07/28/2010 Stealing Air

The 77th day...

Today, i had to go fill up my front tire, since it has a slow leak somewhere along the valve stem. so i go to the nearest gas station, pay the 75 cents, then get down and fill up the tire with the compressor.

now, my head is down and i'm focused on what i'm doing, but once i'm done, there is a woman with this large car with her bumper a couple feet away from my door. now, i'm looking across my car, wondering why she's there. whatever. i put the hose away then get in my car and pull away.

as soon as i'm clear, she slides into the spot and gets out of her car and begins filling up the air that i just plunked down 75 cents for. now this is not the first time this has happened to me (one other time, female driver, same kinda impatience.)
but i find it real tacky that some people would do this.

so now, i intend to stand there until the pump shuts down before i leave.

someone tell me that i'm overreacting with this, or is this perfectly natural to feel this way?

MK

07/26/ 2010 A Tough Weekend

the 75th day...

my mom has been in the hospital for a few days now, with ups and downs, all centered on her heart; the engine of the body. i've been trying to stay positive on this whole situation, but it's hard to do knowing that heart problems run in the family. i really hope things go well and she gets home soon. until then, i'm keeping a close eye on her heart as well as mine.

i'll keep you posted, and i'll keep posting.

MK

07/23/2010 So Much To Do

the 72nd day...

one of my major weaknesses is that i lack the ability to plan ahead more than a few weeks at maximum, and i now find myself staring squarely into the months of September and October. moreover, i find myself staring at another convention in October that i fear i'll have to go by myself.

some of my dearest friends may not be able to go with me this year, so now, this week, i have to make plans under the assumption that they are completely unable to go. this will suck something fierce since i consider these people partners in crime, and going to a con without them is unimaginable.

so i have to make hotel reservations, budget, get transportation ready, submit both my registration and my events for the convention, and work on my items for the convention. i feel a little flustered, but also excited about the whole premise of having a superb convention experience.

yeah, i know i have a little than three months, but its never to early to start thinking about the future. time to get moving.

MK

07/21/10 People are Going Crazy

the 70th day...

i find myself watching more current events and newscasts as i get older, and frankly the local news was me worried about my hometown.

i think earlier this week we had three shootings in the morning, one of them involving people opening fire on a police cruiser and cop. During that same newscast i heard about the possibility of an arsonist running rampant in the area. add on top of that animal cruelty and dogs getting shot.

has the heat made everyone a little crazy? i know that summer tends to have these types of crime trends, but i never remember it being this bad before.

these are the reasons i shake my head half the time. the other half i wonder if i'm the crazy one because of the overly reserved way i act. i don't get and i doubt that i ever will

MK

07/19/10 Required Viewing

the 68th day...

back from doing some work on a dread game and after a busy and action packed weekend, i was able to actually indulge in watching a movie. after thinking about it, i remembered that in one of my high school classes we wrote a paper about what things we wanted to have if we were stuck on a deserted island. now mind you, this was way before the concepts of dvd's, mp3s, ultramodern home PCs, internet , and digital downloads. i don't remember full list back then, so I'll say now what five movies i love and couldn't live without if on said deserted island.

1) Wizards: an oddly animated movie about the war between technology and magic. i grew up on this movie, but never knew the name of it until the movie was recently released on dvd about 5 or 6 years ago. one of the few films that i can watch over and over again.

2) Cube: sci-fi/horror flick about a bunch of people trapped in a large cube that are booby-trapped in some areas. cheaply done, but it is amazing that the storyline can carry a movie in what is ultimately the same room for the entire movie's duration. definitely a cult classic.

3) The Crow: my action flick choice. phenomenal soundtrack, phenomenal movie. this was on the list in high school, and now its on this list.

4) The Warriors: a great action flick. too many great moments to ignore and not put on the list.

5) Death Race 2000: Though the remake was pretty good for what it was, it still was not the campy Corman original. besides, having Carridine and Stallone in the same flick, and some very campy moments make it an instant classic.

there ya go. have a great day all.

MK

07/15/10 Still Alive. Still Busy

the 64th day.

just wanted to check in and let you know that i am still alive and my mind is still at work on a few projects for the weekend. things are seemingly OK at the moment, which is odd, since i still feel slighted about the whole friend issue, but luckily, for every one friend i lose, it seems like i game two more. next weekend i intend on going to the 60's rock poster exhibit at the art museum next friday or saturday with some friends i've known since grade school. though we seem to do things once a month or less, thanks to social networking sites we can still keep in touch. thanks again technology.

I'm keeping my head up. You should be too.

MK

07/13/10 Dread

the 62nd day

I'm currently putting together my most definitive horror game that i've done in years, thanks to the "Dread" game i picked up at Origins. I may be busy for the next few days as i hammer out more details, by my mind is busy as all hell, and i love it. see ya soon.

