...

Words escape me. 

what now...

It's about that time again.  I'd like to start writing more on this here website actually...let's just see how it goes.

Today at work was a bummer of a day.  Long story short, I didn't get a small promotion - which in all actuality I didn't deserve, but I somehow thought that if I were to get it then I would start working harder.  I know that should never be the case; but over the past month I didn't do anything about it.  Foolish me.

So how do I feel about the whole situation? It's hard not to be totally and utterly pissed at myself.  I want to throw an effing pity-party for myself yet I know that's one of the worst things I could do.  I can kick myself in the pants, I certainly deserve that - it's just.  s.i.g.h.

Where's the spark James?  Where's the all-consuming fire that once burned bright?  What has been extinguished that was once ever so prevalent to everyone?  To your friends, your family, your co-workers.  Who are you trying to become?  What are you trying to find your identity in?  

A few of the guys from my church meet every Tuesday for breakfast at Coco's.  Community, I've found, has been one of the greatest encouragements to me lately.  We all decided it would be a good idea to write a personal mission statement to start off our year.  I thought I might add my rough draft here.  Just for the heck of it, you know.

I, James Pierce, strive to live a life that glorifies Christ. A man must decide whom he is going to follow. I will follow Christ and seek God's will in all I do. In order to do this I will devote time every day to reading the Bible as well as spending time in prayer.

As a son and a brother I desire to honor my parents in all I do.  I will allow my actions and attitude toward my parents be ones that give a positive roll model to my younger siblings.

As a co-worker I will strive to have an attitude that is uplifting and pleasing to God. I will not allow the attitude of others affect my own, as well as affect how I treat the children. I will see the children I work with as blessed and loved by God.

As a friend I strive to be honest and open in all I say and do. When I fail a friend I will not run, hide, or blameshift; but rather be truthful about my actions and in doing so continually have a higher standard of living.

a world of pure imagination...

I haven't written in a while.

Last month flew by.  I feel like I didn't accomplish anything.  I almost got a great job offer but wasn't qualified enough to do any of it.  I've got a friend working at Trader Joe's who makes more in 30 hours than I do in 40.  I'm trying not to be pessimistic, it's oh so difficult.

My friends seem to be overly focused on girls right now.  To the point where one of them took a girl out last night and another is taking her out tonight.  I don't get it - and they better clear that up before something happens to where they get mad at one another.

Another person semi-laughed at me about the fact that I'm saving pennies to buy my future wife's wedding ring with.  I've been collecting for almost four years now and my sparkletts jug is slowly but surely becoming heavier...it's certainly true that a penny saved is a penny earned.  

I'm excited for this new year though.  Really I am - I'm aiming to read the Bible in a year with my friend Colin (the one mentioned in the first two paragraphs).  I'm also going to have a new job within my company in the next few months, or at least I think I am.  

Maybe I'll move to Mexico.

ruby...

cry little girl. cry.

cry long and hard.

don't stop crying.

life is. not. fair.

yesterday this. tomorrow that.

what will break you.

what will push you over the edge.

i pray it nothing you ever find.

your life. is meaningful.

your world. it seems. crashes down.

every damn day.

every minute there is pain.

there is loss.

you deserve none of it.

you deserve LIFE.


i cry. for you. now i weep.

be strong little girl.

hold fast. to something. to truth. to love.

you know love. to lose is to love.

but damn the man who made it that way.

may he be eternally damned to the deepest part of hell.


why you.

why my beautiful ruby.

why. why. why. why. why.

fire...

Many of you know that California is ablaze right now with over 300 square miles already burned; that's bigger than Chicago people. It's hard not to find humor in the situation, as sometimes it's our only way of saying that we care. I find that odd though; as I do for many other situations where humor is used in place of true fear or worry. Even so, eating breakfast with my friends this morning I had to point out a new item on the Coco's menu. Eggs on Fire. I didn't order them, I figured that would be too deserving of hell points, but true, I did make a conscious effort to point them out.

