To those lost on the internet.

I title this “To those lost on the internet.” because if you are reading this, you really must be lost. How you made it here, I have no clue. I don’t think I have followers or anything of that sort, so if you’re reading this you must have run out of things to do online. Good luck with that, you poor sad soul.

I was thinking about turning this into a “shit I found on the internet” type of blog, but with sites like Geekologie and Reddit why the hell would I need to? Speaking of reddit, if you know what reddit is and you ended up at my blog away from it, tell me how you managed to get away. As I write this, I have 4 tabs of reddit open. Why? I have no clue. I just can’t seem to get away from that site. It’s basically everything I wanted the internet to be. With thousands of subreddits, it is a source of limitless entertainment to any of my likes. There’s even a subreddit on board games, I mean, c’mon! I have to eat some time! That god damn website has me hooked to the computer that I have to be reminded that I need food to survive.

Thanks to Kyle, I was reminded that I have a blog that I don’t use. He said some nice things about me and there’s nothing like a good ego boost to get you back into something that you’re sub par at.

I think the last announcement that I made on this blog was to the tune of me talking about my ex. Fuck that, what a horrible idea. Why bring up the past when talking about it is not going to effect the future. I’ve learned what I needed to learn from it and there is no reason to dig that up again just to start whatever kind of drama it would start. I’m a different person now, she’s a different person now, and both of our lives have grown out of the past. If she reads this, I just want to say that I’ll always remember our relationship because it was a lesson I’d never forget. I think both of us learned from that one.

Nowadays things are going swimmingly. And to be honest, I just googled swimmingly to make sure I used it correctly. I did. Work is good, relationship is great, and my friends are close. You would think that with things going so well, it would start to get boring. Well, sometimes it does and it becomes an issue. So to remedy the problem of stagnation, we’ve been taking advantage of the weekend. Getting together with friends, going to conventions, meet ups, events, and we’ve even joined a martial art. I truly now know what it means to be “working for the weekend”.

Now how do I post this again?

I guess I couldn’t keep up with it.

But it’s not like I had any readers in the first place. For a while there, I was really enjoying the ability to just unload my mind in my writing. A lot has changed since my last entry.

• I’m living with Rachel now and we’re finding a new place for just the two of us.
• I’m 25 now with a stable job working for Art & Coin TV.
• And I have moved from Tustin to Canoga Park and soon will be moving to Lomita.

I guess those are the three big things so far. This is me at 25. This is a completely different me compared to who I was when I was 20. I think my 20 year old self would be happy to see that this is where he’s going to end up. Things were kinda dark back then and I was pretty lost for a while. But I guess we all find our way eventually. Well, not all of us. Some people die alone.

There’s this line in the song “What Sarah Said” that states “Love is watching someone die”. That line has stuck to me ever since I had first heard that song. The album Plans came out in 2005. 20 year old Richard was listening to that album. I didn’t really grasp the concept of that line back then. I thought it to be morbid and untrue. Slowly, as the years past, I have begun to embrace that line of song and believe it completely.

I have never had the opportunity to watch someone die. This isn’t something that I am excited to do, it’s just something I know that I will have to do eventually. There’s one thing that most of us have to deal with at a point in our life. The death of our parents. Now I know I love my Mom and Dad, and I try my best to make them proud. I also know and can’t ignore the fact that we are all mortal. One of these days, something is going to happen. It sucks. But time keeps ticking; time is the only disease we don’t have a cure for. We all get old. We all die. I know for a fact, that at some point in the future, I myself will die. And as I imagine myself on my deathbed with life slipping from me, the thing I want to see at my final moments are the ones that I love most in my life. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want the last eyes I see to be one of a stranger’s with my last thought’s becoming “I don’t even know you, why are you here?”.

If me at 25 doesn’t want this to happen to myself, then I’m pretty sure that my parents at 55 doesn’t want this happening to them either. If being next to the ones I love is my dying wish, then I should do the same to those who request it. I myself have not asked what my parent’s dying wishes are. I’m sure being as old as they are while still feeling as young as I am, death is probably the last thing they want to think about. I love my parents, and to show them that I do love them, I am going to be by their side until the very end just like how they were by my side from the very beginning. I’m lucky to have parents like my own. They have always done what they feel was best for me and never has tried to cheat me out of anything or taken advantage of me. And the way I want to let them know that I appreciate everything that they have done for me is to give them what I believe is the hardest, most painful, most loving gift to give.

