Weird Dreams and Other Stuff...

The last week or so, I have tried to get into the habit of reading at least a half an hour or so before going to sleep. I enjoy reading but usually only do so when I feel like it. I don't know if that has something to do with last night or not.

I went to bed. I read about 2 and a half chapters of my current book. The windows were rattingly as it was extremely windy with a combination of rain and snow pelting down in between. The clock read 12:38 when I decided to put the book down and turn the light off. I laid there in the dark listening to the wind and rain as I drifted off.

I had a rather weird dream, not that the dreams I usually remember are anything less than weird. I had gone out on a Saturday with a gal from work. She lived to the east of the office so I drove over to her place and we went from there. We did whatever it was that we had planned and I headed home for the night. I took the back roads home as her house wasn't near the interstate. As I crossed one lonely stretch, headlights suddenly appeared to my right. I was about to be hit by a truck that was flying out of the middle of a farmer's field.

The impact was hard, centered just in front of my passenger door. It sent my truck spinning and tumbling across the road. I awoke in the hospital some unknown amount of time later. I had suffered only some minor cuts and bruising. The doctors told me they would keep me overnight to observe me as I was unconscious when the ambulance crew brought me in. I was eventually moved to a room. It wasn't until then that I realized that it was morning.

A state cop showed up and asked me if I recalled what happened. I explained as best I could. The lights seemed to come on just as the truck came to the edge of the field, making avoiding the collision almost impossible. The officer told me that there were 5 people in the truck. The driver had been killed when his truck burst into flame. The impact had trapped him behind the wheel. The two passengers in the front seat had managed to escape the burning wreckage but were both critically injured. Two other people had been thrown from the bed of the truck. The police still weren't sure what the group were doing in the field, but all the occupants of the second truck were drunk beyond the state's legal limit. As dawn broke, they found another truck buried up to its axles in mud far back in the field. Apparently, the two guys in the bed of the truck were from the stuck vehicle.

The doctors released me from the hospital. I was told that since I had a desk job, I could go work if I wanted, but I probably should take a day or two off to rest up. The police officer came back just before I went home to tell me they had questioned one of the lesser injured individuals and now had the whole story. They had notified the insurance company of the other driver and arrangements were being made to replace my truck and pay my medical bills. I went home to rest. On the way home, We stopped at the salvage yard where they had taken the remains of both vehicles. The officer had told us where they were. I wanted to get some pictures to send my insurance company, just in case things fell through with the other drivers company.

The next morning, I didn't feel like staying home to brood on the fact that the driver of the other truck had burned to death in his vehicle. Mom and Dad offered me one of their vehicles to drive to work. I got to work and began doing remedial tasks to pass the time. I was surprised that I didn't hurt more than I did for having been tumbled in what the pictures showed to be now little more than a couple thousand pound piece of scrap. Some time around 10 o'clock, our boss called us all into his office. He told us that one of the guys was killed over the weekend when he wrecked his truck. Instantly, a light went on in my brain. Could it be?! I rushed back to my desk leaving the whole gang wondering what was going on. I pulled up the pictures stored on my jump drive. I looked for signs of what the offending drivers truck might have been. As the boss and my coworkers came out to see why I had left in such a hurry, I explained that I too had been in an accident over the weekend and the driver of the other truck was killed. After looking at the pictures, we decided that the truck could have been his truck. The extent of the fire damage made it very difficult to identify the color or make of the vehicle.

I called the state trooper who interviewed me and asked if he had the other driver's name. He hadn't offered it and I hadn't thought to ask with everything going on. Sure enough, it turned out to be our coworker. The officer said he had talked further with one of the guys who had been thrown from the bed of the truck. Our co-worker had been up in that area for his bowling league night. Afterwards, a group of them had gone off-roading and got one of the trucks stuck. They had been riding out to get someone to help pull them out. They were thrown when the truck hit the ditch just before the edge of the road. The police now estimated the truck was going between 50 and 70 miles per hour when it hit the ditch.

