Winter 2011 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2012 (Mar-May) /
''Long-Vacation'' 2012* (Jun-Jul) /
''Lost-Summer'' 2012* (Jul-Aug) /
''Lost-Autumn'' 2012* (Sep-Nov) /
''Lost-Winter'' 2012* (Dec-Feb) /
''Lost-Spring'' 2013* (Mar-May) /
''Lost-Summer'' 2013* (Jun-Aug) /
''Lost-Autumn'' 2013* (Sep-Nov) /
''Lost-Winter'' 2013* (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2014 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2014 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2014 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2014 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2015 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2015 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2015 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2015 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2016 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2016 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2016 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2016 (Dec-Feb)
Following the journal entry dated 18-24 June 2012, the subsequent entries recorded in these ''Lost Seasons'' segments are reflective of events which took place when ''routine'' journal entries were not being kept-up with.
The time-gap was initially the result of what I'd referred to as my period of ''Radio Silence''... whereby I'd unintentionally fell behind on posting regular updates due to the circumstances mentioned from thence forward, namely, the result of having to shut down my computer system out of unavoidable necessity as part of my period of departure from the ''State of Hawaii'' to my subsequent ''transitional'' re-establishment in the ''Commonwealth of Virginia.''
This ''black-out'' period would regrettably extend into a much longer period of lost time, as I had allowed numerous other developments and circumstances to interfere with and hinder my commitment to update & maintain my personal records of activity (as will come to light as everything unfolds during this ''reclamation'' phase), which led me to adopt ''alternative'' methods of continuing to keep track of my experiences and exploits. Although the original intent for these alternate methods had simply been as a way of ''keeping current'' until the computer equipment I'd shipped ahead of my departure had arrived and had gotten ''established'' & ''connected,'' because of all of my misestimations and needless delays, I kept progressively getting bogged down further-and-deeper into backlog.
So what follows after the last dated entry of June 2012 are first the ''detailed'' record of what I'd originally planned on posting once I'd found myself in a situation where I could again focus time & attention to this activity -- then once those inclusions have been completed, all subsequent entries from thenceforth will be indicative of where various ''physical records'' (primarily in the form of calendar notations, as well as other types of loose ''jotted notes,'' ''sales/service receipts'' of various types, and ''dated photographs'') were resorted to in order to refresh cloudy memories and to compile the most accurate chain of events as they occurred.
In each instance, up until the point where the backlogged information has all been brought completely up-to-date, the day during which the actual typing of the new ''old'' entry is taking place during this ''catch-up'' phase will be plainly noted. Also, since a considerable amount of explanatory ''exposition'' is also necessary and unavoidable due to the loss of normal structure (as a result of not having maintained this journal with regular & timely updates), there will likewise occasionally be such disruptions in the normal flow of each dated entry for the purpose of supplying ''back story'' and additional insights (past or subsequent): such notations/inclusions will be indicated ((in this manner, i.e. enclosed within ''double parentheticals)).
~ (November 22, 2013 - Friday)
June 3, 2013 (Monday)
My mother had gotten upset with Gracie for throwing down a towel still soaked with the vomit she'd wiped up from our bedroom floor Saturday afternoon (June 1), when I thought it might have been food poisoning: I was more upset about the fact that the reason the stuff had even gotten on the floor in the first place was because she brought a plastic grocery bag to the bedside and upchucked in that, then set the bag on the floor and allowed that stuff to spill out.
Re: the 1.5 Year Time-Gap...
June 7 - 9, 2013 (Friday-Sunday)
Gracie overheard me talking to my mother Friday night (June 7) saying that Gracie was making too many negative impressions on me and that I could not see us as a couple: motivated by that knowledge I spent the weekend at work writing up a list of the many problems I'd been having with her and not really improving on since she came to live with us, most notably her tendency toward emotionalism and her lack of attention to her living surroundings and personal hygiene.
''Weekend in Review''
June 10, 2013 (Monday)
Finally activated my ''TRACFONE,'' motivated primarily by the fact that it would be the only way I could set the time, because the way they have it set up you can't even use all of the ''basic'' features that don't even involve ''telephone'' service until the ''phone'' is actually activated! ((I would then find out later that there was no way to set the device to ''24-hour'' time! -- and that I'd also be at the mercy of whatever ''signal'' they send through their network in order to adjust the times between ''EST/DST''.))
