Future plans

I got a phone call, she wanted to return a few misc. items of mine.

It was now the afternoon of day two 2009.

She rejected my offer to pick up my stuff the next time I was on the road later on in the week, she wanted to pass by now and be rid of me. She explained that she called everybody and told them the news. By everybody I mean she called all of her family and friends none of which I met. They were mostly understanding of the situation and her turning point that made her even consider speaking to me again came from her male best friend who now lived in the states. I was surprised that anyone would have been on my side or that she would even call her friends in the states to tell them.

It didn't take her long to reach and it quickly became clear that she wasn't here just to drop off my stuff. She was now sitting on my veranda just looking at me with the saddest look on her face and I kept my distance just to be safe, this was all new ground to me. In explaining to me what was going on in her mind she couldn't hold it together any more so she went inside and was laying on the couch, I followed her and sat by her feet. At this point in time she just let it all out, how much she liked me and how she had everything all planned out. The key thing I took away from that conversation was that she wanted to have a child with me around 5 years from now. wow, what ever I was doing I must have been doing it right.

I knew girls liked to plan but this was definitely a first for me. During the hours of her getting things off of her chest she eventually managed to jim screechy around in the couch and was now cuddling me, crying every now and then and now she was trying to kiss me. I was confused, I knew she didn't want to pursue a relationship with me since I got another girl pregnant but she was getting pretty restless on my couch grinding on me and full on eating my face. Once again I threw out all of my "man" training out the window and I stopped it from going further.

Many hours had passed and it was time for her to leave, I walked her down to her car and she stopped for a goodbye kiss. It got pretty hot and heavy quickly and I had to dig deep not to do anything stupid that night, I knew this was going to be the last time I would see her for sure. I watched her get in her car but she didn't drive off, I went over to find out what was wrong and she was just slumped over her steering wheel crying like there was no tomorrow. What could I have said to make her feel any better? I just stayed with her until she was composed enough to drive and that was the last time I saw her.

Surviving p.2

I found this video on the Jamaica Gleaner's[local paper] youtube channel a few months back and I had to make note of it. To bring everybody up to speed in one sentence Cash plus was a company that tried to pass them self off as an investment club that offered high returns that of course turned out to be big pyramid scheme and a lot of people lost their money. The big boss of cash plus, Carlos Hill, has recently making the nightly news as he has now been evicted from his house as it is to be liquidated to help pay the receivers, investors, cash+ ex employees, .... long list of people he owes. It is a very sad situation for the people in the video but I do not feel sorry for them, the local regulatory bodies went far beyond their duties to tell people to stay away from these schemes and to date they have all toppled over.

I too have lost a significant amount of money in legitimate regulated investments as well with the down turn of the economy. I have essentially written off my stock and equities based unit trusts as they have lost more than 50% of their value with no signs of coming up anytime soon but the difference is I knew the risk going into them and I could afford to take the hit. I just need to pretend they don't exist and if the companies don't wind up I could probably break even[- potential interest] if the companies/economy recovers in a couple of years, so all is not lost yet.

I see on stunner's blog that they made his entire dept. under him redundant, I also heard today that 20% of the people in my dept. will also be made redundant. I should be worried but for some reason I feel safe[foolishly?] for now. So what have y'all been doing to weather this storm? I have been mostly against this due to time restrictions but I took on a small job on the side for May/June as a consultative type role. I drafted my first invoice and was proud. I could totally keep doing this if I had the time but my day job keeps me pretty busy. One still has to be mindful of the fact that they are cutting people left right and center so I should probably explore other opportunities. I do have some skills I should be able to capitalize on:

• Photography
• micro controller application
• programming/web dev
  
• fsf consultation
• personal accountant/debt advisor

Clearly I got jokes.

Some of the simple things

I often walk around with my camera but I do not often feel the urge to take pictures. It is kind of a horrible waste given my camera+lens weighs like 1+ lbs to drag it on the road and drag it back home with nothing new. What is even worst is even if I take shots they sit on the memory card or on my computer never to see the light of day again. I have a 6" digital photo frame in my room but that also goes unused, maybe when I move I'll start to use it more. Anyway here are a few photos I took recently(relatively) that will not fall to the same fate as many others before.

The simple things in life are free. This badly built paper dinosaur that I freed from his over priced cereal box prison set me back around $400.

My skin tingles all over, this can not be good but let's hope it is just sun burnt and not any form of infection. It was low tide and I spent the better half of last Saturday combing the beach for anything different, the sun wasn't out in full force so I didn't bother reapply more sun block after coming out of the water. The waves battered me against the exposed reef a few times but it was worth it to get a glimpse of the sea life on the other side. I only walked away with a few bruises on a finger, lets hope nothing poisonous poked me. Am I the only one mortally scared of sea urchins? The reef had hundreds of them just waiting to stick someone up.

Give blood, save a life. Simple concept eh? I am not a believer though, someone please explain how this works and I would also like to see some statistics on how many people die in Jamaica annually due to lack of supply of blood or its components. Even though I am a critic I still do give blood and as of yesterday have given an equivalent of all the blood in my body. The mad scientists at the blood bank can now bring the Frankenstein Adrian to life.. or use it to save someones life.. which ever is the most likely story.

Have I said how much I ♥ Disney world before? I'm surprised I haven't posted any of the 1000's of pictures I took while I was there last month. This photo was taken at the end of the day after I spent the previous 10 hours exploring the park. About 30 minutes later as I was preparing to leave the park I realized I lost my canon 72mm lens cap. I searched all my pockets, it was gone and my heart sank. As I was about to catch the bus to the animal kingdom the following day I decided to stop by the lost and found to see if by some miracle they found it. After some digging in the back the guy found my lens cap and commented it was the largest of the bunch. I was all smiles, they have 27,000 acres of theme parks and they could somehow manage to have a lost and found that works. I have yet to see one of these work in Jamaica on any scale.

Fashion block 2009

This is the '09 installment of the usual photo op suspect: style week. To be bombarded with pictures from previous years y'all can click on my older posts for 2007, 2007 contd. and 2008. What was new for this year? I left the nosebleed section behind on got behind the ropes[big metal barriers] into the VIP section. I was so close that I could have stretched out my hand and plucked one of the models off the cat walk Mmm.. Everything else was old. In fact the fashion seems to be going be regressing, the models and their outfits where not happening.

I just was not feeling most of what I saw. That second girl had the meanest, scariest faces ever! She looked like she was trying to smite the audience with her mind. I think the previous years had been much better clothes, models and production wise. Disclaimer: don't take my hating too seriously this is coming from a guy who knows nothing about the industry.

They dropped in a priceless gem this year though. Digicel decided to give away a blackberry javelin to the wanna-be-model member of the crowd who could win the most crowd support. The MC only asked for 10 ladies but they streamed on stage one after the other with no relent. Of course the crowd picked the first fluffy girl brave enough to strut the runway. I have to run off to work, I'll finish this post later.