Having since finished the McKenna saga and putting that story to rest, I was finding myself with this abundance of creative energy going to waste over the course of this move from one place to another. I did not have daily access to my computer, and so I began thinking a lot about what I wanted to write about next. I had quite a few unfinished stories lying about, but none of them were really grabbing me and asking or begging to be written. That was, until one morning while I was lying in bed looking at the ceiling that an idea dawned on me.

Rather than making an attempt to further a novel or a story longer than forty thousand words, I would try and put together a series of short stories about a common subject. So, in that idea, I came up with a series called The Quarterdeck Breed. Part One is affectionately called Agamemnon, while part two will be named for a B-named vessel within the Trek universe. This isn’t all WNOHGB-related or themed, though I may throw in a WNOHGB story here and there. I’m tending to stick to the canon timeline rather than exploring a theme I know so very well. However, I am tending to want to cover as many time periods as possible, with as many situations as possible to show the various studies of leadership within this fictional universe. I’m hoping that this kind of character exploration will help me to understand the nature of this kind of writing, so in as much as it is an idea wanting to get out, I’m looking forward to this being an educational process.

We’ll see how it goes.

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Funerals are frighteningly expensive. For a whole body to go into the ground, it can cost anywhere from eight to twenty thousand dollars. Of course, there was no money left behind and the family is going to have to foot the bill for all of the expenses. Which also means that in order to keep the costs from killing any one person, the word has gone out for everyone to dig deep down and help out. Therefore, I have also been asked and so now I will make a contribution. It’s not that I mind paying or helping to pay, it’s just that there’s this expectation of me to put in around two to three hundred, where my sisters are being asked for twenty to fifty bucks. But am I going to complain? Fuck, no. Like I really need to be the asshole in what’s already a stressful enough situation. I’ll be the asshole any other time but now.

Instead of burying her whole, however, the children, in their wisdom, have opted to have her cremated. In the Bay Area, though, there must be something of a back up on bodies needing to be reduced to ash, as she won’t be ready until the week of the ninth of September. The funeral services will be handled at a church local to her hometown, and it will likely be near the end of that week. I don’t really have to worry about time off, as my boss has given me his approval to take however many days off as necessary (within reason) to go up north to be with the family. I’m thinking that I will go up for the night, pay my respects, and then get the hell out of there. As much as I love my father, I’m just not that close to his side of the family beyond my grandparents. They make me feel uncomfortable, and I always feel like I’ve done something wrong just by being in their presence. It drove me nuts as a kid, and I’ll like it even less as an adult.

Anyway, in other news… the DirectTV guy finally came by and installed both receivers. So now we have decent TV pouring through our veins once more. I can actually watch local shows without having to filter out the static in my head. The DSL installation has been delayed until the fucking middle of September, since the ILEC didn’t have the brains enough to call up to the apartment to ask us for entry into the building… so instead of doing that, they left. They said they had no access, yet I was in the apartment all damn day. It’s very frustrating to have to deal with stupid Pacific Bell over the loop install. This is why I adore Covad. Covad goes the extra mile for their clients. Until then, I am netless, but this also means that I’ll have more time to properly setup the LAN for uplinking to the new bridge router. Yay.

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Yesterday at a little past four o’clock, my father called me at work on my cell phone, telling me that my grandmother (his mother) collapsed while visiting my Uncle Richard up in Contra Costa county. Because Uncle Richard left a brief and terse message on my dad’s cell phone, he did not impart the important details, such as.. which hospital she would be admitted to and if he knew what had caused my grandmother to collapse. As I was at the computer at my workstation, I used what resources I had to look up the area hospitals to give him a chance to call around and see which one she’d been taken to.