June 11, 2013 (Tuesday)
Called another ''family meeting'' in order to sit Gracie down and review all of the areas of concern which is making me disappointed in her, and by the time I'd expressed things and raised questions about them as she followed along with a copy I'd ran for her to hold on to, I pretty much had told her that I wasn't all that interested in trying to sustain a relationship with her, saying that I was about ready to have her sent back to New Jersey... but again my mother ''intervened'' on her behalf in hopes that the girl would ''get it'' this time.
June 12, 2013 (Wednesday)
[[*Knowledge of ''Food Fight'': (0_o) Whuuuuu...?]]
June 15, 2013 (Saturday)
In trying to see about getting sound to come through my system on the ''warranty exchange'' hard drive (which had received the default standard classification as ''C:'' as a result of the ''cloning'' of the ''I:'' drive, but was not being recognized as the default drive), I again tried reloading the circuit board drivers, to no avail: this was also when I'd made my next infuriating discovery that (1) any drivers I'd tried to install on the system would not install on the ''C:'' drive, no matter how I tried to bypass it, and (2) they still would not load on the ''C:'' drive even if the ''I:'' drive had been disconnected because (3) the ''C:'' drive would not boot at all *UNLESS* the ''I:' drive was also connected to the motherboard at the same time -- it would *NOT* boot ''independently.''
June 17 - 20, 2013 (Monday-Sunday)
After feeling the pressure from us to get into the work force, Gracie had finally yielded to the recommendation to start putting in applications at some ''fast food'' restaurants, and not only did she receive a call from one of them on Monday (Jun. 17) to come in the next day as a ''new hire,'' but ironically had also received a call from my employer to come in to see if she'd be available to accept employment from them to help cover an open position that needed to be filled.
When my mother drove Gracie to the restaurant location off of one of our highway exit ramps in the west end of the city the next morning (Tue., Jun. 18), her still not having that ''state ID'' prevented her from getting hired that day.
But again, as irony (or ''God''?) would have it turn out, Gracie's state ID had arrived in the mail while she was going through her ''new hire'' orientation, so I had her call my scheduling supervisor the next day (Wed., Jun. 19) and inform him that she finally received her ID (they'd been pleasant enough to accept her application for employment even as her ID processing was pending), and she was instructed to come to the hiring office the following day (Thu., Jun. 20), whereupon she filled out her necessary paperwork, was issued the appropriate attire for the job, and was instructed to report to my jobsite for same-day training from 13:00-18:00, which was part of my (temporarily, in the interim) scheduled workshift, which meant we would be working together and that I'd be responsible for her initial training on the job... and I'd have to be suffering from a headache during the entire process. Gracie would continue to work the remainder of the week and through the weekend, and I would still be dealing with headaches and computers (sometimes the same thing).
''Full Week in Review''
June 24, 2013 (Monday)
Finally got to talk with ''Patrick'' (who was our site supervisor when I'd gotten hired on just a few days before he was leaving) after having searched online during the past several days trying to find any/enough ''publicly shared/provided'' information about him or his family in order to get in contact with him (I had to reassure him that this was how I was able to track him down), and I asked about the status of the extra computer monitor which had been sitting in our worksite office unused/unclaimed ever since I'd been working there, and he said that it was not his, as I'd been told, but that it might have belonged to another former co-worker of ours with whom we still had regular contact. When I explained that I was expressing interest in purchasing the monitor because I was planning on salvaging all of the spare components and building a ''family computer'' for all of the household members and we were in need of a working monitor, he said he'd ''give'' me one of his extra monitors and arrange for it to gotten at work.
June 30, 2013 (Sunday)
Finally announced the ''official launch'' of my new video-embedding webpages in ''Angelfire,'' having completed the presentation to satisfaction. ((Although over the next few months I would be making minor tweaks & adjustments & expansions to make it as good an experience as I could, given my limited knowledge and abilities.))
July 1 - 5, 2013 (Monday-Sunday)
On Wednesday (Jul. 3) I tried to cannibalize what I could between the two now-useless computers (my old ''HP'' circuit boards and my mother's ancient ''Gateway'') and I rode them out to ''PC Land'' in hopes of having the second guy I'd talked to the last time (who also happened to be the store manager) look at everything I had and to give some ideas as to what could be done to ''reuse'' it by putting it together as a completely ''new'' system -- because I definitely did not want that AMD ''Athlon'' processor going to waste, and I wanted the ability to ''reinstall'' my factory-loaded system software with all of its ''package'' suites, since the ass-wipes on ''Melrose'' did not include any system software reinstallation abilities neither as a media disc nor as a ''recovery partition,'' so that if anything went wrong with my ''switched-out'' system I'd just be in a ''S.L.O.T.'' (a Sh*t Load Of Trouble) While there it was discovered that I actually could've kept my system exactly the way it was, because the ''capacitors'' which had caused my monitor to blank out were part of an ''add-on'' video card I'd known nothing about, and learned while they were testing my board that circuit boards already come with the ability to power monitor displays! (Although there was still that one ''bad'' capacitor on the motherboard, it had always been bad to my knowledge.) But after weighing all of my options between reconfiguring the ''cannibalized'' components into something ''new,'' or just purchasing a ''refurbished'' desk unit that was all set to go-- and upon realizing that either option would've eventually ended up costing me about the same, I opted for one of their ''refurbished'' models, which in fact, after having made the purchase, turned out to be a somewhat better deal in the end, because they included with the purchase a pair of ''Windows 7'' system reinstallation discs -- one ''32-bit''; one ''64-bit''. It was just starting to rain (lightly) before I'd left the shop to strap the boxed unit down to the back seat of my motorcycle.
