ineptitude.

do you ever feel like youre simply spinning your wheels? like youre seeking some grander purpose thats just beyond your grasp? ever contemplate if you actually do anything of merit with the time god has allotted you? or like youre just drone-ing along, a worker bee in a cosmic hive, fulfilling your day-to-day responsibility, a cog in the proverbial machine... do you ever walk away at the end of the day questioning if you've actually done anything of real worth?

im having one of those days.

dont get me wrong. im not unhappy, im not sad or depressed, im just feeling a little... well, inept. i chose that word for a reason. its about as perfect as it gets for my current state of mind.

ive been thinking about design more and more recently. partly because im actually being afforded the opportunity to do some in limited degrees, partly because im not really doing it. partly because im starting to yearn for it again... that friend ive lost touch with over the last 3 or 4 years... stupid economy...

and the more i contemplate... the more i experience...

the more focused my vision gets on the areas in which i truly want to design...

i wish id finished my second masters - urban design. i really do enjoy it [or wish i enjoyed more of it to be more accurate... sigh...] i was so close, i could almost touch it... seriously, 9 credits... thats just... nothing. thats a light [please note the formatting irony, haha! i kill myself...] semester in grad school. i could have done it with half my brain turned off... and yet... life tends to take us on a path inevitably not the one we set out on. im not bitter, not by any means... but ive been thinking a lot about urban & landscape design. along with my typical musings of architectural, graphic, and web design of course. and well, im a designer. there's no escaping it [granted, i didnt add any adjectives to that term. ill be the last to ever admit anything ive designed is "good" but design itself, alas... you are my curse...] my mind is incessantly toiling over some idea or another... im also a doer, ive certainly discovered that. i have a passion for getting my hands in the actual work. ive gotten hooked on the high that comes with accomplishing something you can touch, see, something with resolution. to whatever degree that may be... and i miss design... ...did i ever truly have it?

i digress...

[substance]

i know i havent update anything on the house recently, and well... thats because things have stalled out for the moment. as far as updates go, i can happily report that the roof is finished. whoop! [for all those fellow ags out there] they finished the roof about a week and a half ago and have since been getting the interior of the house thoroughly cleaned and prepped for interior re-construction. and then theyve had some rain delays [will it ever stop raining in cincy?] and so they should be getting to actual work very soon. in the meantime we've been working with the flooring guy to pick out flooring and we've done that successfully as well. we're going with a light-mid-tone neutral carpet throughout the majority of the house and then in a few key places we have a medium-dark hardwood laminate that will replace vct, tile, etc. as needed.

we received some discs in the mail yesterday from rainbow with pictures of the carnage and devastation that has become our house being gutted, and then some pictures of the roof going back on - my first actual glimpses at the roof of our house! [3 years too late?] the roof looks fine enough to me, im satisfied. but the interior... it hurts going through those pictures... knowing how much we put into that house, and seeing what its been going through... i may post a handful later, we'll see...

at work things are slowing down a little, but at the same time, gearing up. i feel kind of in limbo between projects right now. one is winding down and my services are limited on it, another is starting up and my services arent needed yet. and in the in between, ive been working on revising our standards, templates, documents, etc. to stay current with the better ways we've discovered to do things [as well as overhaul the copious grammatical and spelling errors of my predecessor.... heh. hes a really nice guy, but he certainly was not an English major. to that fact, nor am i. however, i do have a knack for seeing blatant errors at times.] as well as a new pet-project on the side that is filling some of my time - but i wont get into that here. truth is, its an internal thing, any information i could potentially divulge is more or less restricted, so im pretty well unable to say much on the subject anyhow.

outside of work.. karen and i finally joined a gym. we'd been talking about it for a good 2 or 3 months, and then 3 weeks ago i just, did it. i can be impetuous like that at times. just, stop the talking and do it already. at any rate, since joining and then getting back on a better diet and a supplement regime, im feeling much better physically, but im frustrated with the overall state of my physical self. 4 months outside of a gym took its toll on me. im fighting just to get back to where i was before i left cincy. which is troublesome, because when i was in cincy, i was fighting to get back to where i was in denver. needless to say, the road ahead is long and arduous, and im impatient. ive worked too long and too hard in the past to get to where i was, and now to have lost it all and feel like im starting over... its a mental obstacle to say the least.... luckily, i have all the drive and discipline in the world when it comes to working out [plus ill admit... i can be a bit of a workout junky at times. it is an addiction, although i wouldnt say a negative one, haha!] so i should have no problem sticking with it. i just hate the waiting and the time it takes to actually see results.

and other than work, and working-out. well... there's not time for much else.

saw the fam for easter and had a great time. took the mutt to the beach and he had a blast.

things are generally fine, although some things are frustrating and trying on my patience [do not even attempt to broach the subject of finances with me. seriously.] finding a church in houston is proving even more difficult than id imagined [and i have a pretty wild imagination], and i regret to say, im getting disheartened with the search. ill never find what i had in denver again, i know that. but its so difficult in texas. finding any church that isnt plastered with a denominational marker is difficult enough, finding one that actually fits... harder still. finding the perfect one, well... i wont say impossible, but i think you get the gist. i love texas, i do, but dammit... i do not like closed minded people. and sadly, we have more than our fair share.......

all in all. its just one of those days. ineptitude. yep, that does it...