That's where the dream ended and I awoke wondering why I would have such an odd dream. The guy who died in the dream is one I would consider a friend and he's not a bad guy. Odd... Odd indeed.

Taking advantage of a bargain

Mom and dad's tv blew up this past week. They went a couple places and looked at several models, but decided they wanted me to go look at them too. Today was set aside as "drag Curtis all over the countryside day".

I told them that we should go to Best Buy or Circuit City so they could see all the different models side-by-side. This way they could choose based on features, price and quality of picture and could even play around with settings if they wanted. Off we went. Best Buy had a nice selection. One of the key things they were questioning was what size to buy as the new widescreen format was so different from the 27" tv they've had for the past 20+ years. I took a brochure from one of the displays.. held it up to a standard 27" tv that was on another shelf collecting dust and tore it to the screen height. We then went over to the flat panels and found which screen size was closest in height, the 37 inch ones. Why they wouldn't take the sales guy's word for that is beyond me, but he had told them the same thing.

We found a nice model... but she wouldn't come home with me.. errrr.. I mean... of tv. Mom wasn't sure as usual. She has to question everything she buys. She will find a nice dress or blouse and will drive all over the countryside to find it at other stores cheaper, only to come back to the original store to buy it. The cost of gas these days, she could have bought two and still saved money. Anyway, she and dad both want to go back to Sears and down to the appliance store where they bought their last tv. Ok, so we go.

At Sears, they have a 40" on sale for cheaper than the one they decided on at Best Buy. Its the better model, with a noticably better picture and features. We grab a sales idiot... errr guy. He says he'll have to check stock as that sale ends today and they won't be getting more of those in. He goes away and comes back. They only have the display and on that someone had bought and found that their cabinet was too small. He will give us the 'opened box' one that someone took home for an additional 5% off the sale price. My thoughts "OOOOOOO snatch it up!" That makes it $150 bucks cheaper than the one they wanted at Best Buy... AND.. Its a bigger and better model Best Buy's. Nope. We have to go to the Mom/Pop Appliance store to check their tvs.

We got the the M/P store and they have like 12 tvs total. Over half are small desktop sets. The guy at Sears had called a couple of local stores for another customer but no one else had that model in stock. I expressed that we should go back to Sears and get the 'open box' one. Instead, we had to satisfy their curiosity and go to the Sears store in New Castle first. They didn't have it. They had the model up from it, but it was substantially more expensive as it wasn't on sale.

Guess what!? Yep, they decide to come back to the first Sears to get the 'open box' tv. Its definitely a good price and the best picture quality that we looked at. We get back to the store and the guy says "I'm sorry. I just sold it." I was a little bit torqued but didn't say anything. What really irked me was that my dad always finds these kinds of bargains. He should have known to snatch it up then. No, we had to run all over God's creation spending gas and time. Oh well. I guess now they'll have to shell out the extra money for the other one at Best Buy. One of other sales guys told us as we were preparing to leave .... well... ok.. Mom cornered him to see if there were any other sales going to be starting... that the reason that particular model was selling so well was its quality AND the fact that its Super Bowl time. DOH! There won't be another sale till probably Christmas.

Strange things people do...

I know we are all 'human', as they say, but I wonder how some people make the decisions about their lives. There have been several news articles of late that make me cringe about the status of our society.

In Youngstown this week, 6 members of a family were killed in a house fire. A house fire that was set by an 18 year old boy. The facts about the case haven't come to light as yet. Apparently this guy was seen or known to have been having issues with the family. Whatever the reason, this young man now faces 6 counts of homicide, multiple counts of arson, attempted homicide charges because there were other family members that did escape the house and he's now in jail with no bond or bail set. What was he thinking? I don't have a clue.

There was a car versus propane tanker crash this weekend. The driver of the car was killed in the explosion. Our local newspaper has an online subscription where not only can you read the article, but you can post comments about the story as well. The topic of all the comments was how inappropriate the picture and the article were in the way they were presented. Does anyone perhaps care just a little that a women died violently in this crash? It wouldn't seem so by the comments.

