I helped my renter move in last night. It was a strange feeling, hauling somebody’s stuff into my house, knowing that he’ll be living with me for the foreseeable future. Will we drive each other crazy?

This is the first time I’ve really lived with someone. At my last apartment, I was sharing a house with a woman whom I only saw every couple of months. Before that, I was living with my parents, which is a very different experience than living separately.

So, this is a bit weird and intimidating. I’m not scared, per se, just weirded out. Intellectually, I know I can handle this. My emotions don’t quite agree.

Meanwhile, I’ve posted more VR story, for the first time in a month. I hope to get that back up to speed over the coming months, so I can finally finish the blasted thing. Unfortunately, today’s post is the last of what I’ve written so far, so I need to write quite a bit more to get ahead.

My goodness, I’m tired.

This is caused partly by my mad dashes around the house, clearing out the other bedroom. Why? I have a renter, finally. A friend from work will be moving in. Um, tomorrow. As of this morning, there were still several boxes, bags, and assorted miscellaney cluttering up the room.

So I got all that out, and finally cleaned out the kitchen sink. Oh, shoot; I just remembered that I had a bunch of clothes hanging in that closet; hold on while I retrieve them….

…back. My bedroom now hosts a pile of clothing slightly smaller than Everest. Much of it will go to goodwill, I think; I really don’t need twenty long-sleeved shirts. I also forgot how much mold some of my jackets accumulated; I’ve been meaning to dry-clean them for the past, oh, six months or so.

Still, I feel good that I’m finally getting a renter. That extra $700 (USD) a month will finally give me the room in my pocketbook to buy a few goodies for the townhouse. I’ve been stretched thin since I moved here (which I knew I would be, without a renter), so I’m looking forward to the easier financial burden over the coming months.

I had a rather strange experience this week—I joined a Tae Kwan Do academy, then promptly backed out two days later.

That may seem strange, and it is, really, but I have my reasons. My 2005 New Year’s Resolution was to investigate and take up a martial art. I’ve been hemming and hawing about that investigation, until finally on Saturday I simply walked into a local Tae Kwan Do academy. Fortunately, someone there was signing up her daughter for a practice session, so I listened to that conversation and used that info to ask for a practice session myself.

On Monday, I went to the practice session, and it was a blast. After the ritual bows, I followed the 20 minute warmup routine, which did an amazing job of stretching my muscles and joints. Afterwards, one of the senior martial artists as well as the head of the academy took me through the basics of the Tae Kwan Do, and I practiced a couple of punches, kicks, and blocks.

Afterwards, I made my mistake. I sat down with the grandmaster, who suggested I sign up for a three-year course. This was more than I expected, but rather than tell him that, I simply agreed. I signed a contract and gave him $150.

That night, adrenaline coursed through my veins as I anticipated my growing skills. I was extremely excited at the idea. In retrospect, I was overexcited and starstruck.

The next day, I began to realize the enormity of my commitment. This was a twice-a-week commitment combined with daily training at home. Considering all the other projects on my plate, was this wise?

That night, I explained my misgivings to Saalon, and based on his advice, I decided to back out and look around a bit more. This lead to greater anxiety on my part, as I dreaded explaining this to the grandmaster.

This evening, I went to the academy and explained myself to the office manager. She was thoroughly considerate and professional, and processed my cancellation immediately. Unfortunately, they won’t refund my first month’s fee, though I can use that month in the future if I decide to come back.

I feel that I made the right final decision. This was more than I can commit to right now. However, I shouldn’t have made the commitment in the first place. I should have told the grandmaster that three years were more than I had anticipated, and that I wanted time to think it over. I should have respected my own pace.

Haven’t felt like updating in a while, in case that wasn’t clear from the dearth of recent entries. Plenty has been going on in my life; I just haven’t felt like writing about it.

Then again, I’ve felt a bit out-of-sorts lately. Not depressed; more like that 2 a.m. feeling of having wool between your ears. And I’ve found that I only feel like writing when I’m in either a good mood or a very bad one. Since I’ve felt neither lately, I haven’t updated the site.

I was recently inspired by a conversation with Saalon (interesting how many of my projects start like that) to consider a reorganization of my journal, which might excite me to write more. I’d like to aggregate several projects onto this journal page: the journal itself, the VR story, a recent photo, and perhaps a recent drawing. I’d like a page that looks more like a newspaper about my life.

Sorry for the radio silence. Been busy, just not felt like writing journal entries.

Unexpectedly, I’m very very busy. I went to my parents’ house Monday evening, had writing group tonight, will be at a church function Wednesday evening, and will be doing server maintenance and upgrade stuff with Saalon on Thursday. All good things, but time-consuming.