That was the last time I had spoken to him, figuring that since I failed in finding her, that he had succeeded and further, that he was busy in trying to find his way over to the hospital so he could be there for her. In between all that time, I was feeling a rather high degree of anxiety, and hoping that it was not as bad as I was thinking it might be. She’s eighty-nine years old, and she tends to live in direct contravention to the typical rules of being old. She still drinks, and she even had a boyfriend up until a year ago, if I recall my information correctly. By the time seven rolled around, I figured it was time to give my father a call and ask what the status was.

The first thing he told me was that the doctors said she would not survive the night. She had suffered from a heart attack, and did in fact die. The paramedics on the scene revived her in the ambulance, I guess, and then when they arrived, she died once more. There was another successful attempt at reviving her, and then they put her on life support for the night. At this point, however, she had already experienced a severe lack of oxygen to the brain and was subsequently declared brain-dead. The decision was made then and there to continue to provide life support until all of the children had had their chance to say goodbye. Calls went out to my aunts and uncles, and they all drove in as soon as they could to say their goodbyes and then pull the plug. I offered to drive up to the hospital after my shift was over, but they asked me to just hang back and pray, instead. It turns out that none of the grandchildren were really wanted up there, as since there were nine kids, and twice as many grandchildren, the great grandchildren and in some cases the great great grandchildren would number in the hundreds, easily. Swarming the hospital with all the Garcias and the Juarezes would be akin to the invasion of a small city. The worst kind of family reunion ever. The story goes that had I been there to say goodbye, I would be antagonizing all the other grandkids who were within driving range and were not notified. I didn’t ask for drama, but I understood the logic of the request. I mean, my cousins are not known for their rationale to any degree. And I did not want any action to be perceived as such, either. There’s enough internal spats and grudges to last a few lifetimes. Hell, out of the nine original kids, three don’t talk to each other at all, and haven’t for over a decade. I certainly didn’t need to start my own private little war. Anyway, I asked my dad if he would give me a call when then pulled the plug, and I hung up with him.

I stayed up as long as I could, finding myself unable to really sleep until I heard, but eventually my body resolved itself to sleep shortly after two in the morning, and so I woke up to my alarm clock blaring away at nine, getting seven hours of not-so-deep sleep. I was scheduled to come in tonight at four, to cover for a co-worker who had just had his wisdom teeth pulled. I have never had the experience of having my wisdom teeth pulled, so I can only imagine that it’s a pretty painful process and the result is being drugged off your ass for a few days following. I went in to work at around three thirty, to catch up on any mail or problems that might have been in progress since I left last night. Then at about four-thirty, my dad called to tell me that my grandmother had indeed passed on. Everyone was there now, all of them were making phone calls and letting the other members of the family know. So it’s finally done, now. I guess all I can do is just stand by and wait for the funeral arrangements to be announced, and hope that I can make it up there to pay my respects.

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Do you ever notice that most of my moods tend to begin with an A, B, or C? This is probably because I’m so lazy, I won’t go any further unless it’s absolutely necessary. I tend to be amused, annoyed, awake, or accomplished. Today, though, I decided to go for a mood that was at the bottom of the list to break up to the monotony. Not that it’s not true or anything, when in fact, I am at work right now writing this up.

So what’s new, you might ask. This is almost shocking, to see so many posts from Cochrane clumped together day after day! Truth be told, I had not had much to write about. There’s only so much you can shove into a diary or a journal if you write every day. I think there was a 10 day interval that passed by between entries this month, and of course, I’m totally missing all my LJ buddies, like , for example. Just as she’s leading her life, I’m leading mine, and I just wish there was more time in the day to be able to sit down and chat with her. But, at least now she knows I’ve been thinking about her, so hopefully she’ll take some comfort in that for the time being. I’ll be done settling into my new place soon, and once that’s done, I’ll be available to chat again. This isn’t just for the Barbs, but also everyone else who’s been leaving unanswered IMs on my desktop. Let me just explain that I’ve been sleeping at my new apartment, and there’s no net access there until August 30th! So, I left all of my computers at my old place until either a) my desk gets built or b) my ISP’s field engineer drops by to install my router and stuff.

