Change of seasons... Slowing me down a bit.

It's getting cooler pretty quickly where I live.

In fact today, the weather report called for "rain".

"Rain" for our area is usually a misting.

Well, not this time.  It was full out bucketing, and my cats were both outside.  The old cat is pretty smart, and will get himself under a car to stay dry.  When I left the front door open for a bit, he drug himself in.  My other one is almost smart.  She was under the raspberry plants, but not wanting to come in, until I propped the screen door open, and then called for her.

stupid cat

I love that cat actually, but wow... She's not the smartest thing.  She is very loving and strange, but a very good cat.

Well, my bipolar seems to be OK still, but I seem to zone out at times when a flashback hits me, and I "disappear" into it.  Not really an out of body experience, because some of these flashbacks aren't things that actually happened.  Some of these flashbacks are from dreams, and recently, I've been having more dreams than I remember having in many years.

Sunday morning, Ellie was scheduled to give a talk at church.  Well, all night she was up & down going to the bathroom.  So I stepped in and gave her talk, adding things where the spirit prompted me to.  It turned out very well.

Thinking about this blog, I haven't really wanted to post anything for a while, because I just.. I dunno... either don't care.. or.. I don't know... I don't really think it's that I don't care.  It's rather that I haven't wanted to.

Many times on Friday & Monday, I thought about it, but didn't seem to have anything to add/say about anything.

Today, I need to get things moving again, as I don't want to go stagnant again, where I'm just sitting around watching videos on YouTube or playing games.

Well, I'm off to get me a bowl of Ice Cream, and I'll add some Rhubarb pie filling.. mm.. mm.

Lest we forget September 11, 2001

I don't know if it because I'm bipolar that September 11th hits me harder than most other people.  Or if perhaps, it's that I'm able to slow down, think and comprehend all of what's actually happened that day, and since.

For the past several years, I've made it my duty to watch most of the annual memorial services, and the name reading.

A little over a year prior to September 11, 2001, I was assigned the Department of Defense contract from my employer, a software security firm.
When this contract was assigned to me, it was under the terms of "they're very unorganized, you should have it pretty easy".
This obviously, turned out to be different.

Between the time that I got the contract and September 11th, I helped to figure out who all the contacts within the various military installations I was working with are, cleaned up the records of who was on our contract.  I even helped a Federal Law Enforcement Agent track down a rogue contractor at one of the bases who was downloading software from various vendors and pretending to be one of the contacts under the various security company contracts.

I also had a contract with a firm that worked just blocks from the Twin Towers.

When I arrived at the office that morning, plane one had already crashed into a tower.  I called the firm just blocks from the Towers, and confirmed they were safe.

Then, I called several of the military bases and couldn't get through.  When I called my contact within SPAWAR, he told me that they were getting ready to go into lock down.  A few minutes later, I got a call from my contact with the USAF that all of the bases, military locations and offices were going into lock down.  All who were not currently enlisted with the military were not going to be allowed on base.  Even those contractors with prior military careers, etc.

I would say that for several weeks my life was "easy" since most of those I worked with weren't "working", per se'.

Basically, from that time forth, I dedicated a large amount of my life to providing the best technical support and security analysis to anyone within the .mil domain.

There were times that I got a call, late at night, drove to the office to work with our AntiVirus developers to track down threats, sleeping under my desk whenever I needed to rest.

Other times, I would be at the store, bank or church, and my cell phone would ring.  Usually, right then and there, I'd provide whatever answers/information/threat tracking information that I could.  If I needed to go to the office, I would make sure that my family was in a good place (like home, or where they could access another car) and go.

A few of the calls that are amusing are those that went like this:

"I can't tell you where I'm at, where this server is, or what it is for, but how ..."

Or:

"I can't tell you where I got this info, but I need to know if we're protected from ..."

I've led a very interesting life, and can trace back to that time when I realized that I was starting to "crack".  Some of it was emotionally, some of it was stress, and a large part of that was due to a really, REALLY bad flight when I was allowed to go onsite to the installations I was working with on a regular basis.

I suffer from PTSD due to that flight, and often cannot watch movies/cartoons that deal with airplanes because of it.

Looking back, I cannot say that I completely cracked after that flight, but it really unnerved me, and when I was asked to go back out again, I tried, and stopped at the first layover and drove home in a car.

When I returned, I didn't get fired... I got demoted and moved into another group with my employer.

At first, I thought it would really, really suck.

I decided that, no matter what happened, I was going to be the best and fastest person I could be.  Just as I was with my previous charge over the Military.

Without going through a full history from then to now, I can say that I changes groups another time on purpose, and now I'm an official software developer, and my salary is almost where it would be if I'd stayed  the course for that flight.