All this reminds me of though, is when our house caught on fire back in '99. We lost almost everything from the water and smoke damage, and it was a trying time for my family. The worst part was at the very beginning when I was driving home and wasn't allowed in my cul-de-sac because a big fire truck was blocking the entrance. As I drove past I saw my house on fire. That's something I would never wish on anyone. Ever. Or was the worst part calling my work and telling them I couldn't come into work that day because my house was on fire, and them asking if I could come in later in the afternoon. Hmmm...

In other news, today is such a beautiful day that I would love to spend it outside, but this smoke and haze surrounding us is not particularly beneficial to anyones health. And I appreciate my health enough to realize I need to clear the mess that is in my room to bring me a little more peace in life.

And to bring joy to my mum.

workaholic extraordinaire...

It seems whenever I find myself working, I do so for long periods of time. This is no fault of my own mind you, I'm only required to show up during my regularly scheduled work week. But therein lies the problem, as I'm usually only scheduled four days out of the week, and two of those days somehow always end up being twelve hours of work. This can be nice at times, especially when I'm scheduled three twelve-hour days; leaving room for one day with only four hours to be around for. Trust me, in a four hour shift there's really not much you can do. And if you do end up doing all the work that needs to get done, you're finished before you realize. Not so with working twelve hours in a row.

Today was one of those work days that seemed to drag on and on and on. I found myself walking in circles more than once, and when I told my mom this when I got home she suggested walking in triangles and squares next time; something I'll have to do. I was productive once or twice, for I picked up four kids from school and was gracious enough to bring them back home. I also helped a couple kids wash their hands after going to the bathroom and I helped a girl with her homework before I left tonight.

The best part today though, was all the comments I got on my bow-tie. I had a small whim to wear it today, and I'm so very glad I did because of all the monotonous work that seemed to trickle a little faster with my humorous attire. My co-workers called me a nut, especially because it wasn't an ordinary black bow-tie but a plaid one, and I was given a few weird looks picking up four kids from school wearing jeans and a dress shirt con bow-tie. I admired it though, and yet thankfully not more so than the children with whom I work. One kid, who shall rename nameless for now out of the protection of the innocent, kept flicking it and saying bow-die, not being able to truly pronounce his t's yet. And another thought it silly enough to laugh at every time she saw me, but maybe that's just because she does that anyway.

All in all, it was a good day, even if it was one of my longer days. Besides, it just makes me look forward to the few eight-hour days I have every once in a while, and even more so the four-hour ones.

So here's to work, and here's to amusing attire, may they coincide and bring joy to our lives.

losing lisa...

tonight i cried for a friend.
not because of loss, or uncertainty.
but because of their life, their choices.

if they were to ask me.
if i looked down on them.
i'd say no, not at all.

because i don't.
but i still hurt.
i still wish they knew the truth.

and so i live, my life.
in a way that would bring light.
to a lost and dying world.

so as not to lose lisa.

silence...

eyes searching in hope of
what?
a wink, a faltering lip?
a face to be non-existent for the rest of time

written words greeted with silence
never to be seen by another's eyes
so they sit - hidden away forever
it's best that way, you know

to keep feelings bottled up inside
to keep emotion hidden from the world
when do you know if it's ever real
where is the hope that once seemed ever present

i'm losing at this game of life
batting .000 in a world full of failures
and yet they aren't seen as failures at .300
how odd the ways of man

i smile, and laugh, at my immaturity
but the laughter goes unnoticed, even by myself
rainfall makes more noise on a blanket of snow
than the echoes of my cachinnation

bounder of adventure...

I got another blogger...

So check it out - I'll write about my soon to be travels on it and such.

I'm not leaving here - I just can't keep one for some reason...

So HERE you go.

:)

monkey island...

I finally got Monkey Island 1 to work on my N800. This is going to do wonders for my plane ride across the country in four days. It'll also do wonders to killing my time whenever I'm bored.

