I have these urges, but I am usually sated by a one-liner or statement that’s been on my mind. I have several friends that are finishing up on their NaNoWriMo projects today. A novel! Jeez. I don’t think I can keep a train of thought from derailing for that kind of length. An overactive imagination needs an outlet, though, and I have many. Lately it’s been Skyrim, but other common pastimes have been making perfumes, designing houses in The Sims 3, writing, trying to come close to the talent level of my 18-year old self at FL Studio, making stepcharts in StepMania, designing board, card, or role-playing games…I can keep busy. There’s something deeply satisfying about writing, especially on a platform like this where I can toss these words into empty space and whatever happens, happens.

Every creative outlet of mine has a muse, and for writing it is two entities. The first, my long-time muse, has been Jerry Holkins (Tycho Brahe) at Penny Arcade. He puts out the most amazingly smooth, polished work three times a week and his tone just makes me happy, his sense for when to drop the flowery language and rage-curse for a while is incredible. The second, a somewhat more recent find, are several of the writers at Cracked. What’s more, they blatantly encourage writing at all skill levels. Somehow, a website that routinely publishes lists like “The 7 Most Elaborate Dick Moves in Gaming History” has become a beacon for aspiring writers.

An article that Robert Brockway (arguably my favorite writer on the Cracked staff, incidentally) put up today got me to thinking. Three posts a week on here was the idea and that fell apart rather quickly. I get a surprising amount of traffic for how little I post, so if I were to start up again I may end up with an even bigger audience. If I were a “real” writer that shouldn’t matter, but I find it disheartening to write to an empty room. And, I must admit, the fragrance industry is short on top-tier writers and I can’t help but be fascinated with the prospect of working in that industry. So expect more reviews in the future as I sharpen my nose and writing chops.

The format would be something like so: Each round, there is a theme, as vague as “Favorite Album” or something like “Guilty Pleasures”, “Favorite Release of the last 12 Months” or “8 Favorite Covers”. Each week, we listen to one member’s selection and review it. The order is determined at random for the first round and then the order is reversed every round after. So a big club can take a while, but there’s no real rush and a week gives everyone time to listen and write, and if everyone’s done early you can start the next persons entry. There’s a standardized grading scale to use, as well.

I’m probably gonna start this idea whenever I use up all my Spotify invites. If you know you’re interested now, let me know and I’m gonna start a Facebook group.

Even hearing that guilt is a normal mechanism for suicide survivors, it makes the burden no less onerous. The argument with myself is that I should’ve spoken to him more, let him know he had friends and we really do care and want to see him do well, and not hurt. The placating counterargument is that I’m all the way out here, and he’s so far away, how much would it have meant? How much good would it have done? It’s the pain of never having an answer to that, no matter what and no matter how much you want one. Justifiably or not, I think a lot of us share a sense of guilt.

I have had closer deaths to me, my mother nearly six years ago and my grandfather around the age of 9. But I’ve never had to deal with someone I know taking their own life. Why does it feel so different? I did have plenty of time to prepare for losing Mom, after two near-death scares and seeing her the night before she died, I knew exactly what the call was at 4:45 that morning even as I was waking up.

Perhaps it’s different because Jon was about my age, and every day I am faced with that inescapable memento mori, the reminder that I too will die; he was only 8 months older than myself. Perhaps its different because we had so many shared experiences; we were coworkers in the same department, we sought each other’s knowledge and insight on a near-daily basis. We’ve both fought drug problems. And all the stressors of life as a young teenager, with a sick mother, generally unpopular at school, no love interest to speak of, and a series of painful illnesses, led me to contemplate suicide for what had to have been a year or two, around age 14 or 15. Though I never acted on it, the knowledge that I had a plan and could end things myself whenever I desired was a macabre sort of comfort that I hope you never experience, reader.

But things eventually turned around, I’m older, wiser, and happier now than I was then. I’ve made peace with those demons of my past. I cannot help but feel like if I could find a way through those dark days, Jon could have as well; and there again is guilt, because who am I to say that? Jon was also fighting a smoking addiction and chronic pain well beyond what I dealt with. It is pain that has the most destructive effect on the psyche to me; it amplifies all those other negative emotions, and for anyone the thought of spending the rest of their life in pain can be spirit-breaking.

