Simplify

There is a recurrent theme in my life that is literally screaming to make itself heard:


Simplify.

A few years back, I hastily deleted this blog... the result of emotions running high and me not knowing what I really wanted. I figured out afterwards that I really wanted to continue blogging, and that this blog was part of my legacy. It took a few months, but I painstakingly restored all 245 posts, but not the comments. The comments would have taken longer, and there were people (commenters) that I quite simply did not want to link to again.

Now, 18 months after having restored this blog, I am considering deleting it again. I don't post here any longer, and actually rarely post to the two blogs I maintain now. I will give this until my birthday... until the end of April. Then this page will go the way of all things.

Until then, Enjoy!

Sorry

Under Construction!

I'm currently changing all of my images over to a new server; photos shold be restored by Monday Tuesday or Wednesday, maybe.

Revisited: No Paige Hemmis Pics Here

This blog is currently being restored from an archived copy. In June of 2006, I decided to pull the plug on my blog, moving on to bigger and better things in the real world.

However, as one blogging friend described it, "Blogging is like crack to me..." and I returned to my addiction just a few short months later, under a different URL.

I recently procured the original URL to this blog, and am in the process of restoring it, month by month. You will notice that there are no comments at the end of the posts. The formatting from the archived copy makes it difficult to restore those, and so I have chosen to leave those out at this time.

In the meantime, enjoy the quirkyness!

ARCHIVES - 2005

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

ARCHIVES - 2006

January

February

March

April

May

June

So This Is What It Feels Like, Part 2

This could only have happened because of my lack of understanding. Or Maybe a chemical imbalance. Or maybe that cruel bitch known as karma.

Ask anyone who knows me (This may be hard for you to do, since you don't know anyone who knows me, but just pretend, OK?). For at least twenty years, I have been a very outgoing and social person, often going out of my way to introduce myself to people who are new to my neighborhood, or to cultivate business relationships with other companies, etc. Most jobs I have worked since my first in 1985 have required a good degree of interpersonal skill. I thrive on meeting new people. But something is happening. This weekend is a good example of it.

Lately, the amount of things I need to accomplish has been overwhelmingly larger than the time needed to do them. I am getting further and further behind. I am developing a phobia with talking to people on the telephone. I just don't like to do it all that much. I'm selling one of our cars, and someone called up tonight asking for information, and I just couldn't wait to get him off the phone. And while selling our car might be a grand pain in the ass, trying to find another to buy is going to be worse. Why? Because I am not a people person right now. I watched the movie "The Aviator" the other night, and I could really relate to the desire to lock yourself in a room for several days and shut the world out. I wouldn't, however, wander around naked and unbathed like he did, watching movies over and over and peeing in bottles. I'm not THAT eccentric.

This all may be a by-product of starting a new job as well. After working for my previous employer, who paid people a poverty wage, I'm not used to a company who is paying me pretty well for what I do. I keep expecting Donald Trump to materialize and say "You're Fired!" Add that to the car selling/buying woes, the ever-growing to-do list, and my blood-sugar problem, and there's probably a very good explanation for me feeling the way I do. I feel empty and depressed. I think I need a motorcycle.

This has been an unusual look into one of Nilo's inner demons, which don't get much air time on the blog. And there is a pretty good chance this post will be deleted when he gets feeling better.

Goodbye

Thank you for 14 amazing months; use the links on the sidebar to navigate this site.

Can I just Say...?

I have found the most wonderful program! I had literally spent hours trying to archive my blog into Microssoft Word and Adobe PDF formats, with limited success. However, cruising through the BloggerHelp boards, I found a cute little diddy (totally free, too) that completely mirrors your blog! Images, comments, links and all!

If you wnat to immortalize your blog experience into a very nice looking HTML package, I highly recommend WinHTTrack Website Copier.

You won't be disappointed...

On a Related Note...

Alex the Girl is taking a final bow.

She is largely responsible for yours truly even having a blog. I followed her site for probably a good two years before dipping my feet in the blogging pond, and the rest is history... well, literally.

Her content has such a unique blend to it; a reflection of her fascinating background and many travels. Born of these things is a truly amazing perspective on so many different items, events and places...

Check her out before she's gone for good. Especially her older writings.

Even More Festivities...

Tonight, after the drinking, dancing, loitering, carousing, etc., started to slow down a bit, I noticed a rather large buzzing sound in my house. It wasn't:

• A large bumblebee
• My ears ringing
• The clothes dryer telling me the laundry is done

It was, however:

• The blower fan of the air conditioning unit, trying to start.

I went downstairs and popped the cover off of the AC / furnace unit, and tried to figure out what was going on.

Having a dangerous delusion that somehow, because I have tools, that I am a handyman... I went to work on it. I removed the circuit board and tied it to another part of the furnace. Then, stared at the blower fan assembly which, I swear, must have been welded into place by a small colony of Lilliputians. Finally, I located two screws which, after having been removed, allowed the entire fan assembly to slide ride out of the furnace. The fan motor was covered and imbibed with dust. Apparently, at least one of those furnace filters wasn't doing its job.