MK

07/12/10 Family Bonding

the 61st day

i was able to take my family to a baseball game last night, and frankly it was fantastic. though the home team lost and there was a huge downpour, it didn't wash out my high spirits. it was definitely something i needed to take my mind off of some recent on-goings.

my family is awesome, and i love them all to death.

MK

07/11/10 a look back

the 60th day.

so far, including this post, i've written something on this site 43 out of 60 days. not bad, but i can do better for sure.

i really think i'm on the right track with this blog, especially sharing with you some of the deep things that have been affecting me the past week. i like to think this open forum is useful to vent some things out, and has helped me significantly in self-evaluation and maintenance. i don;t think i'm the same person that i was 60 days ago, and i'm going to keep doing this to further my development.

thanks for being here with me,

MK

07/10/10 F*** the Fairweather Friends.

the 59th day

I have no need in my life for people who are your friends when it is convenient for them and are gone without a proper goodbye.

i know that people grow apart and we all change and mature, but to have people throw away years of friendship (or at least what i perceived to be true friendship) sickens me to the point of furious anger.

if you're wondering why i'm on this rant, if you read my "farewell and a Final F** you" post a while back, that same individual is now on a social networking site that i am on as well, and my page keeps suggesting this person.

so now, i'm on the verge of cutting out the entire cancer in one fell swoop and eliminating the whole lot of my friends up north. for me, it's game over and i'm all out of quarters to call someone who cares. time to grow and evolve on my own.

why is it the words flow better when i'm all fired up. i hate to admit it, but i've got a drink by my side here as I ad lib this post, instead of typing it out before hand and posting it a little later. sorry about proper grammar, but i need to get this out.

the two parts of me are in constant conflict again. the be-nice programming says to "reach out", the other dark side says "put your F**king hand down, unless your flipping the bird"

i guess sometimes in order to be the better person, you have to turn your back and walk away...and so i do...

i really feel some pain on this one, let me know if you feel me. thank you readers, and to my true real friends, i'll see you all again real soon.

MK

07/08/10 A Torrent of Anger and Frustration

the 57th day

After typing yesterday's thread, it seems i have opened Pandora's box and let the emotions that i had about that whole situation wash over me again. i am still resentful of that whole situation and i think this might me a good thing for me to get this off my chest. i still feel that i'm growing with this therapeutic blog, and i think that my last two post have been an eye opener for me in my self evaluation.

so i continue to evolve, to grow, and move forward. thank you for being here on this journey with me.

MK

07/07/10 Removed Myself From a Bad Situation

The 56th day.

Some of my friends over the years have been good friends, some have not, and sometimes it is from these same individuals that the most trying parts of your life are drawn. In fact, one nearly ruined my marriage.

I had friends in high school who were a few years behind me, but we all stayed in touch for those first sever or so years after high school. These certain individuals were a little strange but tolerable and interesting. So we were able to do things together and it was all right.

My one friend had found a girlfriend. Sometime in 1998 I think when the weather changed for the better. Not a big dead until I heard he met her at a supposed sex party. Red flags went off, but apparently my friend didn’t care. Ok, fine, whatever. Later in the summer, my friend needed advice from me about the fact that the girl didn’t want my friend to use protection during intimacy with her. Again huge red flags went off and I tild him about my concerns, but again it seemed he didn’t care.

My wife and I were married in mid 1998, and I had friends in the bridal party, including this one friend with the girlfriend. She was also in attendance. She was all right I guess, only having net her a few times, but my other friends said she was nuts.

That turned out to be a complete understatement.

As my wife and I were posing for portraits, she blurts out that she’s pregnant. I find this out on my wedding day. Super. Then they head off to the reception, whereupon they get into a large bickering match outside and bursts into tears (something she tends to do a lot). And we find out about it when we get to the reception, because they get referred to as the fighting couple, or that couple that was fighting outside. Great. Then before we leave for the night, the two of them asked if they could borrow our apartment, because they weren’t allowed at his parents house. My wife and I had an instance of perfect synchronicity as we both replied no. that ended our wonderful wedding day.

A few years passed, and inevitable these two got together and got married, and had their kid. Perhaps not in that order, but I digress. I came to realize just how screwed up this woman was as she befriended my wife. She had had abortions, two prior to my friend’s child, she had been abused by her father, she was needy, clingy , and overly emotional, prone to fits of anger and crying, and overall a frustrating person to be around. She would call my friend repeatedly when ever he was out, couldn’t be alone, and was house bound for over a year because she couldn’t handle the outside world.

She would constantly pester my wife to come over and be with her, and my wife reluctantly agreed most times. This began to stress our marriage, as I was now competing for her affection and time. Frankly, this woman that had taken my wife from me began to disgust me and I grew resentful of this fact.