Since I have been sleeping over at the new place, I’ve also reacquainted myself with the mass amount of idiosyncratic bits of information that comes with living with a new roommate. Last night, I was feeling pretty much like utter and complete shit. I had had a conversation with an old friend online about what was going on in my life, and mentioning the whole bed buying experience brought up some emotions that I had thought I was either over or denied myself into a state of blocking it out. Either way, feeling the sense of missing something overwhelmed me so much that I was fighting off fits of anxiety. I started to get irritable, cranky, agitated, and generally annoyed at anyone and anything. When I unlocked the door to the apartment and walked in, I noticed that the living room was a fucking mess, and there was pretty much nothing or anyone I could blame for it. All of the boxes were lying about, taking up space; my TV stand was still laying in one of them, looking pathetic and begging to be built. Todd left the fan in the bathroom on, and I couldn’t turn on the living room light because he had turned it off at the lamp, instead of using the light switch at the door. It was just really annoying. I walked into the kitchen and tried to ignore the mess of dishes, and I opened the dishwasher and I couldn’t figure out if the dishes in there were clean or dirty. Rather than take a chance, I pulled a dish from the cupboard and had cereal. I sat down in my desk chair and watched the last half of a movie on DVD, while eating dinner. When Todd came home, I was so irritated with his arrival that I just lit right into him without even thinking.

I realized what I was doing, though. I stopped, and he just looked at me weirdly for a little bit before asking what was wrong. So, instead of moping around the apartment, we took a walk down to the Safeway and picked up some odds and ends. On the way back, I was ready to do a full disclosure on the day’s events and what was actually eating at me enough to just start acting like a psycho. I didn’t realize how thin of a line it was when it came to having to relive the whole failure of a marriage thing. I know I’ve written about this before, but every single time that I recognize that I’m not quite as over it as I thought I was, I tend to react in an angry fashion. What the hell happened to my resiliency? Where did it go? I recall there being a time when I would feel depressed for a small amount of time and then eventually I would pick myself up and learn how to walk again. Bah. I can’t give up, though. If I do that, then where would I be? It was not all her fault that things went the way they did, and I can’t look at this as a ‘I win/She loses’ situation. I would rather just look at it as a situation where we just decided to go our separate ways. Despite the intelligently objective outlook, subjectively… it still hurts. I think it’ll always hurt.

Which brings me to the ground floor of Cochrane’s Skyscraper O’ Emotions. What was it that was making me feel so empty? The discussion I held was about how Stephanie used to do a lot of things for me. A fact of which to mention that after she left me, I could not help but sit up and notice all of that. She did a great deal for me that I took for granted. The saying is so very true; you don’t realize what you have until it’s gone.

I’m glad Todd’s living with me, though. He’s been my best friend since high school, and I’ve always held him in such a regard oft reserved for a brother. I never had a brother growing up, but I’ve always felt that I had one ever since senior year at Leigh. I’m looking forward to this.

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LiveJournal Trading Cards Paid Account Edition User Number: 537403 Date Created:2002-04-23 Number of Posts: 98 Cochrane is the ArchWizard of Where No One Has Gone Before, as well as the Lord Holder of the Lost Network Packets. He is the paragon of the phrase, “With age comes wisdom.” Strengths: Dance Dance Revolution; Dorama knowledge; Cold-hearted nature that would chill you to your very soul. Weaknesses: Dance Dance Revolution arcade machines; milk chocolate; Women with red hair, green eyes, or Russian accents; Naval historical fiction. Special Skills: Musical Talent in both Saxophone and Voice. Cold-Hearted Bastard (6th Level). Master of the Simpson(tm) Stare. Weapons: Sarcasm, Humor, and Wit. Motto: “FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCKY FUCK FUCK!”