Did he want to be helped? In this I honestly could not say, he hid it from all of us so well that I think he felt like I once did, it was a source of comfort in the end and an attempt to discuss or intervene would be met with equal parts gratitude and derision, because they may mean well but to be honest, they have no idea. It too is unknowable, but that does precious little to quell the want for an answer.

I’m writing this in large part for myself, hoping to find some resolution, some revelation. I know I ultimately won’t be able to put it past me until I can get back to Kentucky and see his resting place. But I hope that if you knew Jon, you might get something out of this as well. If nothing else, you’re not alone in your guilt. We all feel as thought we should have done more. But these thoughts are only marginally useful and largely destructive. Now I am left more with regrets than guilt; I should have spent more time talking to him, not because it might have saved him, but because he was a friend and deserved it.

Perhaps a new year’s resolution should be to be a better friend, and make more time for those I hold dear.

In memory of Jon Michael Vance,
5/15/1987 – 11/23/2010

• Go pick up a copy of The C Programming Language. Forget about Perl, C will get you where you want to be.
• MySQL is much, much easier to get started with than Oracle, and forget about ColdFusion, it’ll be dead soon.
• JavaScript is sometimes a necessary evil. It can do things that are either way too cumbersome or flat-out impossible any other way. But don’t worry, JavaScript is becoming respectable.
• Keep all your code from old projects. You’ll be amazed how much wheel reinvention you’ll save yourself when the time comes to implement a login system again.
• All those ideas you’ve had in your head? You need to use $_POST[] and $_GET[] to make them work. That’s how you send data from page to page. GET is only useful if you only care about one variable, you’ll find yourself using POST much more often.
• Normalize your databases. If you’re storing the same data in two places, consider the best way to eliminate that redundancy. This is the cornerstone of relational databases and something you’ve got to master. You can and will make tables whose whole existence are to join two tables together via commonly used data. This is desired and much faster performance-wise. Use unique identifiers for each row, even if you think all your data will be unique; then when you need data you only have to carry that one ID with you as data flows.
• Comment your code, even if it’s after the fact. The longer you’re at it, the more you evolve and adapt different styles to do tasks, and when you look at some of your earliest code you can find yourself going, “What the hell was I trying to do here?” On the same note, try and use an identical approach to commonly used functions. For example, you’ll make a lot of MySQL queries, so using the same approach each time will instantly let you know as you scan your code that that block is a query.
  $q_selectfrags = "SELECT * FROM Fragrance WHERE (Gender = ".$gender." OR Gender = 2) AND House = '".$house."' ORDER BY Fragrance ASC";
$selectfrags = mysql_query($q_selectfrags,$conn) or die(mysql_error());
if ($selectfrags) { do $stuff; }
• On a related note, there are several ways to do loops (that is, returning a list of data), and while a do-while loop appears the easiest, and for loops are a bit more elegant, when you’re iterating through data a very efficient way of doing it is send your query, and then use while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) { blah blah, echo $row['Username']; }. It’ll do it once for every row of data returned. Instant pro.
• Keep related functions and actions in one physical file, set your forms with action=”", and give your submits unique names. Then you have whole functions that only execute if ($_POST['submitname']) { }. Fewer files to keep updated has it’s advantages, but one disadvantage is if your code is sloppy, you break a whole set of functions instead of just one. So don’t be sloppy.
• Use variable names that are descriptive enough that if you return to your code in six months, you can still tell what’s going on. $i, $j and $k are fine when you’re doing math problems for homework, but in a professional environment it just reeks of poor team skills. Others are going to be reading what you code, so go easy on them.
• Tables really aren’t that hard to learn, you pretty much just use the tr tag to specify a new row, and then td tags inside for each column within that row. Use the colspan attribute to stretch across multiple columns. This is also handy way to organize that info you’re spitting out with your while loop.
• Those paper sketches you’re doing are not going anywhere soon. There are design programs like Visio but there’s nothing as useful as sketching it out by hand, and the relationships between tables in your databases. If you can sketch it, you can code it, every single time.
• Be patient, but be creative. If you want to try designing something, go for it. It’s all useful practice for a real-world skill that can make you a lot of money.
• Listen to more Juno Reactor. It helps.

