170: Frustration, packing, and insomnia

The past two days I have been debating just what it is that gets me in such frustrated moods. I have begun to analyze myself after each moment of losing my cool. Thinking what I would do if I saw someone else doing the same thing, am I in the right/wrong, and does it really help anything.

I have found, shockingly, that in most cases the answer to these questions is no.

I have accomplished a decent amount of packing, considering I do not move until Saturday and it's only Wednesday. I look to wrap a lot of stuff up Thursday night.

This not sleeping until 1:30-2:30 thing has to stop. Hopefully once settled into the new place I can begin to relax.

Getting professional!

So now that the car, apartment, and vacation are all set. I am now in what I will start calling "Phase Four" of my 2011 self-rebuilding project.on

I have been at the Hilton for a year now, and I have been somewhat conservative and reserved in getting to know everyone in the other departments. I feel that this has set me back in that everyone has such diverse hospitality backgrounds and, more importantly, a wide range of contacts in the industry. Time to network.

After seeing LinkedIn start to really take off, I decided to take my profile more seriously. The training tools and newsletters that they provide turn out to be very useful. If I'm going to progress on my Hilton experience, now is the time to put some weight on the accelerator.

My LinkedIn profile

Tonight I am all excited about this next part of getting life back to a healthy balance of fun and productiveness, but in reality this will not start until moving into the new apartment and getting some sort of net access set up. So this could be on standby for a few more weeks, but it's about to get serious!

Reset button

In just a few weeks I will be changing living arrangements. This will definitely be a new experience, and one that I welcome with open arms and am anxious to see begin.

There are many reasons why I have been looking for a new place since April/May. Many of those reasons can be read on this blog if you look at past posts. Yet, I'm confident that everyone will walk away and be able to go out and have drinks the next week. In fact, that is precisely what part of this is about. With what I've seen over the last year, it's made it hard for myself to justify hanging out when I have been so down over what this apartment became. I'm confident that it's the same on the other end. This is good for everyone involved.

This also presents an opportunity to expand on new friendships and conquer other areas of Columbus that I have not explored thus far. It's maybe a little untraditional, definitely a learning experience, but I am optimistic that this will be a much better arrangement.

I've been more than prepared for months upon months now. I'm not looking to divulge too many details at this time, but I am looking forward to seeing this play out.

2 nights in MB for $169!

Through livingsocial, Rachael and I just booked a couple nights in Myrtle Beach at the Springmaid Beach Resort.

This $169 deal ($195 with tax), includes:

• Oceanfront room view
• Breakfast buffet each morning
• Two All-day fishing passes on the Springmaid Pier
• Two All-day mini-golf passes
• $20 in arcade adventures
• $40 worth of coupons for surrounding businesses.

This is great on SO many levels. Obviously, number one, we get to go to the

beach. Number two, all of this stuff being included at a great location . Three, we are right betwe

en the grand strand of MB and Surfside/Murrell's Inlet!

I also eyed some beach soccer on this list of activities. I should probably pay attention to the fact that these activities appear to be for children. Though when has that ever stopped me?

Will hopefully have this booked and taken care of by tomorrow morning. All that is left is to determine if I will be taking a vacation day on Friday or Monday. Broadway, Sandbunker, Mako's, Murrell's Inlet, Angelo's, and the rest of Horry County.. here we come! In a time with so much negativity, this is one of the few positives!

End of the road

In late 2005 she became mine. On Saturday, 8/6/2011, I gave her up.

My '03 Ford Escape served me well over the last five and a half years. Daytona Beach, the mountains of North Carolina, Charlotte, Grand Rapids, Chicago, Panama City Beach, West Virginia. Her last big trip being, appropriately, Myrtle Beach.

I made the trip to North Carolina, who knows, atleast twelve times. While working at Arby's in Bluffton I would get off work, go home and pack some belongings, and immediately leave for NC. Most of the time this was between 1:00 and 2:00AM. So I would arrive just as the sun was coming up on Saturday. I-77 become a home away from home. Learning the hard way that the 60mph speed limit through Charleston is heavily enforced, the familiar faces at the toll booths along the WV turnpike, stopping at the travel plaza in Beckley for Sbarro's or Burger King, looking out over all the lit-up small towns while passing through Fancy Gap. Then of course, knowing NC-421 was only a few more miles ahead. Or would I hit 64/90 at Statesville? Few people can say they've done what I've done; the Escape was my partner through it all. A few notable memories:

Driving on the beach in Daytona and driving through St. Augustine, Florida along A1A.

There is no way I can ever forget all of those trips on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Visiting Boone, NC, multiple times, and descending down switch-back roads to a basin between mountains where the sun had just begun to set over a lake. Then picking up four stranded hikers on the way back up.

The lake in Hickory, NC.

Trips to Charlotte for four separate concerts. As well as a stop to Carowinds.

Me and two friends sleeping in the Escape for two nights in a Walmart parking lot in Panama City.

If I had to get away while still living in Bluffton, I would drive out of town or to truck-stops and sleep in the back.

Definitely provided many crazy nights here in Columbus. Through Crew matches, downtown adventures, and had been a way for me to stay somewhat sane through the hard times here. Some of these stories will never be re-told.

Last year over Labor Day the Escape took a friend and I to my favorite place in the States: the coast of South Carolina. The place that has shaped most things about me today, as well as my plans for the future. She couldn't make it back though. The radiator and thermostat both blowing out on the drive back through South Carolina. Though she continued on before finally quitting just south of Statesville and stranding us there (with family, luckily) for a day. She was never the same after that.

It might be a clever name for a popular mid-sized SUV model, but that Escape was literally my escape for so many years. I don't really consider this the closing of a chapter in the book that is my life, although that is the more fitting of analogies. I think of it more as eighty or ninety pages filled with short, incomplete thoughts, stories of realized and unrealized dreams, and lengthy paragraphs of extremely detailed run-on sentences.

Those who know me will tell you that is exactly how my mind works and communicates these days. I guess we know where credit is due. That car let me escape reality, and ultimately create a reality that is uniquely mine.

172,157. Goodbye, my friend.