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Between furniture purchases, electronic purchases, food purchases, necessity purchases, and the rent and the deposit, I have blown through over three thousand in a little under two days. Of course, if I tried really hard, I could spend a hell of a lot more, but I need to save the rest of the money for taxes. I’ve opened up a money market account to dump it in and I’ll see what happens. I’ll probably only make like five hundred total, but it’s still an extra five hundred.

I bought a new desk, a new chair, two DVD players, a satellite receiver (which will be returned, as I bought the wrong one), a small TV for my room (since I put the 27 inch in the living room), a TV stand for my room, and a full size bed. Shopping for beds was almost an entirely new experience for me, since the last time I got a new bed, I was married, and Stephanie took care of all the little details insofar as that was concerned. Truth be told, I was really glad that she took care of all that so I wouldn’t have to, but then I deprived myself of the experience. Lost in the woods of mattress salesman (who could give used car salesmen a run for their money when it comes to tactics), I was about ready to just give in and go buy a futon mattress just to save me the trouble of having to endure the pain of ordering a normal bed. I didn’t realize that a new bed would run me in the near one thousand dollar range if I chose the priciest mattress, and that my back could just die if I chose the crappiest (cheapest) mattress. Having a mattress of a certain quality is required, as I do have back problems, and recently with all of the moving of the heaviest furniture and boxes of books and DVDs and tapes and other things, my back was beginning to kill right around Thursday night as I was assembling my desk. I went with one of the moderately priced Sealy mattresses, the “Back Saver” series, but I forget which one. I slept on it for the first time last night, and it was okay. I’ve been sleeping on this queen size bed for eight months, and the thing is older than I am, so I left kind of an impression in the mattress after a week. Every since, I’ve been sleeping in my little ‘groove’. It’s weird, sleeping on a mattress that actually supports me. It took me a little over an hour to finally get comfortable and fall asleep. Total cost? $557.

Now, I’m back in the world of PayPal’s Network Operations, with the alerts making noise all around me, three open issues already since I walked in the door. Feeling the return from last week makes those four days I spent moving seem like it was a month ago. Walking into the NOC this morning, I feel really disoriented and out of touch. The morning guy decided to take advantage of my coming in early to leave early to start his weekend early… and thus, leaving me to grope for information as calls pour through and the issues he was dealing with to my groggy and temporarily inept grasp of the situation.

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For those of you who know, I’m an amateur writer. As amateur as they come. I’ve actually made one attempt to sell my works and met with rejection, and considering the fact that what I write is merely my means of expression, when I did meet with rejection, I took a look at what I was holding in my hand (my chapters and outline) and I made a decision: If I was going to claim this as my art and my labor of love, then how could I possibly have a want to make money off of it? The decision right then and there was that I would simply write for myself, and publish it for all to read on the web. My writings have included a great many subjects, though all of them are based in the realm of science-fiction. I’ve tried to write a contemporary story, but I always feel like it turns out way too sappy and hopelessly pedantic. They say you should write what you know, and well, I know science-fiction a hell of a lot better than trying to describe the human condition as it is presently.

Recently, however, I finished a novella called The (Mis)Adventures of January McKenna. It’s based in whole upon the supposition in the Star Trek universe, about the “What if the Borg failed to be stopped by the Enterprise-D at Sector 001?” We ended up basing an entire role-playing game within this universe, and of course, as I always get to thinking about all the possibilities, I wrote this novella to explain the first two-three years of that struggle in the aftermath of the Borg invasion. It seems to have been pretty well received, though I only got one review. The first three chapters were written in September of 2000, and then I stopped. Of course, I was separating from Stephanie in October, so I’m sure it’s not hard to figure out why I stopped writing. I picked it up again this month and finally sat myself down long enough to just bang it all out and finish the story. The result is located over my FanFiction.net site, and begins here, if you care to jump up and read a ten-chapter saga.