But this was not the reason the marriage, my marriage, nearly ended…

Honestly, I wish I could tell you all there is to it, that there is a full and justified reason why I can’t tell you the whole story, but it is not my story to tell. I will keep those I love, and those I don’t, safe for the moment. That door shouldn’t be opened, at least not yet. There is too much pain here.

The only thing I can tell you was that my marriage was about to end with in the first four years, that it do not carry the blame for this, and that had it not been for the fact that I removed myself and my wife from the possibility of further occurrences and further damage to our marriage, I may have been a divorcee.

I am pleased to sat that these year, my wife and I will be celebrating 12 years of marriage, with no end in sight. She has become my rock and foundation, and I know that I am hers as well. We talk openly and freely about things, but rarely do we ever speak about what happened with our friends those first few years of marriage, even if jokingly.

It is hard to forgive, and damn near impossible to forget, but if you truly want something bad enough, and willing to make sacrifices, you can overcome anything. Believe that.

MK

07/06/10 Drug Use

The 55th day

I’ve been dancing around this topic for a few weeks now, trying to be objective about this as mush as I can, but there is no real way to be tactful about it, if that is the best word to use, so I’ll dive right into the topic.

About a decade ago, on two different instances, I used drugs.

Now, thankfully, I never tried anything “harder” than marijuana, and I know that I never will just because of the inherent dangers of such drugs and their addiction levels. Frankly I don’t need those problems in my life, even more so now that I have kids of my own.

I remember being in my friend’s basement using a bong for the first time and just thinking to myself how ridiculous this was to try pot in the first place, let alone smoke it through this contraption. I also remember how much care my friend took with this glass piece since it was his favorite bong.

Now I was warned beforehand that I may not get high from my first use of pot, just because my body might not know how to process the THC in pot. But I did manage to get high. I remember how slowed down I felt, and how my spatial sense was really thrown for a loop. Things seemed so vast and wide to me. The most noticeable thing I remember is that my heartbeat became a metronome in my ears and felt like a twitch each time my heart beat.

Now I was supposed to stay up all night and party with my friends, but at about midnight I decided to go home. I drove back-roads back to my old apartment, and still to this day I really don’t know how I got home in one piece. It was scary as hell, because the road seemed so long and wide to me. Once I got home, I devoured everything in sight while I watched a rerun of a old WWF pay-per-view my friend lent me.

The second time I got high was a lot less memorable, just because I smoked pot and was pretty much useless the rest of the night. I just wanted to lay on the floor, and refused to do anything but to just lay there. That was also the same time I tried to eat “star cluster crunch” snacks by Little Debbie (basically, chocolate covered rice crispy treats) and then thought I would’ve been better off eating a bag of nails instead. Man those things hurt my mouth, just because my senses were more awake. For a day and a half, I was high, and that was the last time I did drugs because I didn’t like the fact that I wasn’t in control of how high I was and how long I was under the influence of the drug.

So now and forever, drugs are no longer a part of my life, nor do I have and inclination to do drugs ever again. I will say it was fun to try, just to experience it, but I refuse to end up in a situation where drugs get in the way of my life.

Some truth for you today

MK

07/04/10 Mr Monday Strikes Again

The 53rd day.

Happy July 4th!

Moving on, I’ve been working Saturdays for almost a year now, and that means I’ve added another day in the presence of Mr. Monday. Yesterday, I literally was at the breaking point with him.

Yesterday, he was building a pallet to go on a truck. A pallet is, for lack of a better term, a large cookie sheet on which you place items and then lock then to the floor with a restraint system. Now, to make it completely clear, I had absolutely nothing to do with the building or design of this specific instance. I was busy in different areas of my workspace. Anyway, Mr. Monday overbuilt the position; it was too tall by about an inch-and-a-half. Mr. Monday measured it and felt that it was good enough to get out the door and into the truck. Now the items on top were compressible enough to actually press down via the restraint system, so it would get out the door and into the truck. So, he put the restraint system on the pallet, tightened it, and sent it out.

A half-hour passes, and sure enough the pallet returns to the workplace, with the information that the pallet will not fit on the truck or fit back into the building; the freight had shifted in transport to the truck.

Now, my first inclination was to send out Mr. Monday to the position and to figure out how to get the position into the building in the first place, but honestly, I didn’t want him touching the position again in the first place. So I took over. I attempted to compress the freight further by using ratchet straps, but all attempts failed.

I spent the better portion of a half-hour out in the sun at the airport trying to get this oversized monstrosity into the building, but the only other workable option was to partially remove the restraint system and take off the pieces causing the trouble manually.

Which I did…

The more I looked at the pieces of freight on the top, the more infuriated I got with Mr. Monday, because he lacked significant judgment in his building skills. There were several items on the top of the pallet that easily could’ve avoided the height problem all together if he would’ve been a little more patient and waited for the next pallet to be built.