It wasn't until about 2010 or perhaps a bit earlier, that I really started to feel like a person behind a large glass door.

You can see out, people can see you, you can mostly hear them, they can mostly hear you, but neither inside or out can really reach out and touch/interact with each other.

 Thanks to the medication I'm no now, I no longer feel like I'm behind that glass door.

Been busy actually working...

I know those who read this are going to be surprised, but I've actually been busy working.

Yesterday, I really got into the coding and defect fixing.

It was a good day, and I got so involved that I worked for almost two more hours than I was originally planning on.

Last night, Ellie had a bit of break down.

She didn't tell anyone in the house that she needed help to get things done.

There are still a LOT of things left to do for wrapping up my Uncle's affairs, and she needs to write up a talk for church on Sunday.  On top of that, she's got things to do for the girls club, that she's been putting off since June. (ahem...)

I love Ellie.

She can procrastinate worse than me, which isn't so grand for her.  It seems that whenever she finally needs to get them done, is when it's almost too late.

We found a ship blocking bug last night, so today, I'm trying to find out when it was broken, so that I can then fix it.

My bipolar state is better than it has been, of course, I also started taking 150 mg of Effexor again, instead of the 75mg.

I would like to get off of the Effexor, but right now being at 150mg makes me feel better though out the entire day.

Perhaps I'll need to up the dosage of Lamictal.

I'm supposed to see my shrink again in a few weeks, so I'll tell him what I've found/discovered.

Here I sit all broken hearted... paid a nickle...

Did I do that title already?

I didn't post anything yesterday, as I just didn't think I had anything to express/type up for anyone or myself.

Recently, I've been having a harder time sleeping and more and more strange dreams.

These dreams are turning into day dreams and often just feel like a flashback as though I've already done it, or I was actually there.

I don't know why that is.  It's very, very strange.

Perhaps it's because how I felt when I was in creative writing.

I used to write what I saw.  Many of the other students in class would look at me zoning out, and wonder what I was doing.  After a little bit I'd drop my eyes down, pick up my pen and start writing.

Wednesday night, I couldn't sleep so I took a benadryl, and I fell asleep, and slept pretty well.
Last night, I had trouble sleeping, so went to the Kindle, and continued reading Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night".  It's not a bad read, so far.

I loved this part of the play:

OLIVIA
I know his soul is in heaven, fool.

FOOL
The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother’s soul being in heaven. Take away the fool, gentlemen.

My recent work assignment has been to go through our large list of defects and enhancements and close as many as I can. Not as easy as the boss thinks it is, but I'm trying to get 2-3 or more of these done a day.

Dang copy/paste of formatted text.  I copied the above lines from another site, and it contained HTML Table tags.

I had to switch the post editing to HTML so that I could remove the hidden <Table /> information.

What a pain in the ass.

It's been something that's a double edged problem since Windows 95 and early(ish) versions of MS Word & Word Perfect.

However, there is a method to strip the tags & formatting off.  That's to paste the text into Notepad, then copy/paste from there.  Unfortunately, I had already pasted the info into this blog post, and the table info got stuck in the background.

If I really felt like putting a TON of effort into my posts & what-not, I'd probably start really formatting information all fancy-like using HTML information by directly editing the page/post.

I'm supposed to have a meeting with the boss soon, so I'm going to get back to work.

It's good to see you, and even better to see you leave...

I don't want to rag on my folks, but I'm really glad they're gone now.

We flew them out here for my uncle's funeral and these past few days, it's been getting harder and harder to have them around.

They seem to just sit around and not do much.

They're also so frail, that they remind Ellie and I of my uncle who just passed on.

With their health going down the tubes, I wouldn't be surprised if they both passed on the next 6-9 months.

Unless they can both get their strength up soon.  Which I doubt.

Ellie had to work yesterday, so the kids and I took them to airport and waited for almost 45 minutes to ensure that they didn't miss the plane.  We did this as they barely made it to the flight for two reasons: 1. They had to stop and get some food before leaving.  2. There was a couple of wrecks on the major highway between the airport and the interstate, so we had to spend another 15+ minutes driving through the city to get there.

So, last night, I called and spoke to my sister in law and she said they made it home.  Which is good, as I don't know if I could stand having them around much longer than they were.

At least things can get back to "normal" soon, as the kids have started school, Ellie is working and I'm starting to drive into the office more often, instead of working from home.

Since last week, when the shrink suggested that I take 100mg of Lamictal at night, and another 100mg in the morning, I've had some terrible sleep patterns.  So much so, it's felt like I was going into a manic state, more than once.

Even my dreams have been crazier and spooky, compared to my "normal" dream states.

I'm very tired now, and I'm working pretty good today, but it's starting to wind down and I think I'll leave here pretty soon, so that I can, perhaps, take a nap.