But it took a while. To begin with, Monkey Island only just became freeware at the end of April, but I didn't find this out until just now after digging a little deeper than before. I actually don't think I had searched for it again since the middle of April, but I can't be too certain. Thanks to web forums and helpful downloads from fanoush I was able to download both MI 1 & 2, and have them forever...

In other news, I'm leaving in four days for Europe, and I couldn't be more excited. I'll try to keep you updated as much as I can on my trip - I'll have internet everywhere I go thanks to the N800 once again, but who knows how often I'll post.

Until then,

Godspeed.

meh...

I don't know what to say. I was just given a raise at my job after working there for a year and it was for forty-three cents. I don't know whether to laugh or be completely frustrated and mad at the whole situation.

Ugh...

Update - I don't know if I can be mad really, considering it's more than some people are given. Sigh - I just needed to vent....

house-sitting...

Since the 27th of July I have been house-sitting for two different families. It's been nice, because I get to have my own house to live in for almost a month, and I get paid to eat their food. Another advantage is that I've been closer to work both times, and that is always a nice thing. I need the money too, as I'm on my way to Europe in less than two weeks. This is a much needed trip and I'm definitely looking forward to being away from work and America for three weeks. I keep joking with my co-workers that I'm going to give my two-weeks notice when I'm in Ireland, but alas I know that won't happen; unless of course I find some beautiful Italian woman and decide to spend the rest of my life in Italy.

Only God knows...

california dreaming part ii...

a dream?

I JUST had a dream that I was walking around the streets of New York and there was this younger girl who came out of her apartment quite tipsy so my friend and I stopped her from getting into her car. She began to throw a fit but I held onto her until we could call the cops. As I was grabbing for her keys she slipped away and ran into a twisted maze of alleys and dark streets but I was able to catch up to her once or twice. She ran into her kid brother while I was chasing her and they managed to slip away, but I still had her keys and knew she wouldn't be driving anytime soon. For some reason I also had a poster that I took from her which was from the National History Museum so instead of going to the police I went to a security guard in the NHM and gave him the poster and the keys. As I was leaving the museum I realized that for some reason I wasn't wearing a shirt and to get out of the building faster in order not to get in trouble I jumped into a small opening of an office which just happened to be the security guards office. Not only that, but there was a pane of hard plastic covering the opening so I smashed my face into it. I tried to laugh as I pushed myself away from the quasi-window to humor the guards, but their looks were far from amused. As I made my way to a nearby table to sit down and feel my hurting mouth, I saw my friend Alvin taking a security guard exam for the museum. Just then, I was surrounded by a half a dozen guards who demanded I show them my shirt which had miraculously appeared and so I did. It was a European soccer jersey and they were getting mad at me for having it. I was trying to convince the guard not to arrest me and for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to tell him my mum was from South Africa. That did not go over well at all, he said that was probably the worst thing I could have told him, and he began questioning me. I was still feeling quite sore from my jaw hitting that pane but was able to remember enough to show him I wasn't some kind of terrorist or something. I really don't know what I was going to convince him of, but I thought anything could work. I told him what the date was and around what time it was and as I did that I thought in my head - I should open my eyes and see what's really going on. (This was the part of the dream where I thought I could snap out of it and be awake for a split second to make sure everything was fine and then go back to sleep). I opened my eyes to my dad asking me the same questions as the security guard was - what day it was, what my name was; and I asked him what was wrong. He and my mom kept murmuring in my room and all I could catch was "that plate should be enough to catch all of the blood." My mouth was in pain still and I felt for blood around my face and there was none so I wondered what they were talking about. I was angry because they weren't telling me what was wrong, and I wasn't finding out what had happened to my face. I thought I had gotten into a scooter accident and was angry at myself for allowing that to happen. I grabbed my scooter from outside and drove it out to a place where I could push it off a cliff. As I gave it just enough gas to roll off the cliff I realized that it wasn't going to fall far (I must have picked a bad cliff) and so it barely got damaged but it still satisfied me a little - if only for consolation of my jaw. My dad came driving up and my mom yelled at me to look over the other side of the cliff. She kept saying, "your sister!, your sister!" Sure enough there was Kate's old car lying hundreds of yards below us. I looked over just in time to see her friends pulling her out of the car and setting her down to keep her calm. I had no idea if she was okay or if her friends were okay or what the heck was going on. I saw my brother Ethan in the car with my parents with just a dumbfounded look on his face, as if he were imagining this as much as I was. I also saw a two year-old I recognized and he said "hi" to me and I said "hi" back, and there was another smaller baby there as well. I went over to my mom and noticed she was bleeding, hence the blood they were talking about earlier, and she mentioned something about pills of some sort but I was too confused to listen. I asked her, "mom, am I dreaming? Am I dreaming, because this is way too real, slap me, please slap me." And as she slapped me, I think that's about the time I woke up. I sat up in my bed and said - "that. was. horrible."