“Love is watching someone die”

Like I said, I want to be next to the people I love most in my life when I pass away. The list of those people may change a couple of times throughout my life or it may not. What I feel is important is who’s on your list when your time comes. I have changed so much in the last 5 years that certain people on my list in 2005 aren’t on my list in 2010. As you’re breathing your last breath I’m sure the last person you would want to see is an ex-girlfriend that hates you. My point is, is that I’m surrounding myself with people that make me happy. If somebody is causing me drama, i’m probably not going to be hanging out with you if we can’t work things out. There’s no point in keeping a friend that constantly causes you problems. To me, that’s a shitty friend.

So I guess I’m just saying that in the last 5 years I have learned a lot. There are people I have met, things that I have done, and life that I have lived. I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world.

Jack

I have always kind of considered myself a Jack of all trades. Unfortunately the rest of the phrase applies as well, “Jack of all trades, master of none”. When I look back at all of my interests in different things, I would work on new topics, get the gist of things, become bored, then move on to something else. I know a little of a lot, but not a lot of one thing. This is definitely a curse of mine. I especially realized this as a curse when my childhood was ending and I had to pick something I wanted to specialize in for the rest of my life. I absolutely had no clue what I was going to do. Nothing had held my attention long enough for me to become really good at. So when I was offered the opportunity to move to Orange County and saw that OCC had a good film program I figured film was my best bet.

I looked at all of the things that I dabbled in and picked out my favorites. I like being creative, working with my hands, meeting new people, and liked movies. Sounds like a film maker to me. I reinforced this decision of mine with the memory of my best friend and I making little animations and short adventure films from Jr. High. I remember I edited one of our movies with two VCR’s. I would hit play with the master tape then hit record on the blank tape. A lot of fast forwarding, rewinding, and re-recording was done and made the quality get worse and worse, but we enjoyed the final cut and had received a good grade on it.  Little did I know this was my first introduction to linear editing. This would lead me to Video Tech in high school, then eventually lead to Avid editing in college, then finally end up in cutting for Extinct Attractions. Where there I would come to the conclusion that I hate editing other peoples stuff that I’m not interested in.     …..lame….    I just spent a couple years getting really good at something that ended up to be a hobby.

So where’s Jack now? I’m dabbling in new things once again. At work I’m a camera operator, certificates guy, and backup graphics. I’m working on drawings, paintings, and have been wanting to glue stuff together. I read up on news that involves board games, sports, video games, world news, art, science, and pretty much anything that’s out there.

Sometimes I feel like I’m back to square one. Like maybe I could have been at this state of mind right when I got out of high school. Maybe I should have set my mind on something else. And if I had, then maybe I could have been much further in life right now. But who gives a shit? Right? I am where I am right now because I made the best decision that I could have made at that time. I trust myself enough to be happy with what my “past me” decided. And also, with the decisions I made, I have the coolest friends, the coolest job, and the coolest girlfriend. Yeah, maybe sometimes there are a few bumps in the road, but isn’t it like that with everybody? And money doesn’t determine your quality of life, I think people choose what to surround themselves with to determine their quality of life. And I surround myself with hard work and great people.

So, “Jack of all trades, master of none”? Maybe so, but I guess that’s me.

I’ve heard a little about what you’re telling me, but please, tell me more. I love learning new things.

My back up plan.

When I was 19 I was ready to go into the military. I was running everyday, keeping really fit, just kind of semi preparing to do so. I say “semi” because I still didn’t have my heart set on it just yet. It wasn’t until a little after the break up with my high school sweetheart, my cousin offered me a spot in his apartment because he needed somebody to room with. I looked into the area and noticed that the community college there had the top film program in California (at the community college level).

So I was like “What the hell, it’ll be better than joining the military”. In a nutshell, that’s pretty much how I ended up in Orange County. While living here I met a lot of people, I made friends, and I had some crazy experiences. But always, in the back of my mind, there was the military.