So, after having vacuumed a lot of dust out of the motor, and blowing the rest out using an air hose, I got the motor to work again, but it took a while to spin up. So me, being Nilo the Tool-Man Taylor, decided to remove the motor completely for an extensive cleaning. You can seriously save a couple hundred clams that way, and when you have four sproglets with hungry little mouths to feed, a couple hundred clams appears much larger.

So that is my weekend project; getting our air conditioning back to normal before the next heat wave...

And to think, I was going to be working on some pictures and stories for you tonight... Silly Wabbit...

Now Starts The Viewing...

Good Evening, Ladies & Gentlemen...

This is your dying host here. It is now just minutes away from 8:00pm Mountain Time... Let the synchronized drinking begin!

Yours truly has cracked open an ice cold Dr. Pepper for the occasion, being that I gave up alcohol 17 years ago.

Imagine yourselves in a tavern where drink and merriment abound... A coffin placed across two of the tables with yours truly inside.

You're invited to dance on top if you feel like it... especially if it's pole dancing, cause I've got a great view from where I am...

As far as being able to chat tonight... You can try to contact me at nilothegreat@yahoo.com, but I'm trying to figure out Trillian... all this while holding a toddler on my lap...

Update: 8:40pm

I've given up on trying to figure the chat thing out, my baby son is having a screaming "pop a vein in the forehead" tantrum, and I'd swear he's trying to take the keyboard away from me... so, no chat tonight. But between tonight and tomorrow, I'll be adding little occasional posts for the viewing, along with some parting words at the end.

Have a wonderful evening, and try the peanuts and pretzels in the bowl over there on the bar...

Coming Clean

Okay, time for me to lay my cards out on the table here.

First off, I'd like to say "Wow". I was honestly stunned (and flattered, of course) by Kingfisher's comment to my last post. And I hadn't intended to sound like a martyr, and I hadn't thought I had sounded like a martyr, but looking back I can see that yes, there is certainly a degree of "Drama Queen" to the recent posts. My apologies.

I've seen people stage blog deaths for attention, and I've seen others just walk away, leaving the rest of us wondering what the hell happened. I didn't really want mine to go that way. So when I picked a date, and advertised it on my header... well, there's a story behind that. Pull up a chair, this will take a minute or two.

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First off, many of you have probably guessed that my actual name isn't Nilo. And while I'll forgo revealing my secret identity here, I will tell you where "Nilo" comes from.

Five years ago this Friday, a young woman in our area died in a car accident. And I don't expect you to understand why or how, but this girl who I had never met before (and likely never would have met) affected me more profoundly in my life than almost any other event.

Her name was Nila.

She was someone who was a friend to everyone, and would often reach out to others in quiet and unassuming ways. My original intention was to honor her through my words and the way I live... to keep a part of her alive in me, which is something I still try to do to this day. And this blog was originally going to be part of that effort, except that somehow, over the past year I have allowed it to evolve according to the expectations of others, and have not been true to my own self. The parts of me you usually see, are the parts that generate conversation in the comments log, or high ratings through the StatCounter. I found myself wearing a mask, often disguising much of who I really am, for the sake of being accepted by my online peer group. I was whoring myself out for stats, and little tidbits of praise. And I've become less and less comfortable with tacking Nila's name to this whole venture, because so much of this just isn't her.

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And while my real life personality isn't drastically different from what you see here, there is just so much more of it that you don't see. An example...

Several years ago, after having worked a late shift at a local mall, I drove down to pick up some dinner at Burger King at about 10:00pm. I recognized a man sitting on the bus bench nearby as a man who worked in the Utah Industries for the Blind store inside the mall. I pulled up next to him and asked him where he was heading. He was going home, which was located on the other side of the Salt Lake Valley... This trip would have taken probably a good hour during the daytime, but by now a lot of the routes had stopped running for the night. There wasn't any guarantee he would be dropped off anywhere near his home. And so I picked him up and drove him home, which trip took probably about 45 minutes out of my own schedule, but I didn't think twice about it. I have a big heart for people... especially people in need. That fact didn't especially shine through in my blog, did it?

Most of you know how quickly my language can degenerate... especially while driving among the great idiots of the road. However, did you know that this Mr. Potty-Mouth here also teaches a children's Sunday School class? And I am goooood at it, too. I'm the teacher that all the kids like, because I bring candy as bribery for good behavior, and often use Fisher-Price toys as props. And apparently it works, because pretty much all of my kids can remember most of the Old Testament stories that I've taught them.

So just a couple of examples of the different parts of me that are missing from the blog. Moving on...

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Also conspicuously absent from the blog are a lot of details from my home life. From what I've written, it would be hard to tell that my marriage has been teetering dangerously close to doom over the past several months. This is in conjunction with the mid-life crisis which started right around my birthday. And yes, even though I've joked about it, I've been weathering a full-blown mid-life crisis... at age 37. So I guess this means that I'll probably only live to be 74?

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In addition to all of this, I have a wonderful friend that I met in the beginning days of my blog... who has become so much more than just a friend. (Sorry guys... she doesn't have a blog; you can't check her out.)

