Too Many Choices...

Today an offer by SMS took me by surprise... A good friend of mine, also earnest to change his life to be something good and productive. He seems to be achieveing it quite well... Anyway, the offer was to submit my resume to his company - prestigious commerial broker and give me a shining reference for an excellent position.

I was rather taken aback, random acts of kindness of that magnitude are only ever spoken about by a thrid person's story or something you read about... I will give him my resume and I will do my best in an interview, if I get one. But I have sereve misgivings about my abilities to achieve what they require. I had a period a few years ago when I climbed too high far too fast and I crashed and burned spetacularly, it has taken me a fair few years to get back to where I am supposed to be.

Of course the revision of the plan is going again... So currently I have...

1. Buy a place and do the research etc to get a good deal.

2. Keep up with my job, the new software training went badly and I need revision to do it.

3. My holiday in May... which I badly need to recharge my batteries.

4. Do (and pay for) the ESL teaching course and looking into having my finances run themselves while I am away...

5. Renovate and rent out my current home within 3 months.

6. Deal with the work cover claim I may put in at work for the hearing loss from an incident last week...

7. Make a really good plan to entertain my friend Doug when he gets here... I want to do all I can, he and I have not seen each other for more than a decade and I want to make sure it is a good time for him (and me)

8. Stop myself from throttling my parents when they castigate EVERYTHING I do or voice a thought about - Faaaaaaark! - What is with that??!

9. Insomnia that is destroying me thru the 4 hours a night sleep I am getting...

10. Well I am sure there is a 10 but I cannot recall what it is...

Siiigh Obi needs a siiign!

From crazy to Insane in 3 steps

Dad cut an ad out of the paper the other day and thrust it under my nose as he tends to do, speaking about it directly is not a thing he likes to do...

Anyway, this particular ad was interesting for a change.

Learn to teach ESL and go to

one of 100 countries to teach!

The ad said a seminar was on the following day a block from my work... so... I went and it was great! So I enrolled. For those who know Obi Won the the real 3d world, a) I am sorry, your secret shame is still safe! & b) you know me to be impulsive.

So now, "The Plan" is revised again for the 97th time this week to...

1. Settle finances

2. Learn to learn ova people my engerlish

3. Travel the world and live in China, Russia, Costa Rica or Columbia or in fact almost anywhere!

4. Die at 90!

Oh A special Hello to my new readers in Canada! Drop me a line and say "Hello Eh!"

Oh - also the place I wanted sadly is now going to auction and the reserve price is outside my budget... But there is already another choice!

Obi Won the crazy stakes News at 11!

The light! It buuuurns!! aaaaaawh!!

Well the online dating things is gonna be 86'ed at the end of this week. I finally got a call afrom a nice girl who has sent me a few messages and we made a tentative plan to meet up next Friday but to be honest I really don't think the call went all that well... She sounded - I don't know, well 'strange' (talking on a mobile with power walking is just not a good impression, it sounded all forced and as if she was out of breath, she may well have been) and I am think a first meeting at a big loud salsa dance night REALLY isn't my cup of sangria - if you know what I mean, so I may try to change the date to another night or ditch it altogether.

Speaking of the altogether - I think I should give up on everything ALTOGETHER. I mean really for the last 10 years I have been putting in 110% effort for a 3% return. Exhausted and have nothing but stale old stories to show for it. Well I do have a permanent scar one girl gave me but that is a story for another blog...

Here is the revised plan.

1. Sell everything!

2. Pay off debts

3. Move to a tiny town with more then 5 syllabs in its name

4. Buy a dog and call her 'Misses' and grow my own food.

5. Take us a hobby that costs nothing and takes up all my time...

5.a speak to as few people as possible and don't make eye contact.

6. Die at 90

No Mess no fuss...

Siiiigh - I am over being over it... Wish the next bus to my home planet wasn't 60 years away...

Obi on time...

In A Harsh Spotlight

The week has been like running a marathon with the shoes on the wrong feet... You could be like Yannis Kouros and just run barefoot but I do not advise it.

This week was punctuated by glass falling from my office building onto the main street in the centre of the city. It was from the 14th floor - I am on the 41st. I looked down ad saw the road sealed off by police cars.

Also a chipped tooth from an apple of all things and then a quick fix by my wonder dentist Mr Zhang, and if I am not mistaken, ZHAN is tooth in german!! Ah the irony of life...

