Alfaj0r.com

Let’s start from the beginning here. It was the day after Easter Sunday that my life started changing unexpectedly. Stef wanted a divorce.
I moved out, thinking it’d be temporary, and that we could talk through it and figure out what was going on. My friend Cory hosted me in his living room for 2 long weeks, after which I saw that the resolution of the looming threat of divorce was nowhere near.
I found a small apartment, near UNR, with a month-to-month rent. I was starting to accept the idea that maybe we weren’t going to get back together, and that I better figure out how to be on my own.

During this time, Stef and I went to see a marriage counselor, a pretty cool guy by the name of Richard Cook. Now, I had never been to a marriage counselor, psychiatrist or anything similar, but I must say that this guy is really good. The first thing that he told us after a short introduction was something along these lines: "I am here to tell you that your relationship is over." :aaa:
At this point, my heart skipped a beat. He continued: "What I do, is help you start your new relationship, because it is obvious that your current one is not working. This is why you’re here." Relief came in, and this answer appealed highly to my logic side, so he had me hooked. The last part of his speech was "Now, this new relationship… it can mean that you’re married, or that you’re not. And that’s what we’ll figure out after a few sessions."
With that mindset in mind, the counseling was very healing and a great learning experience. Guilt was appeased with the understandingn of how the dynamics of our relationship changed, and I went from wondering why Stef didn’t want to be with me annymore to wondering why she was so sure that we couldn’t work on the issues that we obviously had.
I answered that question when chance led me to read about the Walkaway Wife Syndrome. I know, I know, it’s over-simplifying the issue, but it’s pretty damn close to what I felt was going on.
After many talks, tears and days, I gave up on trying to convince Stef to love me again, and decided to stop the wound from bleeding. I agreed to the divorce, we worked out the legalities of it, and I’ve been officially and legally divorced for a few months now.

Life has changed quite a bit because of all this. I work for myself, I can enjoy doing whatever I want to do, without having to worry about fitting into someone else’s schedule or their mood.* I also have total control of my money, and I am living very comfortably. I can afford a few nice things here and there, and that’s how I got the nice digital camera I posted about a few months ago, and also partly on how I got my new car.
I’ve re-discovered friendships, activities, places and feelings, and I’ve moved on from the sadness to reach a state of being happy again. I’m more than content on where I am and what I’m doing, and I no longer feel like I need to grief. I’ve moved on, and things are looking up.

I had been slacking off on posting because of all this. It’s a "juicy" story, and I felt shallow by posting about all sorts of things without really letting my beloved fans know about what’s been going on. So, now that this is out of the way, I will go back to the usual schedule of rambles, rants and random things.

It’s good to be back.

*Editorial: Well, sort of. There’s this one person I’ve been seeing, but that’s for the next batch of "big news". I gotta make sure I have something to make you come back!

 I’m back! New design, new features, new ideas. Many things have changed in my life, and as such, it’s hard to know where to start. I’m thinking, and planning, so stay tuned! The best way to do that, by the way, is by subscribing to the RSS feed.

Today, a big bus from United Blood Services was hanging out at the parking lot at work. So I went, and donated a bit of my tasty, fresh, warm Latin blood.  It was probably a bad idea.

The questionnaire at the beginning was stretched because of my south-American origins (oh no, he comes from the jungle!). I was asked several uncomfortable questions, to which the answers were of course no. Ten minutes later, it’s time to check my blood pressure and pulse, and I was starting to dread being there.
It turns they only draw blood if your pulse is at least 50, and I was only showing 42. We tried again, and it went up to 43. The guy was confused, so we tried my other arm, but nothing changed. He told me that I might not get to donate blood, and went to talk to his supervisor. I explained that I’m a fairly active person, and they decided to ask me about 10 more questions about my lifestyle and let me donate.

You’d think that it would have been frustrating enough there, but there’s more. I ask them to poke my left arm, so the girl/nurse does, and there’s almost no blood coming out. She moves the needle around (a pretty thick one, mind you) to see if she can get some more flow out of it, but it’s barely dripping. This is not a good thing, because the extraction needs to be at a certain speed, to avoid coagulation of the already drawn blood, so they aborted the operation, and asked me if I wanted to try the other arm. I said yes.
Luckily, my other arm doesn’t suck as much as my left (pun intended), so it all went pretty well. A few minutes later, I was sipping on some apple juice and munching on some cookies.

