Kr5istofer's Thoughts

I think it's only fitting that I mark the end of a sad time in my life with a change. This will be my last post on this blog. I have loved sharing my thoughts with you here at blogger, but I'm tired of the limitations. I have switched my domain notemoenough.com to be my personal blog. I invite all who have read this blog to make the changes in your Bookmarks, Favorites, Google Homepage, or RSS readers to the new location. The new blog is totally cool, and is run by WordPress, which is a blog content manager. This is an awesome tool, and I look forward to the cool things I should be able to do with it. Not to mention my own host where I can share a few things more frequently. Please visit and tell me what you think of the new blog.

Now on to why the sad time in my life is now over. It sort of goes back a long way, but I'll try and spare you the boredom, and keep it brief. I have always struggled spiritually in my life. Partially because I don't think I was ever truly converted in what I believed, and I was too curious about a few things that I traded my soul for them. I have come close so many times to feeling like I understood and could do the things I know are right. I know from personal experience that doing the things you know are wrong only make you upset with yourself. When I knew that what I was doing was against all I had believed and hoped for, I thought I was worthless. I thought I was a loser. As most of you have read and know I let that self shame bleed into my entire life. I would just want to sit around feeling sorry and not really make any changes, then I would complain that the changes aren't coming. You know, dear reader, how it is. I'm positive every human being on the planet had done that. Letting this go on for so long has cost me so much. A failed engagement, my self esteem, potential friends and some serious relationships. I never wanted to believe that my spirituality would save me if I had that all sorted out. In February 2003 I was put on probation by my bishop in my singles ward. He counseled me to do the things I knew I should have always done. He also counseled me to do a few things that I didn't want to do, like break up with my girlfriend. I resented his words for that, and my pride carried me for 3 years. I would try and get back in touch with my spiritual side, but I would only give it a half effort. I never immersed myself. I blamed everyone but myself for my misery. Those that read this that I blamed, I am sorry. Please find it in your heart to forgive me for my arrogance. I realized a few months ago with the help of an LDS counselor that I didn't have control over anything in my life. Without having control over the things I should the things that I couldn't control were eating me up. I decided to go back to church again. This time I was living in Colorado. I also decided that I wasn't going to try. I was going to do it. I want all my readers to know that once you decide to make a change in your life it really doesn't take long unless you don't give it your all. I gave it my all, and as of Thursday I have been fully reinstated to the LDS Church, that's almost 4 years since I was put on probation. I needed this so badly, a boost of confidence in myself. Everything has really taken off too. I'm making friends left and right, and I'll be going to the Temple for my birthday as I hoped . I'm so excited I'm about to burst. This one thing that most people don't think is a big deal has completely turned my life around. I'm not saying spirituality is what will make everyone happy, but I don't think it would hurt. Anyway, I don't know how to really get it out without getting too spiritual. Check out the new blog please, cause this will be the last entry made on this blog.

So it's time to update the blog. Since I last posted a lot has happened, I went to Utah last weekend to run audio for Our Lady Peace. Let me first tell you how much I love this band. In 1997 I was real bored with a few things that were going on in the music world and I got hooked on a song called Clumsy by Our Lady Peace. It was a simple rock song and good enough for me to go buy the album. Over the years I always paid attention to the songs they played on the radio from that band. In February of 2000, I had the opportunity to ge into an exclusive acoustic performance by the band at club DV8 in Salt Lake City. This is still one of my favorite concerts I ever attended. I realized that I loved this band when I saw them play a year later at the same venue for the Spiritual Machines tour. I knew all the words to all the songs they played, and for the longest time was the best concert I had ever been to with the exception of Smashing Pumpkins at Saltair a year earlier. At that concert I even knew what they would play for the first song, Right Behind You (Mafia). The energy at that show was so cool, and my friends Amber and Heather were then convinced of the greatness of the band. I have not missed a Salt Lake City performance from this band with the exception of the Big Ass Show in 1997. This makes me a hardcore fan. So last week my friend Trevor mentioned to Jenna that he was going to run sound for the band at a private corporate function at UVSC. I was like what?! He and I got in touch and he invited me to be on the sound crew for the show. I was on cloud 9 for the whole week. I got to Utah at 5 AM on Friday morning and slept till 12. There was Halo that night and there was Sushi that night and there was playing guitar with Steve that night. Awesome times. The next morning I went to the McKay Event Center at 9. I met the crew that I was working with and we set to work. We had to wait for the union riggers to come and hang the motor points to fly the speakers on. We worked all morning into the after noon. At about 3:30 the band showed up and began to do their sound check. This was AWESOME! I watched them jam and play some very obscure and rare songs. I got to say hi to some of the members and they chilled and talked for a while. It was cool and I was just blown away. That night The Jenna and a bunch of people met at the McKay and we all watched the band blow our minds for an hour and forty-five minutes. After that I went backstage and shook their hands and loaded the truck. Jenna took a lot of pics on her camera and I managed to snag a few set lists from the stage before the crew took them. Have I mentioned how awesome it was?

