So while you're outside looking in, describing what you see. Remember what you're staring at is me.

Ah New Orleans.  The Big Easy.  N'awlins.

I have to admit, it's a pretty nice place.  Yeah there are some areas that are bad, but that's just like everywhere else.  Some small areas have yet to be completely rebuilt after Katrina messed them up, others have been redone better than before.

I'm actually really enjoying it down here.  The weather can blow me.  High 70's to 80's almost all the damn time and the weather is fickle as shit.  It makes digging out in an area with no shade and constant blazing sunlight hard.  I've tanned up despite abusing SPF 100 sunblock.  Farmers tan, but still.  It's not like I can go shirtless.  Safety vests and hard hats are required wear on site.  That and even though I've lost weight and put on more muscle, I'm still far from being in good shape.

The crew is fun to work with, as is the Field director.  We spend most of the day joking around with one another, playing pranks and telling stories while we dig.  It's a great group of people to work with. 

I'm just ready to go the hell home.

Currently, they have no idea when I'll be out of here.  All they know is that they have more work for me out of the Maryland Office, which will be nice because I can go the hell home on weekends.  I really miss home right now.

Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words th

In an hour I leave for the Big Easy, New Orleans.  It's not something I want to do, it's something I have to do.  I'm being sent there for work purposes.

For the next Month, until Thanksgiving, I'll be down there.  I may have no ability to come back to New York for that time unless I work something out.

Who knows what this is going to do to my relationship.

I'm extremely unhappy, but I have no money right now.  Last month sucked away the last of my cash and I have no way to pay my bills or rent.  Hell, until next month I wont see any money from this job anyway...

I don't want to do this...

One is tempted to define man as a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon

Well, what a fun time this has been.

I've been unemployed since a bit after my last post.  Work dried up at BoA.  I've been applying to at least 5 jobs a day and I've gotten no call backs.  It's starting to look extremely grim.  Of course worrying about that has put stress on everything else in my life and shit really blew.

My relationship almost when down in flames today, and for a time I was content to do nothing about it.  Just sitting there like Nero, fiddling as Rome burns around him.  A misunderstanding turned into an argument which turned into her throwing the ring at me.  I was so angry I couldn't think, I couldn't act.  I just shut down.  Afterwards I cornered her and we talked.  We both vented about the other and we talked about ending things there.  We finally just sat down and talked calmly to each other.  And right now, we're still not sure on things.  We went to dinner and talked about a lot.

Much later, we laid in bed talking.  Just talking about the past.  I realized that I've never truly made peace with the things I've done.  In some cases I hurt someone too much and could never allow myself to forget that.  In others that things were done to me that changed me too much.  I began to wonder, Are we truly the sum of all our experiences or are we the people we wish to be?  We cannot be both as they are mutually exclusive.  The sum of our experience changes us, and we can act like that is how we wish to be, knowing full well it isn't.  I know that I am the sum of all my experiences.  The good, the bad and the extremely ugly.  I am not who I wish to be, and will most likely never be.  I have seen and done too much to be as blissfully ignorant about the workings of the world as I once was.

Just talking about the past brought back so much I just wanted to leave buried.  Now I can't sleep.  I tried for about an hour and all I could do was just stare at the ceiling.  So here I sit, at my computer in my boxers because I just can't forgive and forget.  Here I sit making chainmail, pounding on metal at 2 in the morning and hoping I don't wake anyone up.  Here I sit feeling like a horrible person wondering "what if?"

Never expose yourself unnecessarily to danger; a miracle may not save you...and if it does, it will

Where has the time gone?  Has it really been 2 and a half months already?  I swear, the days just seem to blend together now.

So much has happened.  Wheels gave me a new case for mu computer since the infamous power surge blew all the electronics in the last one.  It's a nice simple case, an Antec 300.  With it he gave me a Benq DVD burner and I bought a 500 gig HD off of him.  Unfortunately as of a month ago, the Benq quit on me.  Not sure why.  It powers up but if I try and open it, it just shuts down.  Apparently this is a common problem with them if you change any settings.  The general consensus is that one needs to update the firmware in order to fix the problem.  I've been too busy to try that yet.

Work sucks.  Still at BoA, but not for much longer.  It seems the DTF (Department of Taxation and Finance), where we get the work from, really didn't get much this year.  So either people are doing taxes online, filing for extensions or are just getting them in late.  We've been told that this'll probably be our last week there.  It's just weird because the supervisors there are all being nice about it.  It's just different from the last 2 years were they were quite bitchy around this time.  Hell they haven't even complained about my absences, or tardiness, it's so fucking weird.  Hell they even greet me when I walk in and say goodnight when I leave.  They already fired the night shift and most of the day shift.  We had about 75 or so people this year, which is only a drop in the bucket compared to previous years.  Now we're down to about 25 or 30.

My truck's not doing to well.  I've got a massive leak of coolant somewhere and my radiators busted.  No, the two are not linked, trust me I looked. I've been over every inch and I can't find it.  I'd probably need to get it up in the air to find it, ugh.

ICON was fun this year... Well, parts of it were.  I had a major spat down there that almost ended my relationship, and I'll admit, I was the cause.  I said something extremely regrettable in the heat of an argument, in front of a lot of damn people.  Yeah, I dug my ass to china for that one, and have spent the last few weeks slowly digging myself back out.  But I got to hang out with Nate and Randi which was fun.  It was nice to see them again. I miss our group and our extremely random conversations.

I got my application in for SUNY Albany for Grad school.  It's a better application than I had last year and I used the report I wrote for Andy as my writing sample.  If that doesn't impress some people, I dont know what will.  The damn thing is filled with so much jargon it made my head hurt.  But it's a damn good representation of my writing ability when I put my mind to it.

I'm definitely looking forward to going back to digging soon.  Here's hoping that's soon.  I could use a decent paycheck where I can start putting some aside for things other than ICON.

Well, I'm back to work.  Unfortunately, it's back to Bank of America. 

It's funny, I swore I'd never work there again.  When I got called back in November from HR asking if I would come back, I told them to go pound sand and hung up.  They called again in December and the reply was once again the same.  Around mid December, while I was digging in Moreau I was called a third time.  This was during the time I was in a severely bad mood as the Tee-Bird golf site was taking longer than planned and everything was going to crap, so needless to say when they said who they were and what they were calling about, I pretty much lost it.  After using some choice expletives, informing them of the crap that had happened when I was there and telling them due to that they could go fuck themselves and never call me back, I figured that was that.

They proceeded to mail me a bunch of stuff right before Christmas.  They had fired the two problem team supervisors, demoted quite a number of group supervisors and had new blood running the office.  They also were giving me better health and dental benefits and raising me up to $11 an hour.  I have to admit, I was impressed.  So, I decided to give it a shot. 

They didn't even send me to training.  They claimed I'd been there enough to know what I was doing and put me to work the first day.  Of course, there was a little pow-wow first.  I was taken to a small conference room I recognized.  They put me there last year and started questioning me about my absences, all but 2 of which were previously approved, and where they told me I was being put on a list of potential firings.  So I completely expected what came next after they sat me down.  I now have to watch what I say.  If I continue to be as outspoken as I was last year (Like when I started a huge argument about them making us come in during a state of emergency and I had the entire department walk out with me) they will take my security clearance and I'm fired.    

Being back there for a week and a half, I now remember why I never wanted to work there again.  We're treated like cattle.  Herded in, told what to do and when to do it and then herded out.  I've been yelled at twice for things I didn't do, and was not even in the room for when they happened. I've already lost 2 hours of time there that I do not remember at all. I just have to wait until snow melt.  Then I can go back to digging.