What else?! Started new software training for work, seems all our programs are to be replaced by this new one, which because it is new, is not easy to use and frustrating! Ah well at least I don't play golf...

Sailing - yes I think I am gonna visit my uncle and take up his open offer to learn the ropes - literally... I have wanted to for a long time but I felt guilty because I had nothing to offer in return. I am 50 / 50 kinda guy... but he is a nice fellow and only really wants some company and the heavy stuff done.

Now to the reason I started to write this today, my pre-ample was rather directionless. I registered months ago on a Online dating site, with no effort in or responses out. Now it seems they have put my profile into a weekly 'great guys' email sent on mass to the ladies on the site. I have had quite a few notes of interest this week and I am looking at the profiles and the women from which they came. It amazes me I have such interest, (tho I realise advertising is everything) but aside from that I wonder what I said in my profile to gain their interest in the first place... I will keep you all posted...

Obi calling number 52!

Impatience is not a flower

Damn I am impatient! Life has opened a door but currently it is only just starting to swing open... and I am thinking about the next door. I dunno some times I just think I should slow down and enjoy the scenery.
Sweeeedish Classes tonight were great but easy. I need more of a challenge. I may ask Mindy - yup that is my teacher's name (she isn't Swedish, good guess) - If she can assign me something really tough.
I am thinking a lot lately that I really need to clean out the cupboards and start fresh. I was listening to my friend Doug the other day when he said that we are all responsible for our own feelings and our own situations. Sure I knew this, but sometime it has to be said out loud to be remembered and put back into focus.
Work is a real ass pain at the moment, since the office move and the nice new view and equipment etc, I have lost interest in a big way that I may not be able to recover from. Cross my fingers and keep the image of my nagging mother foremost in my mind and I reckon that will just about do it to keep me determined to stick it out... But I will need a new distraction, carrot to dangle in front of my nose to compensate.
I have 16 weeks until I am free for 3 weeks holiday. Which I have decided to take in Vancouver and in California, but to be honest I am at a point where I could through my hands up in the air and go to anywhere, a cardboard box or even Sweden for 3 weeks and make some head way with the language (and babes) tho in my experiences Swedish women are cold distant and impossible to attract, so all being even in this world, I may come back kicking with the other foot! ... Geez I hope not, I would have to change my whole wardrobe then...
Siiigh - I need a sign from the heavens to tell me what to do next coz I surely don't know and mostly don't care at the moment. I should care but I figure the word 'Should' has caused more heart ache and wrong decisions in all history than anything else so I avoid it now...
I think I may just sit back and see what life brings me next – I will give it a month and see…
Obi a Sign!

Expected the Worst ... and...

Well the car in the drive way at my oldies went down far easier that I thought.
I clocked up 200 km in the first day and now this happy camper is off to La La Land.

Neighbours, the 3rd in 7 years in the unit beside me have just had a baby form the sound of the crying from the second bedroom. Good luck to em, can't say I like 'em at all, the neighbours I mean. They have lived in the place next door for nearly a year and never said one word to me. Considering with live within meters of each other you would think they woulda moved in and introduced themselves. I even knocked one day I knew they were home but after a few minutes I realised they had no interest in answering the door. Hope that bloody child causes em both hell! Assholes!

A great friend recently introduced me to a friend of his. I thought I chattered away well and the banter was witty, but I think I was coloured by a few too many beers and shooters and more made a fool of myself and embarrassed my friend. I hope I am just a little paranoid, but I would hate to make this friend feel uncomfortable or have him regret introducing me to his other friends. Call it the phase of the moon or the second guesses of an inebriated man, but I should have retreated a few drinks earlier. Awh well the clarity of hindsight and all that...

Obi quizzical

Goodbye So Long and thanks For All The KMS

Paraphrasing Douglas Adams - I say good bye. Leaving this planet and going back to my own.

It has been a horrible day and a week the felt like running on a mouse wheel. But it is finally over. My 6 monthly review is at 2pm today and I pack up my desk into a box and start work in the new locale on Monday.

I pick up my new car tomorrow, a modest priced car that seems comfortable and good on the fuel. I am sure that Bessybelle - my previous car will be pleased for the rest. through all the 17 years I have had her she has been - well the car... She has taken part in a suicide and speeding, law breaking and rescues. Bye bye Bessybelle.