I thought I should write this down. It's not too often when I have dreams that are so vivid and clear. I swore to myself when I opened my eyes that first time, to hear my dad trying to bring me back to comprehension, that I was awake; and that it was just a bad dream and my jaw would stop hurting. When the pain didn't go away I was even more confused; I thought something had fallen on my head while I was sleeping and that my parents were doing the best they could to calm me. I didn't get why all this was happening, and all so fast. It didn't make sense but I didn't have time to be rational about anything and I began blaming anything and everything I could think of to blame. It was REAL - I've never had a dream feel so real before that when I finally did question it as I was dreaming, my answer was given to me in another dream (consequently the same one) and my fear of it being real was calmed for a brief second until the pain in my face came back. And for now, that's really all I have to say.

Good night.

next contestant please...

It'd be interesting to see how much I'd have to make in order to rent an apartment and successfully live here in Orange County.

Sometimes I wonder how in the world I'm going to get by - with what I do and how much I get paid and where I live. I think if maybe I moved to Montana or Nebraska I might just have a chance at sleeping in my own apartment at night. Yet at the same time I know God is in control and He will provide for me. But do I feel that he will provide or do I truly know it?

I've been reading Screwtape Letters with guys from my church and C.S. Lewis was certainly a brilliant man. He speaks about us feeling forgiven and feeling courageous, but not truly knowing that we are. He also brings up the subject of our knowledge of who God is and who we have conceived him to be in our own minds....

Chew, chew, chew....

And in the wise words of Winnie the Pooh - "Think, think, think..."

fool...

sitting. waiting. for what.

a knock on the door? a phone call? anything?

but really - what's to be lost. all that has been gained - can it still be counted as gain?

and if something lost is forever gone - should it be treated as if it had no worth?



people care. and i ignore. i walk through each day with no destination. no point in stepping forward.

i fill my body mind and soul with things worthless.


some men achieve greatness, others have greatness thrust upon them - maybe i'll unsuspectingly walk into greatness one day.


today i'm far from it.

because work is...heartbreaking...

maybe you don't understand it, what keeps them awake at night
what goes through their little minds when you turn off the light?
always having to say sorry tears are stained on the pillow
like the light of the moon they can't be one
can't exist without the son

let's think clearly for a while
can he shine without a smile?

why am I alone with no one to be found?
looks like they know what's best for me
why doesn't anybody like me, I don't understand?
guess I'll have to crawl inside and I don't know why
i'm sitting by myself, when the problem isn't mine

been around the block a few times, been beat up by all his friends
learning life is like a maze that never seems to end
like an open book, blank pages left for only him to write
life is short this chapter takes so long
can't tell the right from the wrong

it's so hard for you to place
an expression on his face

why am I alone with no one to be found?
looks like they know what's best for me
why doesn't anybody like me, I don't understand?
guess I'll have to crawl inside and I don't know why
i'm sitting by myself, when the problem isn't mine

why doesn't anybody like me, I don't understand
why my friends and family left me
at six years old he won't be taught a meaning to this mess
he'll just have to take a guess, and make his own plan
and we'll never see the child that was forced to be a man

twenty-four...