One thing I’ve come to accept is for the past 7 years I’ve been blogging, it’s been largely an emotional outlet. I have Twitter that serves admirably in that regard, and it’s taken away from the amount of other writing I do. I’m hoping I can keep motivated through 2011 and stick to the weekly schedule of Music Mondays, Wildcard Wednesdays (photography, gaming, rambling), and Fragrant Fridays. The latter will be crossposted on Il Mondo di Odore, a blog run by several high-profile Basenoters and some good friends. I’ve never been a contributor to a blog that wasn’t my own, so I’m quite excited about that.

The site is more secure than ever, I’m seeing the occasional 500 error I can’t pin down, but a refresh always seems to clear it up. I have four days to finish my final group project for Professional Writing and then I suspect I’ll start trying to get a feel for the self-set schedule and how much work and design I want to do. Stay tuned.

This month has been the best, busiest and most life-changing month I’ve ever experienced. Let me bring you up to speed.

Back in early August, Diana and I moved in together, which involved moving out of our respective cities and into a new town. We knew where we wanted to be, but even now as I sit here, looking out the window to see the sunset casting the Sandia Mountains red, it’s hard to believe that the hard work and determination paid off and we’re really here: Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The drive out here was an experience in itself, the first day was a long drive much like any other I’ve been on. The second, however, took us through the wind farms and hills of Western Oklahoma, the stark, desolate panhandle of Texas, devoid of life save for Amarillo, which seems to pop up from nothing and leaves you back on God’s definition of the flatlands just as quickly. After Texas was two hundred miles of New Mexico, and it included the most breathtaking driving of my life, through canyons and overlooking mesas and mountain ridges in the distance that evoked a thought I’d never had before, the thought that the landscape of where you call home could truly make you happy or sad, and maybe people are happier out here just because they get little flashes of the truly awesome in their day-to-day life. The fact that Diana and I still find breathtaking new views seemingly every week is confirmation in itself that we picked the right home, and in many ways I feel like I was always meant to end up here.

After moving quickly came work, four days after moving to a town where we knew nobody and had nary a box unpacked. I transferred with Best Buy to the store out here, about a ten minute drive which was great, but I was also moved into a new department, which was less great. Even though I’ve been with the company longer than a good chunk of the people here, there’s always that strange outsider feeling that comes with moving to a new store, with a new way of doing things. I floundered in my new department until two days ago when my department transfer went through, and that in itself has made a huge difference.

Perhaps more importantly wasn’t my job situation but her’s, as she couldn’t transfer store-to-store. But a little providence, maybe a sign that we’re finally getting some reward for our persistence, and she picked up a job two and a half weeks after we moved in. She starts tomorrow and it’s going to be the start of something wonderful, there’s enough artistic connections with this coffee shop that she may be able to make some contacts and friends in the local scene.

The one thing that I was both most and least excited about was the opportunity to go back to college, a real college. Most excited because it’s going to lead to a career more fulfilling than this, least excited because I’ve let myself down with regards to school and grades in the past. I decided to just take one class this semester, a professional writing class, as I’m going to be working 30-35 hour weeks all the way into the holiday season. My first day of class today, and it wasn’t until I was leaving class, walking through this busy campus with students everywhere, strangers to a man, that I realized I’m really back in school. It was an unusual feeling, something resonating that this was what I was aiming for, and for a long time, it’s been four years since I was at a real college, some of my friends from high school probably have their degrees already. It’s maybe not the cut-and-dried path that so many get to follow, but this path is slowly becoming clearer.

Finally, what may well end up being the most momentous thing to happen to us so far happened not six hours ago, at a restaurant across the street from UNM called Frontier. Diana met me there after class for a celebratory meal and she was keeping herself occupied in the meantime by writing about some of the artwork displayed at the restaurant, which is probably 250 feet long and 30 or 40 feet deep, split into five rooms, and there’s artwork displayed on every wall, if I had to hazard a count as to individual pieces I’d say between 70 to 100, mostly paintings but also a few sculptures in various media, tapestries and native blankets, and other little gems and treasures throughout the place. She and I were discussing two paintings displayed one above the other on the wall, and comparing and contrasting the two, and we got to talking about her career goals and that they’re fairly hazy right now. She enjoys analyzing the works, and writing about them, and I suggested she write about every piece in Frontier, and ask the owner if he had a list of which is which and by whom. She ended up talking to him that day, that hour, and as it turns out nobody has really asked him anything like this before. He’s setting her up to talk to some of the artists, get to know them, maybe some interview opportunities, and I didn’t mention it at the time but it seems like if the quality is there, there may be a possibility of publishing the whole thing, a Frontier art book. The possibilities are vast and the ball’s in her court right now, but the fact that the owner’s not only willing but quite interested in helping her may really get her somewhere she wants to be professionally, it’s connections like these that do more even than a prestigious degree. I’m going to be helping her with it, I can handle the photography if nothing else, and it’s exciting for the both of us.