Meanwhile, a fascinating link that I would like to investigate further at some later date: the mentat wiki, “a collaborative environment for exploring ways to become a better thinker.”

FastCompany has an interesting article this month titled, “Change Or Die,” which includes this quote:

“If you look at people after coronary-artery bypass grafting two years later, 90% of them have not changed their lifestyle [to avoid repeat surgery, which is probable], says Dr. Edward Miller, dean and CEO at Johns Hopkins. “And that’s been studied over and over and over again….Even though they know they have a very bad disease and they know they should change their lifestyle, for whatever reason, they can’t.”

This prompted the front cover text:

Change or DIE. What if you were given that choice? For real. What if it weren’t just the rhetoric that confuses corporate performance with life or death, but actual life or death? Yours. What if a doctor said you had to make tough changes in the way you think and act—or your time would end soon? Could you change? Here are the scientifically studied odds: nine to one. That’s nine to one against you.

It’s a startling thought. We all like to think that, if the chips are down, and we’re faced with tough decisions, we’ll make the right choices. But statistically, we don’t (at least not when it comes to eating and living healthy lives). Why not?

The answer, I think, is the most common one: It Depends. Many times, it’s because our poor choices are comforting to us; in a high-stress world of demanding jobs and over-busy households, when you’re in line at McDonald’s and you know the rest of your day will be full, who wants a salad? Sometimes, we simply don’t know how to change; who can find a full half an hour in a day to exercise?

I don’t think it’s laziness, partly because I think that laziness is usually a sign of a deeper psychological issue.

I had an instructive dream last week.

I dreamt I managed a large dollar store in a strip mall. It was near Christmas; snow was falling outside. Business was good, the employees were busy but happy, and the customers seemed to be in good spirits.

Then I heard the buzz of the alarm. I swiveled my head to see a middle-aged woman hurrying out the doors, clutching something to her chest. Everyone carried on with their business; it was just another petty thief, not worth pursuing. Being the manager, I decided to stop her, so I left the store.

It was crowded outside, and it took me a minute to find the woman and confront her through the thick falling snow. She had by now hidden her item underneath her coat, and feigned ignorance of my accusation, but when I took her arm and pulled her into an alley, she pulled the stolen item out and started yelling at me that there was nothing I could do about it. Oh yes there was; I could take my merchandise back. We struggled with it and it fell; it was a box of cards which burst open and spilled on the ground.

Just at that moment, the woman’s grown daughter appeared and acted highly disappointed in her mother, which chastened her. They both left.

Here’s the instructive part: As I gathered up the cards amidst the falling snow, I realized that I had been away from the store for quite awhile. In that weird stretched time of dreams, it had been close to half an hour. I felt bad, having left the store alone, the employees having no idea where I was and going on without me.

When I woke up this morning, I analyzed that dream and recognized that bad feeling. I feel it a lot. That’s when I realized:

I live a life of regrets.

I am forever thinking of activities I could be doing, more efficient ways of accomplishing my projects, and regretting the difference. Now note: There’s nothing wrong with thinking up new projects or efficiencies. My error lies in living in pained regret that I’m not doing them. As Alexander Graham Bell once said, “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”

Well, we got hacked, which explains my absence over the past few days. Things seem mostly back to normal now.

More later, when I get the time to actually upload something.

Woah! Where have I been lately?

Been busy with little things, just generaly life upkeep. I’ve been reading pretty much every night, and baking cookies, and practicing Japanese a bit. Spent an hour on Wednesday checking fluids in my truck and cleaning it thoroughly. Nothing major. I’ve been a bit sick lately, too, which doesn’t help me get things done. That’s why I’m home from work today.

I also finished Neil Clark Warren’s Date…or Soul Mate? and posted a review to my library. Interesting stuff.

Atom is an extremely complicated blog feed format. They’ve just published a draft RFC that’s supposed to explain the Atom format. I’ve written an Atom feed generator, and I know even less about Atom after reading that RFC. How could they write an RFC that’s that difficult to comprehend?

And why am I writing about blog feed formats? Because I used to think that visiting each blog had advantages over RSS feeds, so I downloaded an RSS feeder (NewsFire) to prove it. Now I use it every day to read several dozen blogs in the time it used to take me to read ten. RSS has been incredibly useful to me.

There are actually two feed formats: Atom and RSS. RSS is simpler, while Atom is more complicated and more flexible. I’m frustrated by Atom’s complexity, but I love what you can do with it, and I want to see the Atom working group create a comprehensible, readable standard. They haven’t so far.