I should be asleep right now, I mean it's the one day I've gotten to sleep in for the past week. But no, considering the fact that I've had to wake up at 5 am these past three days, I figured as I went to bed last night that I wouldn't get much sleep. But thankfully I only woke up at 6, so that's an improvement. (Not if you take into consideration the fact that I went to bed at midnight, but let's just leave that out of the picture).

There's no cake, there's no ice cream; happy birthday.

this sorta thing part deux...

Didn't think I'd been given much of a choice anyway. 'Cept, really, the choice is entirely up to me. I fail a lot. And many a time I let my failures define who I am. I think that has a large impact on all of my relationships. People around me notice it. I notice it.

sometime one time in a lifetime

So many chances though. Chances to change, chances to make a difference in something...anything. And yet no opportunities fully grasped or taken advantage of. Definition of man? Definition of me? No, not a true one.

this sort of thing could blow your mind

'Tis as simple as that. And I know....I know, I know, I know - it's going to do more than just that. Freedom. In life, in any idea that I have some standard to live up to, to live how others expect my life to end up. When it comes down to it, I'm the only one standing at the deep end.

or change everything

To put it lightly I suppose. I don't expect a dramatic change in anything. No text-book miracle or plagiarized expose. A slight bend in the road, a shift of the quiescent x-axis. But time is money these days, and you'd think anyone and everyone would want an immediate about-face. I can't do that...

so here, here we go again:
should i move right or left
or just step back to check if i missed a step
oh no, you can never be too sure when forever's on the line
forever passed me by a hundred times tonight

Godspeed.

this sorta thing...

i, i've got a hunch that we will never be the same. these things tend to change - everything.

I had a wonderful weekend. The kind of weekend that makes you think - yes, this is why I care about my relationship with God so much. But I really didn't think that. I don't know what I was thinking.

like a pause just to glance, or a choice, or just a chance

We got on the topic of 'once saved always saved' and it was interesting to see what my friends had to say. I don't want to get into that on here, but it is definitely an interesting discussion whenever it takes place.

and we were never ready for this anyway

I enjoy talking about my faith. My reason for living and the things I believe in. But whenever I talk about it, in the back of my head, I think - I am not living this life at all. I am to be compared with white-washed tombs if anything. My Pharisaical life is not to be envied my friends.

well come on, come on it's about time jump on in before you change your mind

Jump on in? As if.....as if I could do that with any strength I had. Strength? Life? What a confusing thing. Where have I been these past eight years? I'm not sure I could answer that.

no promises on this sort of thing.

TBC

n800 first thoughts...

Well, I've been sitting fooling around with my new N800 now for a little over two hours, and I really haven't gotten anywhere.

To begin with, this is an internet tablet, used mainly for connecting to the internet. At the same time though, it is a very user-friendly device which has hundreds of programs available to install and use for your own enjoyment. Back to the INTERNET part of it though. The wireless network in my house seemingly works well, my only problem being that the "wep password" I enter doesn't seem to work. This is frustrating because I tried the same thing yesterday and it wouldn't connect with my mac as well.

Secondly, there is an update needed immediately for better video performance, bluetooth connection, browser stability, and touchscreen interface. This took me the better part of these past two hours considering the only update I found was for windows which I just so happened to delete from my computer yesterday. I found a linux version and tried to get that to work, but upon trying to execute the file, well let's just say I failed. Thankfully my sister was kind enough to let me use her computer to install the update installer on her computer, and now I'm up and running on the bigger and better version.

I'd say more but I need the internet for most everything else...hopefully that will be fixed sooner than later.

Update: As of now at 5:38 p.m. the internet is working.

I'm looking forward to downloading Monkey Island to play on here, as well as music files and all sorts of goodies.