It’s also good to know that I can still sit every now and then and write, and push out 1000+ words with no real trouble, the goal’s been an Education degree in my head for a year or two now but I can’t really rule out writing, in any of it’s forms. This is something that I’ll be picking up again almost by necessity, working in different styles again and just getting back in the proverbial saddle. The next piece is probably going to be a review of the new album by 10 Years, with a new criteria and scoring system much like how wines are rated, it’s a system I like and I’m gonna give it a shot. So, here’s a blanket apology for my recent lapses in writing, but this is also probably the best promise to myself I could make, to treat this whole experience in New Mexico for the adventure that it is, and write accordingly.

See you in September.

This post is going to be formatted a bit differently than previous entries, the good chunk of people that read this are going to be from search engines and not my serial readers. Norton 2010 was about the highest rated paid antivirus on the market, but within a few hours I got irritated with the pop-up notifications that Norton is performing an idle scan in the background. I was even more irritated when I found that there was no real way to disable the pop-ups. It doesn’t do it while I’m doing something else but it is something else I have to close every time I come back to my computer after a time, and having moved from the totally silent Kaspersky AV 2008 I’m not cool with not being able to go totally silent. Silent Mode can be used, but then idle scans are disabled entirely and you have to turn it back on every day. The happy medium is Quiet Mode, which performs scans and only alerts you during actually important things. This is limited by default to a set number of instances, like disc burning. However, you can specify that Quiet Mode remain active while certain programs are running. This is the means we will use to put Norton in Quiet Mode for as long as we like.

Right click the Norton icon in your system tray and select Open Norton Anti Virus (or Open Norton Internet Security).

Under the Computer section, hit Settings.

Click the tab for Miscellaneous Settings.

Under Silent Mode Settings, click Configure next to User-Specified Programs.

Click Add.

Navigate to C:\Windows and double-click explorer.exe.

Click OK. You’re done!

Simple enough, and as far as I can tell it’s working beautifully. I just did this myself a few hours ago but haven’t had any notifications since. If this worked for you or you have a question just leave a comment.

This how-to is cross-posted at the official Norton Community forums at http://community.norton.com/t5/Norton-Internet-Security-Norton/How-to-turn-off-quot-annoying-quot-Norton-2010-messages-idle/m-p/243532#M116572

Peter: Yeah, but you got to buy the cooler, too. That’s how they get you.

So I realized today that I’ve been sitting on the opportunity to get a free domain name through my host and have gone about three months without actually taking advantage of it. What sucks is I have a few projects I’m thinking about, but nothing I would call domain name worthy at the moment. I don’t really need one for fragrance because I have nothing to really contribute aside from reviews which I’d just as soon do on here. Speaking of, I’ve got about a dozen mini-reviews coming over the next week or so as I experiment with my niche samples, these in particular:

MPG – Santal Noble
Tauer – L’Air du desert marocain
Montale – Black Aoud
Monocle x CdG: Scent One – Hinoki
Amouage – Jubilation XXV
By Kilian – Cruel Intentions
By Kilian – A Taste of Heaven
By Kilian – Straight to Heaven
L’Artisan – Tea For Two
L’Artisan – Mechant Loup
CdG Series 3: Incense – Kyoto
Montale – Attar
Cereus – No. 7

The ones in bold have already been sampled and I’m gonna try and review all of them before bed tonight. If anyone has ideas for a new domain let me know. ;\

So, here goes nothing.

Today (Next Target 7/13) (Final Goal 8/31)
Weight: 149.4 lbs (147.5 lbs) (134.2 lbs)
Body Fat Percentage: 17.8% (17.4%) (14.6%)
Muscle Mass Percentage: 44.7% (45.0%) (47.1%)