I have not actually been able to finish a story like that in a very long time. I tend to start projects, get really into it, and then lose my discipline and eventually any interest in continuing the story. Since I did finish this and end it with a nice decisive ending, I’m feeling a little more confident about my writing to revisit older and unfinished projects that I let go in a similar fashion. However, out of all of those, I’m not really finding one I want to devote such a high level of concentration to (yet). I am hoping that I will latch onto something after I’m done moving, because I would love to finish a novel (not a novella) before next April.

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Todd had to be out of his place on Sunday to 18th at midnight, and of course, true-to-form, he waited until the last minute to actually pack up his room. Needless to say, Sunday night and Monday morning was quite the lesson in frustration, panic, and a rather high state of anxiety. He had a lot of stuff; not just your basic living necessities, but an inordinate amount of just pure pat-rack-like stuff. Now, I realize, I’m like the last person on this planet to call someone else a pack-rat, I mean, I could form a sentimental attachment to a damn dust bunny, but Todd just upped it to a whole new level.

I had to play the asshole (a part I play very well, I’m told) and limit the guy to only certain things. His room is nine by eleven feet, and the amount of boxes he was looking to move would have effectively turned his room into a storage space, and that would leave him paying rent to sleep in the living room. No way was I going to let that happen. Also recently, I’ve developed a new appreciation for cleanliness. New place, clean. I’m trying so hard to keep it that way for a while. So, let’s move on to the adventure!

Monday afternoon, I went to the local Uhaul to rent a truck. I didn’t want one of the huge trucks, I just wanted the po-dunk Toyota truck that looks like it would scrape bottom on a easy grade or something. It’s like 19.95 for a day and the mileage is pro-rated for fifty miles automagically, so it would come out to around $50-$60 in the end. Though this was an in-town move, it was my intention to rent the truck, move Todd’s stuff, and then the next day, move mine. Well, guess what? They didn’t have any more of the po-dunk trucks, they had the huge-ass diesel monsters that could effectively relocate three families of five cross-country, and still have room to setup a few cots to sleep in. I mean this thing was huge. It was a twenty-foot bay, if I read the dimensions on the wall correctly. It was diesel-fueled, which meant that the engine could be heard about three miles away. Not to mention, I was trying really hard to get used to the size of this thing, and also noticing how top heavy it was on very small turns. But I do have to mention the fact that I did get the thing up to about 75 on the freeway before I started to redline it. We loaded up and moved Todd in in under four hours, on the good side of the news fence. Of course, I asked him to consolidate his boxes and determine what was a baseline necessary justification for every box he wanted to bring. Even his father was applauding me, so I figured I was going in the right direction. We signed the papers that night, got the keys, and now we have a place to live! Woo-hoo.

Today, though, was my day. My crap didn’t even fill the truck a fourth of the way. I moved only large pieces of furniture and bookcases and other things that I wouldn’t be able to toss in the back of my car and scurry it over. I had the Uhaul until 3pm, so it was just a quick trip over to the new apartment.

I’m still mid-move, so I will probably be losing net access until the end of the month, when the DSL line at the new place gets installed. I’ll try to document a little more when I’m all settled in.

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On August 14th, I finally vested my first block of incentive shares of PayPal stock that I got when I agreed to work here. Back in the days of being married, I remember how happy Stephanie was to have vested, and I’m sort of recalling that feeling and understanding the true nature of that whole realization. I’ll admit that I was keeping an eye on the PYPL ticker over here at work and on my Yahoo home page at home, but now it’s an everyday thing with me. Every morning, I have Yahoo page me with the PYPL price at the opening bell, and then every two hours I get an update on how well my stock is doing. FYI, we closed at 20.30 up almost a half point from opening.