I’m now sitting here, feeling a bit wheezy, with both arms bandaged. It’s fun.

I probably won’t donate blood ever again, because it was such an inconvenience; not only for me, but for them too. I wish it hadn’t been that bad, because donating blood is a nice little gesture. I don’t want to discourage anyone from donating blood, but I just want to make you aware that if your pulse is low, and you’re from South America, you’re in for a treat.

I bought a Scion xA. There are a few pictures in the album, but I just wanted to throw it out there that I’m no longer driving a 14-year old rust bucket :P

I’m back from the business trip to Providence, RI. I had a great time there, not only at the conference, but outside of it… in fact, more outside than at the conference. :toot:
But I’ve also discovered that I’m at my heaviest weight ever in my young life. I feared while on my trip that the lack of exercise and the excess of comestibles would not do me a favor, and today when I went to the gym I found out that my fears were not in vain. Bah, it’s not the end of the world, and it’s certainly not going to be like this for too long.
In case you don’t know, you should know this: I don’t believe in dieting. Instead, I find it much more rewarding and interesting to increase my activity level, so that if I maintain my eating habits, I’d still end up in a small calorie deficit. That is why today I’ve ran 2 miles, did 10 or more flights of stairs (jumping, skipping, sprinting, falling) and then I went to the gym for over an hour. I’m smelly, salty and happy.
I look forward to kicking my own ass tomorrow again.

I’ve decided to finally take part of Burning Man. This will be the year, and it might just be the beginning of something that repeats yearly, or it might be something I do once and I get to say “I was there”. We’ll see.
I first heard of Burning Man when I was an exchange student, in 1999-2000. My counselor/liaison Nicole was a burner at the time ( and probably still is, I wonder if I’ll see her among the masses! ), and she told me a little bit about it, and it sounded really awesome. Of course, I was 17 at the time, so rumors of drunken naked people and a plethora of drugs were really attractive at the time. :v:

I’ll be buying my ticket shortly, at the Melting Pot. It’ll be a whopping almost $300, but I’ve been saving up for this, and every year I’ve chickened out because it was a lot of money. But now I’ve decided to say fuck it, and go for it. I hear it’s worth it, and I don’t want to wonder what I’ve been missing anymore.

If you don’t know what Burning Man is, I can’t explain it yet. But I hear that even people who’ve been there for years and years still can’t explain it, that his why I like this quote from the FAQ: “Trying to explain what Burning Man is to someone who has never been to the event is a bit like trying to explain what a particular color looks like to someone who is blind.” Whoa, deep! :downs:
There’s always an entry in the trusty WikiPedia, so read up over there if you’re interested, and maybe I’ll see you there!

I got ‘em.

I came across a great deal for a camera I’d been wanting for a while: a Canon Rebel XT, with a much better price than any retail store, be it brick and mortar or online, so I decided to go for it, and get the camera that I’d wanted for a while now. I also caught onto a great deal at CircuitCity for a 2Gb CompactFlash card for $30, when everywhere else they wanted at leat $70 for one. Last thing I needed was a nice bag to carry it all around, and I found a great one at Gordon’s Photo Service, that fits like a glove and was a great deal.

Since then (last week), I’ve been reading and playing a little bit with the camera, but it has so many options and settings that I still have a lot to learn. In the meantime, however, I’ve posted a few of the pictures I’ve taken so far, and they can be found in the Photos section of the website. Tell me what you think!

This site will be updated frequently soon. At the moment, it is difficult to do so.

Boy, have I been lazy. Sorry about not updating the blog! However, your nightmare is over and here come a lot of updates about what’s going on in my world.  If I was to give an excuse, I’d choose one of these: too busy, too lazy, plugins for blog are semi-broken, too many things to tell, unsure if anyone ever reads this.

Regardless of any of all those excuses, I will now get to writing about what’s been happening, but of course, one post for each category :)