After I got back to Colorado the normal life set in. We had a blizzard yesterday, and I had a sister missionary flirt with me hardcore... weird. That is another story.

I put a link to DoyleSoft on my blog yesterday. Check it out, they offer a really cool knowledgebase tool and there is a news letter that is real cool read and catch up on the new IT industry news.

I really can't stand the crappy state of Wyoming. First off everything is so spread out and there are very few major towns. But when you find one you better not blink, because you will miss it. You see Wyoming likes to trick you too, you can be in the middle of nowhere and the speed limit is 75 MPH on I-25 between Casper and Cheyenne, and nobody is there to catch you when you are going 90 or so. It's like it is inviting you to go fast, and it's saying, "it's okay, you know you wanna!" So I had gotten used to this when I got to a town called Lingle which is about 15 min from the Nebraska / Wyoming state line. The speed limit slows from 65 to 30 while you go through the town, this is normal on a state highway. However there is a little trick to it and Wyoming is right there ready to pounce on you. There is a sort of jog in the highway where you turn right then less then half a mile later you turn left and continue East on the highway. The speed limit is still 30 all through this jog. But the highway becomes a 4 lane sight for sore eyes, offering you an easy truck passing opportunity. No more edging into the lane of the opposite traffic flow just to see if you can pass them at an extreme speed. Well my friends if you are ever in Lingle, Wyoming and happen to see this 4 lane gift from God, do not partake of that forbidden fruit and increase your speed to the 65 MPH promised by a speed limit sign just 100 yards away. If you do, the Destroying Angel of Wyoming will swoop down with his sword of blue and red flashing lights, and cast you out of paradise with a speeding ticket. That's right I got my first ever speeding ticket yesterday. I owe the happening state of Wyoming $153 by November 16th. But have I let this get me down? No. There is much more to my story... I managed to get to my destination in Torrington not too soon after the angle let me pass in to the land of Nod, and all seems well, but it's not. I leave Torrington Wyoming at 3:30 PM, (1530 if it were written on a speeding ticket) and proceed down highway 85 towards Cheyenne, and a snow storm hits. I was expecting this, but what I wasn't expecting was a bunch of snow on the highway and a bunch of retarded drivers from Nebraska going 30 MPH. It took me 2 hours to get to Cheyenne from Torrington which is usually 45 minutes. After I got to Cheyenne my windshield wipers were frozen to my windshield and I had to clear that off. I took off for Parker after about 10 min. The interstate in Wyoming was packed with snow, but as soon as I crossed the state line the snow pack on the freeway disappeared. It's almost like Colorado decided to plow the freeway for some reason. The roads were wet and slushy the entire way back, but it was something I could deal with. I arrived in Parker at 8:24 PM which is almost 5 hours after leaving Torrington. The trip should have taken 2 and 1/2 hours. But even this didn't get me down. When I got home my internet was not working, probably from the storm, and even this didn't get me down. Do you all wanna know why?