Initially, when I was 19 and had already made the decision that I was going to move, I gave myself a time limit, “If I’m not happy where I am when I reach age 23, then I’m going to join the military”. I’m 24 now. I’m still in Orange County.

So what happened. What happened was exactly what I set out to do. At age 23 I took a step back and looked at everything that was going on in my life and what had led me up to where I was.

• I survived a really heavy relationship that resulted in a really heavy break up
• I had my own room in a two bedroom apartment at a decent place
• After some relationship recovery, I bounced back and found somebody that made me happy
• I just finished making a movie and had gotten really good reviews from my peers
• I got a job as a video editor for a small business

Later on in the year I would get a job at a TV studio as a camera operator. Things were looking up.

But now… now the media has gotten to me. The job climate right now is very rough. Even for the entertainment industry. One of my ex coworkers who has a resume very similar to mine is out there looking for a job and it seems like the industry is flooded with more people like him. I’ll be honest, I’m a bit scared. If I lose my job, things are going to be hard. It’s got me thinking about my back up plan.

I have discussed this with my closest friends and my ever so loving girlfriend about my last ditch effort to stabilize my life by joining the military. And to my surprise, they’re not against it. They understand. They know that if I decide to join, it’s because I have tried everything else, and everything else just didn’t work out. But I’m not giving myself from here to eternity to do this. It wouldn’t make sense that way. You could only be so old when you join the military for the first time. I doubt they would take a 40 year old who’s trying to get his life together. I’m giving myself 3 years. My girlfriend says 4 years, but we’ll see.

So we will see where I end up when I’m around 27 or 28. If I’m not happy, if I’m not where I want to be, then things might be looking a bit more camo in my life.

 

Memories found on the internet

I just took a trip down memory lane. I found my old website that I made when I was in High School. Crazy. I can’t believe how much I kept up with that.

It’s really embarrassing to look back on the old me for some reason. I think it’s because I’m afraid that people will judge me for who I was and not for who I am now. So much has changed since then. My last entry was in 2004. I guess I really shouldn’t be ashamed of my past. If it wasn’t for past me being who he was, I wouldn’t be who I am today. Right? … Right?

Paranoia aside, looking back was just a very strange experience. It made me remember things that my yearbook couldn’t have reminded me of. Those memories were buried so far deep within the back of my mind, digging them up was very unsettling. Like digging up dead bodies. And we all know how unsettling that is.

So my buddy Kyle tells me he’s going to move back to Ridgecrest. Well, I guess I shouldn’t say “back” since he has never lived there. I used to live there. Weird. I’m thinking that Kyle may be the first person I know to move to my hometown without ever living there before and is not moving there for the military. Hm.

I wish Kyle well in his new adventure in the desert. Ridgecrest, CA is a place like no other. If you ever end up in RC then you can enjoy the same things Kyle will soon to enjoy as well. Such as…

• The Sunsets – Ridgecrest sunsets are one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever come across. Thinking of it makes me think of all the times I went running when I thought I was going to join the Navy.
• Summer Nights – Summer nights in RC are wonderful. Mostly because its hotter than the devil’s balls during the day, so when night comes you really appreciate the sun not being around.
• Clean air and Quiet – One thing about the city. It’s loud as fuck. There’s always some kind of sound coming from somewhere. Then when you want to scream from it being so noisy, you take a big breath and inhale a shitload of smog. Over-exaggerating I know, but we all know what I’m talking about. But in RC, when it’s not windy, you can breath some fresh hot/freezing air and it’s so quiet you can hear a fly fart.

These are just a few things that I love about Ridgecrest. Huh? What was that? Things I hate? Oh…. well…. It’s really late and I don’t think I have a week to spare on typing.

Just kidding, of course there are things I don’t like about RC, but like with anywhere else, you make do with what you have. This is why us kids from Ridgecrest are awesome. Because we grew up just fine living in the place we constantly complained about. Yeah, things were bad in RC sometimes….but hell, it could have been worse.

11.23.09

I’m going to do this.