So over the past year, we've maintained a correspondence, getting to know more and more about each other, sharing many of the same interests, outlooks and philosophies on so many different things. And I realized that I felt so much more for her than just friendship. She sees things in me that I could never have seen in myself, and she has a way of making me feel like I'm ten feet tall and bulletproof... like I can take on the world, and win. She has made me feel more alive than I have in years, and I am so very grateful for that "awakening". She has become so very dear to me, and I love her to pieces! And for those of you who think this spells "certain doom" for my marriage, I invite you to read a little further.

This friend of mine woke me up to the fact that I can and should expect more from life that what I was currently experiencing. I didn't get married to trash the whole thing in a divorce some eleven years later. My wife and I started examining our relationship, and started communicating. We've made some changes, and are starting to head in a better direction than we were. Part of these changes involve my wife (who has been a stay-at-home-mom for 9 years now) rediscovering herself, and setting some goals for herself. I'm watching her start to come alive again, and it's a wonderful metamorphosis to see. Of course, this means even less time for blogging...

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And Sleepless Mama? Sssshhhhhhhh! That other blog is still somewhat a secret... *chuckling*

The "other" blog is one I started last September, when I thought I was going to ditch this one. It only has about four or five posts, and shows a lot of what's missing from this blog... the deep and reflective side.

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Sometimes, instead of trying to remodel and re-decorate a house, it's better to raze the whole thing and start fresh. This is really what I want to do with the blog: The name will have nothing to do with Paige Hemmis, and will include more of a full-bodied version of me than this one currently does. I will, however, be taking a sabbatical of probably a few months before this "resurrection" (or perhaps, more appropriately) "reincarnation" takes place. When I do get it up and running, I will notify those on my blogroll of the new address...

And honestly, I doubt there will be another 9 or 10 posts. Maybe it's a tiny bit obsessive/compulsive, but I wanted to end on a nice, round number of posts... in this case, 250. But I think I'll let that one go.

I had originally wanted to do a "blog funeral" on Friday night, but I'll actually be ice skating with my family that night. So maybe we could do a viewing on Thursday? I had wanted to do sort of an "Irish wake" type thing, and one of my dear online friends suggested having everyone take a drink at the same time, since the logistics of getting us all together in a bar are nigh near impossible. The idea has terrific merit. And so, for those of you who want to participate, the "Drink" would be Thursday evening, 10:00pm Eastern time, 7:00pm Pacific time... and of course you can do the math for the two time zones in between. Your choice of drinks: Liquor, beer, soda, juice, milk, water... whatever. Let's have fun with this. I also have chat capability through Yahoo Chat so far, and if my baby son isn't too fussy Thursday night, I'll be able to do a little bit of that. Oh, and a last will and testament... and a few parting shots maybe... ;)

Wow. That was a long post for me! Does this shed a little light on my intentions?

The Final Stretch

The header from my blog for the final week.

The Valley of Indecision

And so I'm thinking to myself over the past week, re-reading some of my earlier posts as I archive them into PDF format "Self, no matter what you say, you're gonna miss this"

I'm going to miss having my spirits lifted by people who I've never met face to face, and probably never will; I'm going to miss having my point of view expanded by a good discussion; I'm going to miss the friendship and camaraderie that I've found in each one of the people I've met through this endeavor.

"So if you're gonna miss it so damn much, why not stay?" you may ask. Welllll... There have been some changes in my life recently, changes that demand a lot of time and focus. Rather than just fade away, and leave my blog out there to rot, I've decided to just take it down. A good clean exit.

And so one week from tonight, at the stroke of midnight (Utah time), the blog will be no more. There'll be a "tombstone" for about a week, and then "No Paige Hemmis Pics Here" will be nothing more than a memory... or a bad aftertaste for some.

I should have about 10 more posts to wrap things up, so drop on by in the next few days, ya hear?

Nilo

Ding Dong...

>...The evil sonofabitch is dead!

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi killed in air raid

I have not a single molecule of remorse for the violent passing of this madman, save it be that his death wasn't a lot slower and more excruciating.

It would have been nice to have him suffer as he made others suffer. But perhaps that is yet to come...

If I were an Iraqi, I'd bury this asshole clutching a bag of pork rinds...

I have been ousted!

Just when I was getting fitted for my own cloak and scythe...

I was talking to the older guy who works at the convenience store down the road yesterday, and apparently 14 people that he has known have died since March! .....14!!!

Let's give it up for the new "Vortex of Death"..... Vern!!!

I will be claiming my title as "Vortex of Dread Disease". Kind of ironic that I want to go back to school to become a doctor, no?

A Parental Question...

Something I have been pondering for several months now...

Is there some bizarre law of physics that makes my baby son's poop shoot straight up his back and out of his diaper, both counteracting the law of gravity and staining one of my favorite shirts in the process?

Enquiring parental mind wants to know...

My Alma Mater is no more

I just barely found out that my old high school has been demolished. Four years of heaven and hell, smiles, laughter, blood, sweat and tears has been reduced to a pile of rubble.



Apparently, my little hometown is burgeoning into quite the city... a large, snooty rich-person's city, with a huge $26 million high school in the works.



Goodbye, little high school... barely 25 years old. Goodbye sleepy little town that once I knew.