I'm mixing sound for Our Lady Peace on Saturday at the McKay Event Center in Orem, that is why. Nothing can bring me down from how excited I am for this chance to have yet another dream come true. Some of you that read my blog that I knew from 2001-2003 know how I dreamed of this opportunity. Unfortunately for a lot of you the show is a private gig for a company that is having a party or something, and the general public is not invited. If you can find a way to sneak into the McKay Event Center I recommend it, I don't imagine security will be very tight for a corporate event. I can hardly sleep because the excitement is killing me.

Well that is all for now. I put a new player over on the right hand side of the page where the old QuickTime player was. It's a flash player that I like a lot. It still has a few bugs that I plan to fix, but it has been a cool project for me to work on. It uses Flash 7 and if you don't have flash installed then you obviously don't use the internet much and have never been to homestarrunner.com, or you are new to the internet, and need to install the plug-ins. Good luck.

So I have been putting a lot of thought into driving out to Utah tonight, but I can't leave here till like 6 which wouldn't get me there till like 1 or 2. So maybe I'll have to skip that idea. I just wanted to do something random, so instead I'm going to a totally hip Mormon party in Larkspur. I can't wait for the root beer chugging contests, the testimony card games, and the tonz of ugly gir... wait I mean sweet spirits to get to know. Yep, this is the life. All sarcasm aside I am excited to go and chill with people. My cousin and I are planning to bring our guitars and attempt an 'intentional acoustic romanticism' on the ladies. Trust me they are not all sweet spirits here in Colorado. I think Playboy rated CU as the second hottest campus in the nation, aside from BYU. I have only been told that, and that was from a guy that worked with me at X96 who I'm sure had a subscription to said magazine, so the credibility check is good as far as I'm concerned. I hope to have a good time, one of my friends that is chilling with us tonight is moving to Provo next weekend, I'm gonna miss that kid. He is the kind of friend that looks out for everyone. I am trying to get him hooked up to live in a house that I used to live in with a bunch of my friends in Provo, that way when I move back I'll have a place to live. I hope to not get kicked out by the city again. I have been reminded of that house a lot lately, good times were had there. The girl I dated while living there called me on Wednesday and told me that she was in Denver. I got to see her for a few hours last night which was nice. It was real good to see a face of someone I knew back there in my apartment. I have met a few people in the singles ward lately that are cool, and it's easier to go to activities when 12 people say, "hey Kr5is." Cue subject change NOW! I'm sending my guitar to Idaho with my cousin. He plays in a band in Rexberg where he goes to school, but he doesn't own a guitar. He is the lead singer and plays a lot of rhythm guitar for them, and is sick of using a crappy amp and axe. So I told him he could borrow mine. I have a 1/4 stack solid state amp, the name escapes me, that can definitely do the job of a 1/2 stack Marshall any day. I don't think I ever ran it over 3 on the master volume knob and I was still always loud when I played with Steve. I don't want Cody to try and have a successful band with a practice amp to play on, and it can be used properly instead of at a very low volume in my apartment. You can hear the strings rub on the fret board louder then the amp, and that is a travesty, almost blasphemy. So yeah, things are good, and I'm feeling very anxious about moving to Utah again. I can't wait till it's almost summer so I can work outdoor at an amphitheater and be care free for a little while longer.

A mother was preparing pancakes for her sons, Kevin, 5 and Ryan 3.
The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake.
Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson.
"If Jesus were sitting here, He would say,
'Let my brother have the first pancake, I can wait.'"
Kevin turned to his younger brother and said, "Ryan, you be Jesus!"