I know we all look at things from a different perspective and we each judge things based on that point of view. Some things are just too odd to explain.

Moving on to the next thing...

Moving on from the events of earlier in the week, I got into some deep research to find missing data to put in our server database. I had to break out the shovel to dig up some of the information.

One of the key reasons I've been pushing to get the database information complete is that we have a meeting with HP tomorrow regarding our support contract. I wanted to be up to speed. I received an email just before lunch that the HP rep had a death in the family and won't be able to make it. The database is up to par now. I will work to keep it that way until we can all get together with the HP rep and hash out the contract details.

On other fronts, it got kind of noisey in the room, so I broke out my headphones. I was working along in my own little daze, when out of nowhere, I realized someone had walked in the room with heavy perfume on. I'm allergic to most perfumes. My eyes began to burn and my nose stuff up. Ironically, I was feeling good this morning after spending the last couple weeks with a sinus infection. So much for that. I have my sinus meds with me, but they do little to halt the effects of the perfume. Its after lunch now and things seem to have settled out a bit.

I hate to say anything to the person, but it is a business environment not a dinner party. I guess if she is going to continue to work in the office right beside my desk, I'll have to have a talk with my manager about it. I won't do like one of the ladies on the Helpless Desk did. She was offended by the perfumes and lotions used by one of her coworkers. She has chronic breathing problems, so she went straight to HR. HR sent out a letter to the Helpless Desk advice against the use of such perfumey agents and also sent a bottle of unscented hand lotion to all departments.

I don't think I need to resort to those means. I'll find something a little more diplomatic.

Anger, Hurt, Acceptance

I have decided that I can't be angry with anything that has gone on. Well, not angry at anyone but myself for letting myself believe that things where other than that which they were. I will accept my part in this and burry the pain. It will be a marker for the future to remind me that this will not happen again.

I will give those who requested space their space. I notified them that a project I have maintained for them will continue to exist and I will update it as they request, if they wish to continue to do so. Our friendship has spanned 9 years and I don't want to completely wreck that at this point.

Where will we go from here? God is the only one who knows at this point. Hopefully, the time will come when I will find an appropriate target for my affections, until then, I will reign in whatever desires come about and hopefully keep my friend.

Ending a thought process

How do you end a thought process that has led you to believe in something at apparently does not exist? There is no easy way. Today, we came to blows. I was informed that my views are mistaken and things will never be the way I want them to be. So be it.

Things have come to light that I have been concerned about over the past year. Several times I have approached a decision that left me heartbroken, so much so, that I refused to believe that the situation could be any different. It definitely is different. Apparently, I was not being given key information in an effort to 'protect me' from hurt. I feel that had I known this information early on, my feelings would not have grown to this point. Instead, I was lead to believe that the situation was different. It was not done intentionally to harm me, but it has. Erroneously, it was assumed that I would be hurt by knowing that other things were going on. I don't lay all blame on my not being informed. I asked the status of our relationship on three occasions, once the answer was wishy washy, the other times things which happened after led me to believe that the answer that was given was to cover being scared or some other thing. This was a mistake on my part. I freely admit that.

The statement that was made that really hurt me today, was "Everyone has been instructed to stop being kind to you and tell you any truth you ask of them about me." This is the knife that has ended my delusion and possibly a long friendship. I constantly hear this person say they never lie. They once told me they would never tell me lies about things going on in their life. Well, that obviously isn't quite the truth. While omitting the information may have seemingly spared the pain at the moment, it has led to our relationship become much more strained than any individual disclosure would have caused.

They say it takes two to tango. I admit my fault in this as much as anyone Else's. Time will tell whether we remain casual friends or not. Until today, I would have answered that I would remain friends, now... I need to think.