In watching the stock market, though, I can totally see how easy it is to get slightly emotional at the rise and fall of a stock’s trade value. I was cheering and lamenting, all in the span of five minutes. I stopped to take “stock” in my behavior and laughed my ass off at how I got so sucked into it. I mean, before August 14th, it was simply a passing curiosity; I would just check the closing bell results and either smile or frown, but I never quite got into it. Now that the shares are officially granted to me, I now have a financial stake. So unless the shares go below a buck, I still end up making money if I sell. Of course, now I’ve begun researching capital gains tax like it was my only educational goal in life. Reading up on the changes, how it applies, how it’ll affect me come tax time, etc, etc, etc. And this is really important information to know and keep in mind when you’re dealing with a couple thousand shares of stock and the potential to make tens of thousands of dollars with the click of a mouse button. But enough about the stock crap. I’m waiting until PayPal either gets bought by eBay or the stock hits 30.00+ to sell. I’m using that money to pay taxes and then go to Japan.

In more important news, I think I may have found a place to live. Todd and I found an apartment building over by the Westgate shopping mall. It’s in that little tri-city border area of Campbell, San Jose, and Saratoga. Everything is in walking distance. Shopping mall, grocery store, movie theatre, arcades, DDR… it’s kind of nice. We filed our applications yesterday, and according to the apartment building manager, we were pretty much assured the apartment. As for the apartment itself, it’s a two bedroom, one bath place, with a pretty spacious living room. The bedrooms are kind of meager-looking, and Todd’s room is even smaller than mine (his is 9 by 11, mine is 12 by 10). But he’s excited and I’m excited, so we’re both excited to be rooming together again. We’ve already done the research on the important things (by order of importance): Internet access, phone line, food. Due to the proximity of the building to the central office, we’re able to get a 1.5megabit/384kbps ADSL line installed as soon as we get the phone line installed. The phone line will get ordered as soon as we sign the paperwork for the rental. And then Safeway is across the street, so we’ll have food.

Parting news: Stephanie got served. She signed and returned the papers, et voila! Six month countdown begins soon.

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I’m moving again. Of course, I didn’t honestly think I would be moving before April, but the situation here at my grandmother’s place has just gotten to the point where I think it’s either her or me, and well… she owns the house. I’m twenty-six years old and I’m living with my mom. Exactly how lame is that? Feh. Anyway, I had roommates, but the fact is that I was pretty much there at the behest of a debt owed to me, kind of stupid since that was never my intention to begin with. Besides, I really need my own place again. It’s one thing to live with the both of them and stuff, it’s quite another when the way you live your life comes under daily scrutiny. When they go on trips for the weekend, I’m returned to my teenage years when I had the house to myself. Of course, these days, I don’t throw parties. If I had my own place, I could throw my parties again. Shit, I could have visitors without her bitching at me.

Interestingly and as fate would have it, Todd’s living situation is changing, so since we’re both in a mindset of moving, we’re both in a mindset of becoming roommates. Hey, just like in the olden days! Todd was my roommate for a while back in ‘95, until he moved back in with his folks to live rent-free. Life’s hard when you’re only working retail, but at least he’s trying really hard to get a better paying job. But with the unemployment rate in the Bay Area holding at 8%, it’s just going to make his finding a better job that much harder than before.

With the budget declared between the both of us, I’m looking at finding a two-bedroom place for like around a grand a month. Lo and behold, I found a whole bunch of them on craigslist.org. I’m beginning to see the true resourceful value of that site, beyond the simple entertainment I’ve been gleaning from it these past few weeks. Hopefully by September’s end, I’ll have moved out and living in a nice apartment somewhere either in Campbell or South San Jose. If we move to South San Jose, it’ll be like coming home again. For nineteen years, I lived in the South San Jose area, went to the local schools and hung out at the local hangouts. I recently visited one of them and I just marvelled at how lame hanging out there was. But hey, when you’re limited to a bicycle, your option are equally as limited sometimes.

As soon as I option my stock, I’m going to sell off enough post-capital gains to put a first/last/security deposit and then move on in. If we can get a place for a grand a month, that’s five hundred to the both of us, and that’ll be cheaper than living at the house I was in before I moved back in with Mom. Of course, I can’t beat the rent right now, but then again, spending the extra money for peace of mind is worth every penny!

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