At the turn-off onto our street from ''Melrose'' to drop the computer unit off at the house, some ass-sucker damb-near rear-ended me; the same thing happened again at the next block on the opposite end of our street as I was returning to the house from the worksite, where I'd gone after dropping off the computer, to retrieve the set of computer ''stereo speakers'' I'd taken to work with me to use whenever I had Gracie's laptop and I wanted to watch movies on it (...when it rains, people phukking forget how to phukken drive!).
The rain had become intensely heavy later in the night, so much so that I told Gracie that I would not be trying to take her to work on a motorcycle in such dangerous conditions, so she called a cab (which ended up costing her $10, all because she had to dictate the route along ''Melrose'' when she could've just let the driver do his job and take the more ''direct'' route via ''Shenandoah'').
Around Midnight or so (Thu., Jul. 4) Gracie called with what I'd interpreted as yet another of her ''Let Me Bother My Boyfriend During His Sleep Time When I Want To Pretend I Can't Figure Things Out On My Own'' episodes regarding traffic control in and out of the main gate; it wasn't until she returned home nearly catatonic that she explained that the area was experiencing a massive flash flood which was so severe that water came up to about ''four feet'' inside our office, and the only pair of cars that had remained in the parking lot that had not been taken to higher ground were completely submerged... and the new site supervisor of our team, who was arriving to take over the next workshift, had completely ruined his vehicle when he got trapped in the flooding waters when drove onto the property. I rode out to the site later in the day to return the keys Gracie had accidentally brought to the house, and by this time the water had all receded, so I never saw any actual flooding, but did witness the aftermath; while there I went to retrieve my coin box and salvage my canned soft drinks from my locker.
Of course Gracie kept going non-stop about how she didn't want to go back to work later that evening, and I had to keep impressing upon her that she'd just gotten this job and was hired on my strong recommendation, and that because of this ''my'' reputation was hanging in the balance -- so she did go back in to work (again, by cab), and while at work yet another flash flood came rolling into the area, although this one was of (relatively) considerably less severity.
When I went in to work myself the next day (Fri., Jul. 5), I surveyed the damage and tried to determine what items were still salvageable: remarkably, the ''weather radio'' (and later, Gracie's cheapie little $10 wristwatch) which had been underwater was still functioning; also the three wall-mounted computer monitors were still operational, as was one of the three computer towers that had managed to remain completely above the waterline unlike the other two -- also the computer monitor that I'd been interested in but which nobody had ever gotten back to me about had also been destroyed, so now there was that monitor gone, but also I'd still not received the other one I'd been promised.
''Full Week in Review''
~ ''catch-up'' entry date: (January 1, 2014 - Wednesday)
July 10, 2013 (Wednesday)
Now that the office was getting somewhat back into shape and we did have power in the electrical outlets, I'd asked my mother if I could take her microwave oven, which she kept unused in the garage, over to our jobsite to allow us the ability to cook meals at work now that we'd lost the site microwave in the flood, and she allowed it, so I strapped it on the back of my motorcycle and set it up -- but there was still need for a refrigerator to replace the one which was also destroyed in the flood.
July 13 - 14, 2013 (Saturday-Sunday)
Got affected with vertigo Saturday (Jul. 13) so I asked Gracie if she would cover my workshift for me... was still feeling woozy the following day (Sun., Jul. 14), so she agreed to take my workshift again.
''Weekend in Review''
July 17, 2013 (Wednesday)
Accompanied my mother to ''High Point, North Carolina,'' where they decided to do ''Family Day'' this month, after which we paid a brief visit to my grandmother in the care home, then stopped off for a while to visit with her brother Danny (who claimed to have not seen me since I was a toddler) because he said he had a few rabbits he had shot and wanted to give to her.