Backing away to save a friendship

Things are still kind of rough with things in my friend's life. Yesterday, I was told by another of her friends that I was "hovering" and it was upsetting our mutual friend. I was told that this friend was upset with me and that I should heed her warning to back off or I would be told to F#$K Off.

I have a little problem with how this all unfolded. While I greatly appreciate my friend's need for space and will back off accordingly, I was angered by the fact that she sent her friend to tell me versus talking to me herself. I just recently told her that if she didn't want to talk about something or talk at all, all she had to do is tell me and I would understand. It hurts that she feels I'm hovering over her. Not long ago she was calling me every night after she left work. I had not asked her to. The events of these past few months have brought a distance between us that has affected our relationship.

I intentionally removed some of the friends from my friends list that were actually her friends to start. These are people I don't talk to often but consider them friends due to either getting to know them through her or talking to them since I met her. I did this for two reasons: 1) I don't want them getting drawn into the middle of things either by me or her 2) A comment was made about friends of friends last week, leading me to believe that there might be some hint of disturbance that I am talking to her friends. I don't want her to feel that I am spying on her or trying to keep track of her through them, so I feel this is the best.

I will pull back for as long as it takes. I won't say that it doesn't hurt. It does. Our friendship spans 9 years of good times and bad. I hate to lose it. I bit my tongue and did not lash out at her friend for interfering, although I had a mind to do so at the time. This would only have aggravated things beyond repair. I knew when this situation started that it was going to a long haul and there was a very good chance our friendship would end. I have worked diligently to avoid that. I hope I haven't gone too far. I don't usually pay much attention to horoscopes, but today's was an interesting one based on the events of yesterday.

For now, life takes a downward turn for me as I wait to find out how much damage is done. Sadly, All I can do is wait and see.

Started off 2008 real well...

You know your year is going to go really well when you are coming home from the New Years party with your throat so sore you can hardly swallow.

Since then, things have gone even better. My main drain to my house clogged and began backing up into my bathtub and toilet. My best friend doesn't want to talk to me right now because of things going on in her life. Like an idiot, I made a joke the other day and it didn't sit real well. She says she'll forgive me but she isn't in the mood to talk to me. I can understand that, I guess.

I don't know all details of her issues and I haven't asked. This is one of those situations that I don't really want to know what's going on. She started telling me things one evening after work and I questioned if she was telling the right person. We had been having a conversation about unrelated things when all of a sudden "boom!" I'll stand by her in what ever issues she faces, no matter what it requires of me, but because of the nature of this situation, I may unintentionally make her feel worse. I know in time we'll probably discuss it or at least she'll feel comfortable talking to me again. We all stick our feet in our mouth's sometimes. I guess I just pick some of the worst times to eat shoe leather.

I spent the week visiting her between Christmas and New Years. We had a pretty decent time. I enjoy travelling and like to go to the unique places you find along the way. We went up to Frankenmuth while I was up there. Its only about an hour from her place. I hadn't been there since I was a kid. Its known as Christmas town. The old German architecture gives the city character. Its many shops line the main drag selling everything from post cards to taffy, coffee to high-end art. I bought some sugar free taffy for the folks, a silly book for mom and some chocolate covered peanuts and raisins for me. We took some time to stop in to Bronner's Christmas Store. Its a huge store that sells only Christmas items all year round. We ate at Zenders Restaurant. The food was good and the servings were huge. We both brought part of our lunch home and ate it for supper.

Work has been going OK. Since I haven't posted here since July of last year, I should probably note that I've changed jobs. I am now the Project Manager for the Network Services Department. It was a new position. I have had to make up some of my own processes as I've gone along. The opening of this position was something new for everyone. There have been times where I have wondered if I made the right choice taking the position. Lately, things have been picking up as we all learn what the position can be used for.

Tonight, I'll slip off to bed hoping that things are OK with one I Cherish dearly. She is strong and I know she'll pull through these bumps in the road. I just need to give her time and keep her in my thoughts and prayers.

May all of you have a great 2008! Hopefully, it won't be another 6 months before I post again.