Well, I couldn’t think of anything really important to write about. I do have some ideas, but none have come to fruition yet. So, desperate times call for… yep, you guessed it; a music blog entry! It never fails, because music is always a good subject of discussion. However, I’m gonna keep this simple and just give a top 20 list of my most-played songs as of this month. I’ll try to link these to Last.fm samples so my readers can have a listen. Let’s dive in…

1) Theocracy – Martyr (Last.fm sample)
2) DragonForce – Revolution Deathsquad (Last.fm sample)
3) Elis – Where You Belong (Last.fm full track)
4) DragonForce – Heartbreak Armageddon
5) Theocracy – Wages of Sin
6) Nightwish – Deep Silent Complete (Last.fm full track)
7) Harmony – Kingdom
8] Lunatica – The Spell (Last.fm sample)
9) After Forever – Equally Destructive (awesome YouTube video!!)
10) Theocracy – Mirror of Souls (Last.fm sample (cannot do this song justice!)
11) Kalmah – Time Takes Us All
12) Firewind – Falling To Pieces (great YouTube video!)
13) Nightwish – Wish I Had An Angel (great YouTube video!)
14) Nightwish – The Kinslayer (Last.fm full track)
15) Theocracy – Absolution Day (Last.fm sample)
16) Threshold – Pilot in the Sky of Dreams
17) Theocracy – Tower Of Ashes
18) Within Temptation – The Heart of Everything
19) Kraftwerk – Popcorn (*) (my blip page on Blip.fm)
20) Firewind – Breaking The Silence (YouTube Video)

(*)This version of “Popcorn” is not really by Kraftwerk. I’ve tried researching the cover artist and narrowed it down to a couple of people. Any more info that anyone has would be greatly appreciated.

To the readers: What are a few of your most played songs lately? What’s you’re all-time favorite songs? (if you can limit it to a few; If not, don’t worry about it! )

Cheers!

Something different here than my usual blog entry. One of the reasons I went back to trying to write regularly is because I want to grow as a writer. In general, I’ve always been told throughout my life that I’m pretty good at writing. One of the ways I think one can grow in this area is to remember recent experiences and put them to words as best as one can.

So, we’re at the end of the week, and it’s been a rollercoaster of emotions and I’m just glad it’s been ending on a good note.

Saturday and Sunday, I went through some personal drama on one of the social sites I frequent. This drama got way out of hand, as misunderstandings are prone to doing. This resulted in losing a friend and hurt feelings between the friend, my wife and me. I won’t go into it any more here now but, because of that, I decided to step away from Dailybooth. For good… so I said… but read on to the epilogue for more thoughts on this.

Monday, I walked into work and got handed some bad news that made losing a friendship a walk in the park. Hearing about a co-worker/friend getting killed is, putting it lightly, not the best way to start the work week. I tried toughing it out that day, but my mind and emotions were at war with each other. When I had to go into her office to get some figures for a report, when I saw her writing on the pages and I thought about the hand that would never again put pen to paper… I finished up work early and got the hell out of there. My time at home was spent reflecting and praying.

Tuesday, I started healing slowly from all of this. I tend to bounce back from things pretty quickly. I’ve often wondered if that meant I didn’t have much of a heart. But I think that’s far from the truth. Things went well at work. At home, I was getting back into Facebook more and I was gratified at seeing comments of well-wishing from friends and family. I blogged more about my feelings here, and I have to thank everyone who commented on that blog entry. Your support is awesomely heart-warming!

Wednesday, work went surprisingly smooth. I’m pretty sure this wasn’t chance. This was prayer at work; God giving me some breathing room to heal. And I spent some time thinking more about everything. Especially Dailybooth, and wondering if I truly made the right decision. I visited some of my friend/follower pages; there are people on that site, that I’ve gotten to know, that like me and want to get to know me more. I thought about that, and other things too. And I did some quick clothes shopping.

Thursday, I had the day off, so I slept in a bit later than I wanted. Consequently, I was slightly rushed to get ready and go to the rememberance service. It was at one of the bigger Christian churches in the area. It was a beautiful service; lots of people, yet very simple and to the point. I liked it and, knowing the kind of person that she was, she would have loved it.

Now we come to today. Work was great! My work area is looking better that it has been for a while, and now I’m relaxing in bed and writing this entry. It’s good to see that the week ended well. I can only hope to write more recaps in the near future, even if the endings aren’t always going to be sunny.

I did say something about an epilogue, didn’t I? Well, about Dailybooth, I’m leaning more towards going back, but with the presence of mind that I need to be more balanced with all the interests I juggle in my day-to-day life. I usually am somewhat thick-skinned; I’ve dealt with a lot on-line. The problem happens when I latch on to one person and make them a primary focus online. I lose focus on not just everyone else, but myself as well. I’ll have to be more careful of that in the future, and let internet friendships take real-life time to grow and ferment. I will give myself more time to think and heal before making a decision. Whichever direction I choose to go, I also want to keep blogging daily. I think this is a good discipline.

A time of healing is different for any situation, any time, any person. But what matters, partly, is what we do with that time. The other part is how we conduct ourselves in our dealings with others, and ourselves as well.

Cheers!

About a month ago, I bought this little curiosity while we were at Target getting some fans for the house. It’s a Rubik’s 360 puzzle, as the title of this suggests. I managed to, more or less, master it and I thought it would be a good time to give all of you my impressions of it.