August 9, 2013 (Friday)
Spent the previous day (Thu., Aug. 8) searching for answers, trying to figure out how to switch the ''name'' of the ''I:'' drive to the ''C:'' drive, since in my ''system properties'' the ''warranty replacement'' drive is identified as ''D:'', but when I couldn't reconfigure it (from what I understood, it might not even be possible), I called ''Microsoft'' today to ask about getting an ''official'' installation software package of ''Windows XP,'' and I was told by the representative that they no longer stock ''XP'' for sale and that if I wanted it I'd have to find it through another ''independent'' source....
~ ''catch-up'' entry date: (February 18, 2014 - Tuesday)
August 14, 2013 (Wednesday)
Decided on a whim ((cannot recall exactly how or why or what I had been doing prior to the impulsive decision)) to take a brief excursion along the ''Blue Ridge Parkway,'' originally without any intent on snapping any photographs but finding a few instances which captured my attention. It wasn't all pleasant, however, because one particularly beautiful shot that I'd wanted to video record of a Tiger Swallowtail in flight below an off-the-main-road overlook parking area had been completely ruined by some previous disrespectful pricks who decided to use such clean & pristine relaxing places of meditation and contemplation as their personal trash dump in one way or another.
~ ''catch-up'' entry date: (January 1, 2014 - Wednesday)
August 15, 2013 (Thursday)
After a week of working on these computers, I had managed to successfully connect both of them together as part of a ''home network,'' which I thought would be more problematic due to the fact that each one was running a different operating system.
Rode out to pick Gracie up from work, but did not realize that I'd arrived about an hour early (mistake #1); as I arrived I saw that the ''back gate'' which is supposed to be kept closed was open (because there are some employees who activate it from inside the gate but who neither have the patience or decency to re-shut it) -- and since the flood had taken out all of the camera monitoring operations around the property, leaving no way of telling what was going on at any given moment, I decided to ride through the gate with the intention of having it corrected from the control room... but trying to be all ''noble'' and shit, since the gate could be shut from inside the gate, I decided to double-back on the narrow strip of road and head back to the gate to do just that (mistake #2), and in my ''ego'' and my ''impatience'' I let myself roll-off onto a small driveway of loose gravel with too much of an elevation to carefully pull back onto the main strip of road (especially not at the ''angle'' I was attempting to do so), which resulted in my ''laying down'' my motorcycle and coming to the realization of just how heavy the piece of machinery truly was. I ran to the office, explained what had happened, and was going to ask Gracie to help me lift it back up, but fortunately an official worksite pick-up truck with a couple of male employees had arrived at her location right about the same time and I asked if I could enlist their assistance instead. Of course, what had once been in ''pristine condition'' since 2008 now had ugly scrapes & pock marks all along its right side.
August 19 - 23, 2013 (Monday-Friday)
Was highly pissed off Tuesday (Aug. 20) when I'd learned of how many features had been stripped from ''earlier'' versions of ''Windows Movie Maker''... (why da-phuk do computer software developers and website designers continue to pull these frustrating and infuriating ''Bait-&-Switches'' on us!?)
Wednesday (Aug. 21) was another ''buffet gathering,'' only this time we got thrown a curve ball, and instead of going to their usual ''digs'' (''Golden Pig Trough'') they agreed to get together at ''Hibachi'' -- sadly, I was not all that impressed with the food there.
On Thursday (Aug. 22) I just went riding just for the hekkuvit, then along the way decided to as far as the ''Natural Bridge,'' where I mulled around in the visitor center / gift shop for a look, picking up some additional ''local attractions'' tourism-oriented information on my way out.
Friday (Aug. 23) I decided to see whether I could install ''Windows 7'' on my ''Hitachi'' hard drive, and the installation was successful, although I was still uneasy about doing it because I'd used the ''authorization code'' from the refurbished ''family computer'' to activate it.
''Week in Review''
Winter 2011 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2012 (Mar-May) /
''Long-Vacation'' 2012* (Jun-Jul) /
''Lost-Summer'' 2012* (Jul-Aug) /
''Lost-Autumn'' 2012* (Sep-Nov) /
''Lost-Winter'' 2012* (Dec-Feb) /
''Lost-Spring'' 2013* (Mar-May) /
''Lost-Summer'' 2013* (Jun-Aug) /
''Lost-Autumn'' 2013* (Sep-Nov) /
''Lost-Winter'' 2013* (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2014 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2014 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2014 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2014 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2015 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2015 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2015 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2015 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2016 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2016 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2016 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2016 (Dec-Feb)
