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Got word from Ralph's brother. He's on "vacation" he said, and wanted to let people know he was alright. They can't say any more, but I asked him to let Ralph know that I was concerned, missed him, and look forward to his return.
It really freaks me out when friends disappear. Not sure why, probably because of Robin, a young woman I met while skating back in the late 70's when it was popular. She and I traded phone calls and she even sent me letters from time to time, then she disappeared. I got a phone call from her about a year later and she was strung out with people who were keeping her high on drugs, and she made it clear that she was trading sex for the drugs. That was the last time I heard from her, which sucked, because she was a good friend.
The first drive in my big drive partition on the server went out on me. We froze it, and the system found it again, but that didn't last long enough to get anything off it, so we're going to have to pull the drives, protect them in Ziploc bags, and then drop them into a bed of ice in an ice chest and hope that we can get my data off the partition into the big SATA drive. That's my entire music archive, plus everything I've ripped from vinyl and cassette, plus data files I've collected starting back in 1989, (Including things from my BBS) and a lot of other stuff too. I'm just hoping that we can get enough of the important stuff onto that 330GB drive so that we can send the defective drive in for warranty repair. I'm gong to have to pop for a 1TB SATA drive at some point in the near future and set up drive mirroring on the server to be safe, as there just isn't a big enough backup solution for this other than mirrored drives or a safety RAID.
I'm feeling somewhat more on an even keel today, though things are still extremely intense. I'm now pretty much resolved on how things are going to go from here, and I'm not going to let anything derail my plans. The next steps are to get into SMU and to get a house, then from there I start the other stuff. Last weekend was rough, and on Monday I managed to have a good long talk with my oldest friend. I'm getting some balance on that now. He's a middle of the road kind of guy, with three kids, a pillar of his church, a nice suburban house in a new subdivision, and a 9-5 job. He's given up gaming almost completely -- the only reason he plays WoW is for time with his eldest kid. I'm... Well, I'm me, a total freak. And I like being a total freak. I like who I am, and though there are some things I want changed about myself, especially physically, I like my personality, my approach to the world, my values, and my lifestyle. (Mostly -- I never thought I'd be dateles and celibate for this long, but that will end eventually) I'm going to keep being me, and he's going to keep being himself, and though we won't be as close as we once were, I still consider him a friend, and I get the impression that he feels the same, though with far more mystification about the things I do on his part. And that's okay, because we each have our own road to walk.
Another friend I haven't talked to in a while called, and we had a nice long talk -- my pizza got cold by the end of the conversation, and that was with me cooking it somewhere in the middle of the discussion. We got caught up, and at the end, she asked me, "Are you alright?" I thought about it for a minute, and told her that I was, and that I'd be okay down the line. I am in turmoil about some things right now, but those things will find their level and even out, and I'll make the needed changes it takes for me to keep doing what I need to be doing in life. The road is a bit bumpy, but I have a fairly good suspension, so I'll make it through. This new mood represents a change for me, because I've been pretty down for the last few months as things have misfired on me from time to time. But at least I'm finding balance again, and that helps.
One of the things I asked for in the big ritual was peace. Of fcourse the other two things involved a lot of change, one in particular, so I felt that peace was going to be the prize at the bottom of the box, not near the top, and I'm actually rather happy that it's coming earlier than I expected.
It really freaks me out when friends disappear. Not sure why, probably because of Robin, a young woman I met while skating back in the late 70's when it was popular. She and I traded phone calls and she even sent me letters from time to time, then she disappeared. I got a phone call from her about a year later and she was strung out with people who were keeping her high on drugs, and she made it clear that she was trading sex for the drugs. That was the last time I heard from her, which sucked, because she was a good friend.
The first drive in my big drive partition on the server went out on me. We froze it, and the system found it again, but that didn't last long enough to get anything off it, so we're going to have to pull the drives, protect them in Ziploc bags, and then drop them into a bed of ice in an ice chest and hope that we can get my data off the partition into the big SATA drive. That's my entire music archive, plus everything I've ripped from vinyl and cassette, plus data files I've collected starting back in 1989, (Including things from my BBS) and a lot of other stuff too. I'm just hoping that we can get enough of the important stuff onto that 330GB drive so that we can send the defective drive in for warranty repair. I'm gong to have to pop for a 1TB SATA drive at some point in the near future and set up drive mirroring on the server to be safe, as there just isn't a big enough backup solution for this other than mirrored drives or a safety RAID.
I'm feeling somewhat more on an even keel today, though things are still extremely intense. I'm now pretty much resolved on how things are going to go from here, and I'm not going to let anything derail my plans. The next steps are to get into SMU and to get a house, then from there I start the other stuff. Last weekend was rough, and on Monday I managed to have a good long talk with my oldest friend. I'm getting some balance on that now. He's a middle of the road kind of guy, with three kids, a pillar of his church, a nice suburban house in a new subdivision, and a 9-5 job. He's given up gaming almost completely -- the only reason he plays WoW is for time with his eldest kid. I'm... Well, I'm me, a total freak. And I like being a total freak. I like who I am, and though there are some things I want changed about myself, especially physically, I like my personality, my approach to the world, my values, and my lifestyle. (Mostly -- I never thought I'd be dateles and celibate for this long, but that will end eventually) I'm going to keep being me, and he's going to keep being himself, and though we won't be as close as we once were, I still consider him a friend, and I get the impression that he feels the same, though with far more mystification about the things I do on his part. And that's okay, because we each have our own road to walk.
Another friend I haven't talked to in a while called, and we had a nice long talk -- my pizza got cold by the end of the conversation, and that was with me cooking it somewhere in the middle of the discussion. We got caught up, and at the end, she asked me, "Are you alright?" I thought about it for a minute, and told her that I was, and that I'd be okay down the line. I am in turmoil about some things right now, but those things will find their level and even out, and I'll make the needed changes it takes for me to keep doing what I need to be doing in life. The road is a bit bumpy, but I have a fairly good suspension, so I'll make it through. This new mood represents a change for me, because I've been pretty down for the last few months as things have misfired on me from time to time. But at least I'm finding balance again, and that helps.
One of the things I asked for in the big ritual was peace. Of fcourse the other two things involved a lot of change, one in particular, so I felt that peace was going to be the prize at the bottom of the box, not near the top, and I'm actually rather happy that it's coming earlier than I expected.