Design

First, I will touch on the overall construct. The Rubik’s 360 is comprised of three spheres, one inside of the other. The inner and middle spheres spin around on two different offset axes relative to one another. The inner sphere houses six colored balls, when the puzzle is reset, and has one hole for the balls to enter the middle sphere. The middle sphere has just enough space for the balls to roll around between inner and middle, with two holes – one for each track of the outer sphere. The outer sphere has six compartments, with colored rings corresponding to the colors of each ball. There are three of these compartments to each hemisphere, which has locking tracks that are controlled by two knobs on both sides of the puzzle.

Operation

The object is to maneuver the colored balls so that they pass through the hole in the inner sphere, then either of the two hole in the middle sphere, and finally into their corresponding compartment in the outer sphere. This would be an easy thing for anyone to do, but Mr. Rubik won’t let this be a minor task. Embedded in the inner and middle spheres are weights located opposite of the holes. This turns the 360 into a gravity manipulation puzzle, and it makes it a challenge to maneuver the spheres to get the balls where they need to go, especially when one has to work with two offset axes.

Difficulty

Even fighting between manipulating gravity and offset axes, the Rubik’s 360 is not terribly hard to solve. I won’t give away the solution here, since one can use either strategy, or pure dumb luck, to solve the puzzle. I will say this, however; fiddling around with the puzzle and observing how the spheres move on each axis is the vital key in successful completion.

Final Thoughts

My verdict on the Rubik’s 360? Despite the name, this puzzle is not to be confused with a combination puzzle like Rubik’s infamous Cube. It is a gravity manipulation puzzle that has more in common with tabletop marble maze games. It is challenging to be sure; however, with enough concentration on physical movement and simple observation of the gravity mechanics and axes of movement, I could see someone solving this in less than a day. It took me a couple of hours the first time I tried it. Even so, the beautiful construction and ergonomic design make it something that is pleasing, almost relaxing to play around with, even if one can solve it in a few minutes. I find myself coming back to it just to admire it, if not resetting it for another go-round.

Highly recommended for almost any age!

So far, the last two days at work have treated me very well. I’m not complaining. Things were so bonkers for me over the last five days, so any calm after a storm is very welcome. The only real stress I had recently was due to the announcement of the wake for my co-worker. I found out that it’s set for tomorrow. Nice advance notice, eh?

When I found this out, still at work, I quickly did a mental check of my wardrobe at home, which is sadly quite limited. I don’t think I’ve really had to dress-up since my grandpa passed away four years ago; the suit would be slight overkill for what would amount to be a informal employee gathering, albeit to honor one of our own.

So, after work, off I went… to Wal-Mart. In retrospect, I could have gone to Kohl’s or some other store more known for inexpensive clothing. The point is, I hate shopping for what I deem “occasion wear”. Think of this body type: 5′4″, slim at 134 pounds (depending on the time of day and/or how much water I’ve been doused with!), long arms, wide shoulders and a neck that’s a hair less thick than my head. Couple that with the need for 29×32 pants, and the arduous treasure hunt is on!

I had to settle for 30×32 black straight jeans (but I hate wearing a belt!) and a black dress shirt that, if it weren’t for my neck and shoulders, I can get lost inside the thing! I do have black clothes already, but the jeans are very frayed and the two black dress shirts I still have are more… grey-ish… now.

Do you love, or hate clothes shopping? What articles of clothes do you find it hard to hunt for?

In my last post, I had said that I was healing from other things aside from my personal internet nightmare. The other thing I had to deal with happened last Thursday, five days ago. I didn’t find out about it until yesterday.

I went into work yesterday morning. All seemed ok, people were busy with this, that or the other thing and it looked like a normal early morning for my workplace. I clocked in, got situated, and started walking back to my work area. A co-worker stopped me, asking me if I had heard about what happened to someone else who worked at our store. No one, I told him, mentioned anything to me. He then dropped a sentence than no rational person wants to hear:

“She was murdered in her home this last Thursday.”

“What?!” I said, though it came out choked, because I had to restrain myself from nearly screaming it out. I waited for him to tell me he was just kidding. This particular guy is awesome to work with, but a joker at heart. But he wouldn’t really kid around like this, I thought. I was right about that, as he proceeded to tell me that not only was she killed, by gunshot, but her daughter as well. This was done by her daughter’s ex, with whom they had secured a restraining order against quite recently. This guy then made sure no real justice could be meted out, by killing himself. The only life that was spared, thankfully, was her daughter’s two-year-old son, who was found crying in another room.

This incident, of course, is affecting all the employees in the building to varying degrees. It affected me greatly. This was an associate with whom I had worked side-by-side with on numerous ocassions. I’ve joked, told stories, argued and talked shop with her for a few years. I even helped train her in the position that she was currently working in when this happened. She was a no-nonsense, gruff lady and wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, even if it hurt to do so. At the same time, she had a warm side to her that spoke volumes of her willingness to care about people and bring out the best in them. She wasn’t hesitant to point out a mistake, and she was also willing to admit to mistakes when she made them. She was a good leader, a great co-worker and spoke to me on occasion as a friend would.

I didn’t give her name here, out of consideration for her family as I do not know their wishes. All I can say is that my heart, thoughts and prayers go out to her family for their loss. I, personally, will miss her greatly.