As I pulled off each piece, my co-workers came out to help, all except Mr. Monday. I told my co-workers that he should be the one who is out here pulling off the freight from this position, but knowing him, he would pout and then throw a fit, and then “take his ball and go home”. My co-workers then informed me that he was inside bad mouthing me, because he wondered where I was, and what I was doing, and why I wasn’t building the pallets.

Now, for those of you who know me, I’m a very passive person. Those who read my blog, refer back to my “Better Living Through Perpetual Conflict” post on 5/14. I generally don’t get angry.

This was an exception to that rule…

I angrily voiced my opinion of Mr. Monday, in so many terms and so many F-bombs, that I did not care for Mr. Monday and his antics, and that I was ready to give him a significant piece of my mind. I was enraged. My mind was on fire with all the possibilities of what I was going to say to him.

After the freight was removed and the pallet was brought back into the building, I hit that point where I was emotionally drained. The fuse has finished it’s short, quick burn. There were no more words to say. The anger left as quickly as it had arrived. I had nothing left to say.

I kept my distance from Mr. Monday for the rest of the day, luckily, I had other things to do, because I know I would’ve blown back up at him. And quite frankly, I don’t want to risk my job or well being for vengeance. He’s a miserable human being, and is not worth the effort.

As a joke , before I go off to work every Saturday, my wife tells me not to kill Mr. Monday. I’m not an aggressive person, but man, if I was to go full blown evil…the possibilities.

MK

07/02/10 Another Disturbing Dream

the 51st day

My mind is a wonderful tool and I truly enjoy all the things that I can do with it and all its functionality, but sometimes, it just throws curveball at me when I least expect it.

As I have posted previously, I don’t really buy into the whole dream analysis psychology, but I do know that your mind puts truth into the dreams. It keeps you real, it reminds you who you are and how you perceive yourself.

My kids were able to leave for the day, and that gave me a rare opportunity to sleep and catch up on lost sleep time. I’m writing this as I’m waking up, so forgive me if I’m a little groggy, and yes I know it almost 5pm est.

I dreamt that I was a 12 year old boy who was visiting a friend ; a fellow boy who was a burn victim. As I left the hospital, I was abducted by two men, who both strangely resembled my real life friend Ajax. These two men tazed me twice to knock me out and place me on a plane. (yes you can insert your own “don’t taze me bro” jokes here) They informed once we got into the air that I was to part of their demonstration and a spokesperson for burn victims around the world…by being put in a suicide bomb vest and doomed to die.

Now, that’s not the part that bugs me. The real questionable part is this conversation I had with the co pilot. I remember this part vividly. I’ll split it up into dialogue as best I can:

MTK: I have a good chance of surviving this, right?
Man: ::turns to me and shakes his head::
MTK: really?
Man: when we get to our destination, I will be wearing the vest to protect us from police fire. We’ll drive to our demonstration point and then you’ll be put in the vest. It has a dead man trigger, pressure sensitive switch and timer. I assure you there will not be enough time to save you even if the bomb squad it there, and I assure you they’ll try to save you.
MTK: This is going to prevent me from playing Playstation when I get there then, right?
Man: ::sigh:: yes kid.
MTK: ::I smirk:: I don’t see it happening.
Man: what?
MTK: I don’t see myself dying today.
Man: it’s a mathematical certainty that the bomb will detonate while you’re wearing it. Your death is an inevitability.
MTK: I can’t see it. I’m sure the cops will get to me and save me.
Man: really? You can’t see the future ahead of you? No foresight? The fact that your life ends today?
MTK: nope. I’m lucky if I know what I’m having for dinner that night.

Again, I know it’s a dream, but I really think my mind thinks less of me. I know I lack foresight more often than not, but c’mon, when faced with my own inevitable death , am I going to be seriously bragging about my flaws like Jake from two and a half men? Am I more concerned about Playstation time than living or dying?

And why did the two abductors have to look like Ajax?

MK

07/01/10 Spare Change

The 50th day

Last weekend I was in Columbus with some friends and their kinds and their friends, a group of nine of us. We walked as a herd or a flock down the sidewalk, over a set of train tracks, over to the convention center where our event was taking place.

I saw a woman coming the other direction. I didn’t think nothing of it, but as soon as we were within earshot of each other, she asked me if I had any spare change. I quickly replied that I did not. She said god bless and was on her way.

One of my friends asked me why I was picked out of our group and asked for spare change. I replied because I have a kind face and a kind heart, and there is something about me as a person that seems kind. After all, I am a Mark.

This one fact has been my burden to bear for years, and no matter what I try to do, I can’t change this fact. I’ve often wondered if I have the word “sucker” written across my forehead, and it bugs me to no end that have things have to be this way.

So now, I’m weighing in on ideas to try and change this. Maybe I should be a complete @$$#ole for a full week and see what happens.

MK