was in my hands and my hands alone. My happiness was MY responsibility, not anyone elses, and if I wasn’t happy then it was my own damn fault. Throughout the next year that theme was repackaged and re-presented to me over and over in a variety of ways until I finally accepted it.

While I realized I wanted something to change, I had no idea what or where. Being the logical person I am I went through a period of self examination trying to determine what exactly I was dissatisfied with. My friends and family? No,they were fine. My job? Nope, I pretty much liked everyone I worked with. My work? Well, it had its up and downs. High stress for sure. My city? Uh..it’s a paved over swamp. With climate and wildlife to match. Bingo.

About this same time my boss Jeff sent around a little career guide book to his managers; if you haven’t read The Adventures of Johnny Bunko I highly recommend it. It’s written in a pseudo-English manga style in an effort to “connect” to all us Gen X/Y’ers out there but if you can get past the medium it’s got 6 lessons to take away:

1. There is no plan.
2. Think strengths, not weaknesses
3. It’s not about you.
4. Persistence trumps talent.
5. Make excellent mistakes.
6. Leave an imprint.

The idea was these would apply to your career, but honestly it works for your life too. #1 hit me hard; here I was struggling and trying to plan my life and happiness and it just wasn’t working. Once I quit planning and just …”did”, everything else seemed to fall into place. I realized life doesn’t come with a roadmap or a GPS. You can’t pick your destination and see a nice little print out of the choices that will get you there. You can only simply start driving. Every road you take (or not) gets you somewhere (or not), so if you don’t like where you are, choose better next time. The more times you do it the better sense of direction you get, the better you ask for directions, the quicker you find your goals. Like #5 says; make excellent mistakes right?

I doubt my boss intended for the book to have quite the impact on me it did. We had discussed the topic of job stress levels in the past and why I wasn’t happy, but to be honest I hadn’t figured it out for myself. Once I knew that it was my environment outside of work, I knew it had to change. I had come out to San Diego the past two summers for vacation and I loved it. It had all the amenities of a large city but somehow with the feel of a small town. No matter what your interests were there was something catering to them; beaches, mountains, hiking trails, Vegas… it seemed to have it all. When the chance came to apply for my current job I almost didn’t even think twice about it.

There was a good chance this would be a mistake; I was giving up a managerial position with a strong future with a stable company to become a peon again. If nothing else this would be a learning experience, an “excellent mistake” if you will, and that I (probably) wouldn’t regret it. Even if it turns out to be the wrong city, I’m proud of the fact that I made this mistake well. What really got me was the fact that hardly anyone tried to talk me out of it. My closest friends and family were encouraging and supportive, and that’s always helpful with these life-changing decisions.

So here I am. I’ve been not-so-figuratively camping out here for a little over a week now. I’m tentatively standing on my own nearly 2000 miles from everything I’ve known for the past 30 years. Tomorrow the rest of my stuff arrives, the last physical links to
a sense of “home”. I think the real process of unpacking and settling in begins tomorrow.

Fast forward to this morning, when I again get a call at 6am from the driver who’s name is now Michael. He’s “just outside of town”. Apparently that translates to an hour and a half away. He calls back every 30 minutes for directions on pickup, and finally I had to have my mom drive the truck to meet him because, and I quote, “Uh, this is a semi, and it don’t turn around none too good ya know”.

Hopefully it gets here before I have to head up to LA at the end of next week.

My trip out was fairly normal as far as flights go. The added element of Wifecat to the flight proved to be pretty anticlimatic. She cried a lot on the smaller flight and threw up on the air tram / terminal train in Dallas, but outside of that she did fine. She seems to approve of the new place (the counters are lower and easier to jump on) so for now we’re settling into what can only be described as domestic felicity.

Either way it’s late, and Wifecat has curled up on my foot after taking her first dose of “anxiety” medication for tomorrow. My flight leaves Mobile at 11:15am. We both need the sleep I think.

So why am I not asleep tonight? I’m almost done packing so it’s not like I need to be up for that. Everything has gone smoothly despite the rushed timetable; in the past moving has been chaotic and dramatized. I honestly think this is the first time I’ve never had to ask for help from friends or family during a move and it makes me feel all grown-ed up inside. Yes, grown-ed up is a word. I just used it didn’t I? I’m awake because I just got back from the gym and because I wanted to start recording my state of mind before the big move gets fully underway. I guess I need to remember in the future that cardio makes me introspective. Too much time with too much repetitive motion no doubt.

I’ve had the idea of this post in the back of my mind most of the day, struggling to put words to what I’m feeling. Strangely enough, blank is the only adjective that comes to mind. I’m excited about the idea of moving to San Diego, but I’m not overly anxious about the moving process itself or my new job. It feels like the right thing to do and somehow that’s enough. I think it helps that my friends, family, and co-workers have all been supportive. I hope it didn’t take me leaving to realize what a great group of people I know here in Mobile. I’m actually a little sad to be leaving TeleVox. The teams I’ve worked with and worked for have helped grow and shape me in the ways that made it possible for me to do this transition, so I owe them all. Thank you.

Hopefully this is the only serious post of the blog. These are a total drag.

Albert made his debut as he sat on his deck and watched us unload the moving truck. Literally. The man probably eyeballed every box and item we unloaded. He managed to ask my roommate for a trip to the check cashing place because he was too drunk to drive. We all sort of laughed it off that night, but it was two days later when I had my first (and last) run in with him.

It was Friday afternoon; I had the day off and my niece was out of school. She spent the night and hung out with me all day until my sister came to pick her up at 3. Maybe 10 minutes passed when I get a phone call; apparently they were still in the parking lot and she needed help. I freaked out and ran downstairs, blowing past a laughing Albert as he sat on the stairs below his apartment landing watching everything unfold. In the parking lot my sister was talking to a strange black woman while my niece sorta hide behind her leg. I walked up and the woman turned to me.

“Oh my God! Theresa is this your brutha? Nice to meet you Theresa’s brutha! Me and her been friends a looong time.” I took one look at this woman and the first word that sprang to mind was “crack whore”. There was a flaky whiteness around her mouth/nose. Her hair was wild, and she was wearing shorts, tank top, and flip-flops. She sniffled a lot, and I don’t think she was in need of some Benedryl. I turned to my sister and gave her a BS story about other sister waiting on her. My niece, ever happy to play along chimed in with “Oh boy we’re going to Aunt Chel’s house!”. My sister fled and I began walking toward the building with the crack whore following me. She rambled on about how she was trying to get Theresa to give her a ride because she needed to check on her baby right? Her baby daddy wasn’t home to watch the kids, just her 14 year old… the story got bigger and better every second. I knew better but I asked anyway:

“So uh…how did you two meet?”
“Oh we met a looong time ago, downtown. I haven’t seen your sister in forever! What’s your name? I know Theresa told me but I done forgot”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Say, you got a car?”
“Nope, my roommate is at work in it.”
“How about a phone?”
“Nope, just moved in. No service yet.”

By this point, we were starting up the stairs, and Albert was watching us both. We get to the landing and she starts in again.

“So which one you live in?”
“One on the third floor.”
“You aren’t being too specific.”
“Nope, I’m not. Have a nice day.”

At this point Albert stands up and tells her to get back in the house. I go on upstairs and lock the door to call my sister.

As it turns out Albert had apparently picked up this crack whore downtown and brought her back out here. She got here and freaked out and was trying to leave or call someone to come get her. My sister never would tell me why she gave the woman her name.

One call to the front office later and Albert was told to move. Surprisingly enough this wasn’t the first complaint against him.