My back, so the Doctor tells me is a soft tissue injury and needs only physiotherapy. I am gald about that. I will do as I can to strengthen up the muscles and get rid of the intense pain.

Speaking of intense pain - my mother and father good bless them are annoying the shit outta me. Their suggestions or offers of assistance in generally are never what they seem. In actual fact they are commands and the ONLY WAY of doing things. Any attempt to think otherwise (about my own situtaion or delimma of the moment) is treated with contempt and abuse.

"I need a new car badly, had the same one for 17 years it is dead". - "Why do you need a new car? Just get a $3000 dollar car, that is all you need." I think deserve is more the word they mean.

"I want a dog I have decided". - "Why get a dog, ya cant take care of yourself properly - how are you gonna take care of a dog?!"

"I am feeling really tired at the end of a 44 hour work week". - "You are fat lose weight, no one will love you in the state you are in, get fit NOW!"

"I need to clean up at home a bit". - "God your house is meesy, you are so diusoganised, how can you expect to get through life like this??!"

"I am thinking of a holiday." - "Can you afford one?! don't waste your money travelling over seas, just go somewhere quiet, get your life together. Dont waste the money going over seas!"

"Mum. Dad. I think I might study something in my spare time and do something, you know, something different and fun to get the cob webs out of my brain..." - "Go back and finish your Insurance dipolma, do something practical, not frivilous! get your life organised!"

"...thanks for the ideas, but I think i will go what what I have already thought of..." - "Why did you ask for in the first place??! You should do (insert what ever the hell it is this time) and start getting yourself together!"

Now...

I think I have my life together, I think it is together, lumbering along as it does but still it is mine and okay.

I believe I am reasonably well organised - no better or worse than most.

I am confident I am doing somethin gwith my life, despite what they believe and say.

God - What is up with that??!

"All I really want 'em to say to me is, "Well what ever you think is best" or "That sound good" or "Go for it" or "You have put some thought into that sound like"

Seeking aproval from the parental units unfortunately is an inbreed thing - we grow out of it, or it kicks the shit out of us. I think I jhave just finished the latter... Not telling them anything anymore ever...

Nope never happens

Obi good to me...

Birthday Boy

Happy birthday to me... shhhh. I got thru an entire day at work and now one even knew! THANK GOD.
The normal introspective tour on my age and expected achievements by this age slipped my mind this year. No wife or ex wife, no kids or any such contrivance. No job busting my balls, just one that frustrates me but is rather underwhelming on purpose. (More later on that) Not much of anything actually that previously I have expected of myself of this age. What I believe would mean "fit in".
I am standing tall and saying ‘still single’ at 36 is not a curse, still know I have lots to learn and lots of things that keep my attention and many, more irrelevant and unhealthy things that don't anymore.
Tomorrow I start Swedish partly coz I need to finish something I started, partly because the mysteries of Sweden still catch my imagination, and no, that ain’t vacker Svenska flickorna, altho I do catch myself staring some times mostly with beer eyes... and partly because I was jibbed by circumstance out of the opportunity to stand side by sideski with a friend and study the mother Russian tongue.
News just in – My buddy Doug will be in the great southern land in about 5 weeks. To start the adventure and tour around the world beginning here! The adventure will include a sky dive trip to Nagambie – A Fatman invited of course… Maybe paragliding in Bright and I dunno a few daze at Torquay and the southern coast. Maybe a ferry from black rock to the other side of the bay… Boy! I am full of ideas.
My back has been inspected the CAT scan is at the doctors. I am reluctant to ask him what the verdict is. Maybe he will see that I am spineless and my attempts to join civil society are all for naught – my evil plan dashed – hope so, I am so good at being a rough headed slobby kinda guy… sigh – natural talents at their finest!

Obi Devolving.... and lovin it!

Bitten

...The old joke goes...

Guy walks up to a stranger with a black dog

and guy says. "Does your dog bite?"
"No" replied the man, "My dog does not bite."
The guy kneels down to pat the black dog.

The black dog turns and bites him viciously.

The man recoils and exclaims, “I though you said your dog didn’t bite?!”
The man replies evenly, “That is not my dog…"

I was bitten by a dog myself many years ago now and no matter what I do, it still hasn't healed.

Obi brave