How do I start to describe how I have been feeling lately. I have been working a lot and stressing out about work and life as usual. It has definitely been effecting me. I had a car accident a few weeks ago where I was rear ended while waiting at a stop light. No real injury to myself, but From that day on I have been going on a downward spiral as far as I have been feeling. I haven't had a natural high since January, and I don't expect to have one any time soon. I though I might have one last night, but that was quickly proven to be a false hope. I'll tell you about that later. After my accident there have been things coming up left and right that challenge my beliefs and security. The day after the accident my tire blew on the freeway in downtown Denver. That sucked trying to find a place that was safe to change a tire there. Fortunately the truck I was driving had a spare tire and I was able to change it out no problem. However if left me feeling like life had it out for me. That weekend I flew to Utah, now I know that these sort of things happen in groups of threes. I was waiting for my plane to crash, which it obviously didn't but when tried to fly back to Colorado I had to wait till the morning because my flight was over sold, and it caused James to be late. I felt horrible about it. I know I pissed off my boss even though he wouldn't tell me. I had to play catch up at work. I have felt for a long time that I have been slacking at work, which I hate. I really want to just change, but I can't. It is so hard to wake up in the morning sometimes. I don't feel rested, and I don't feel like I can do anything that day that will improve my situation or how I feel. So I just go from office to office, pressing the Caps Lock button so their passwords work and then try and feel like I'm valuable in what I do. I don't get any satisfaction from my job. I don't really feel like anything I do at the offices really helps them or my company in any way. The all seem to be happy but I don't see the end result. I need to be able to look at what I accomplished and take pride in it. That is something you just can't do being a consultant. Since I don't get any satisfaction from work then I try and get it somewhere else. I have been going to church regularly and I love the feeling I get, but the more I talk with people about what is taught the more I get upset. I don't like having to be a member of a club in order to be a cool kid. To me being a member of a church is just like that. Especially when that church teaches that others can't have the highest level of salvation unless they join. That is just crap to me. But that is another tangent all together. So in my frustration with religion I look for support from friends, which are awesome and I have some of the greatest friends in the world, but I don't really want a friend, I want a companion, and the more and more I make better friends the more and more I realize that all I will ever be is a friend to anyone. I don't have the social skill and traits to be anything more then a shoulder to cry on for anybody. I have nothing else to offer. I can't stand being in the good friend situation any longer, and I'm tired of my friends avoiding answering questions that I ask. I need to know the truth, and I don't want any more sugar coating, I want to know the stuff that hurts.. I don't want to make friends anymore because that is all I will ever have. Okay that tangent is over too...
I went to a club in Denver last night called the Shelter, it was cool there was a lot of music in each of the rooms and we mostly just chilled and talked in a private room and drank Red Bull. I thought I caught a glimpse of something in a friend, but I was over hopeful in my line of thinking. I can't hope for more then I have can I? I ended up being an ear and a shoulder, which I'm always happy to be, but I'm starting be really tired of being dependable and not being able to expect the same back. Today I slept in till 2 and then watched Garden State. I tried to think of someone I could call and go talk to and cry with, but I couldn't think of anyone that could devote the sort of attention I need. I'm not capable of not feeling things, and I can't shut off how I fell about some people in my life, but It's like they expect me to do that. I can't hide it anymore. I just want an opportunity to fell that way again. I want it to be okay instead of a bad thing. I want to know that what I feel is normal. I want to know that it's possible to have someone feel for me. I don't want to go on without anymore, and I don't want to hear any more complaints from people that cry on my shoulder when what they hope for is the person they are crying on. That seems rude and ignorant and I don't mean for it to sound that way. I love listening and helping my friends, and I always will do it, I'm just frustrated. Please don't stop coming to me.

I didn't deliver the huge post, but I promise it is still brewing.

I saw the move The Last Kiss last night, and it was really good. Awesome soundtrack, and a really good comentary on some relationships which, oddly enough I have seen some of my friends go through.

Yet another song that chenged my life, and I was reminded of it durring the movie.

***

A warning sign,
I missed the good part then I realized,
I started looking and the bubble burst.
I started looking for excuses.

Come on in,
I've gotta tell you what a state I'm in,
I've gotta tell you in my loudest tones,
That I started looking for a warning sign.

When the truth is,
I miss you.
Yeah the truth is,
That I miss you so.

A warning sign,
You came back to haunt me and I realized,
That you were an island and I passed you by,
You were an island to discover.

Come on in,
I've gotta tell you what state I'm in,
I've gotta tell you in my loudest tones,
That I started looking for a warning sign.

When the truth is,
I miss you.
Yeah the truth is,
That I miss you so.

And I'm tired,
I should not have let you go.

So I crawl back into your open arms.
Yes, I crawl back into your open arms.
And I crawl back into your open arms.
Yes, I crawl back into your open arms...