About a month ago now I had the nice oportunity to spend time with someone I had only known as an acquaintance in the past. A friend of a friend. We were in a bar local to me, along with our mutual friend and others. Somehow the flow of the evening allowed just me and this acquaintance to be left relatively alone, for an extended period of time.

Now anyone who knows me at all well, knows that I am shy, unsure of myself, closed off and generally hold a dislike of people who aren't close to me. In this particular circumstance I found little of those features to hold true. Somehow or another the two of us chatted for upwards of an hour, without interuption or lull in conversation. Thinking back now the topics themselves have become lost, but the feeling of having someone that I could talk to remained. Sadly she was up for only the weekend, as she lives south near Boston.

As fate would supply, I had training in Boston at the end of the following week. So made loose plans to meet up with her down there and hit up a pub, or at least grab a quick dinner. The quick dinner turned into a long evening, where I was supposed to be doing homework for the training, and I didn't get back to the hotel until around midnight. Similar events took place the following night, exepting that it was her birthday and a large number of her friends were out as well.

At the end of the week I was due to head back home, having many things to take care of that had been ignored due to the short week at home. She had also planned to return to the Upper Valley in order to celebrate her birthday with her hometown friends, having been from up this way originally. All of this resulted in seeing her for 5 days in a row.

As you may have guessed, or know already, weekends have now been split, half of them I go down to visit her, half she comes up here to visit me and her family. Never noticed the gas crunch till I started driving a couple hundred miles every other weekend. But I've also never cared less.

We've been officially dating for a few weeks now, and I can honestly say I've never been happier. From that first moment in the bar, everything has just seemed to click with both of us. Each has their unique flaws and troubled past, but none of that has mattered one bit. We've both been scared, particularly with the speed at which emotions fly into the face of a unknown storm, but neither of us has let up. In only a few short weeks we've built up a relationship that is stronger than any I've had before, even after years of hard work and patience.

For a long time I had given up hope, but now it has flooded back with the loving compasion of another. With the care and sensitivity of someone who isn't judging me, isn't trying to change who and what I am, someone who just wants to be loved and cared for, and returns the favor.

These are not the overly flowery and eloquent words that I have typed in the past. These are the quick thoughts and mental dump of someone who is truly happy for a moment in time, and hoping that that moment lasts forever.

Thank you, Emily, my love.

The first of which is a word that inspires great trepidation for some, wonderous love and hope for others, and hatred of a corporate America that wants only to bleed every last sent out of your pockets in order to fill their own.

For the past couple years today has been a day of joy and happiness having all that I have really wanted and hoped for for so long. This year things fall more between trepidation and a hatred of corporate America for constantly reminding me exactly what today is, not in the sense that they want to, but in the sense of what today represents to me personally. The love and hope that I've had in the past.

By this point everyone knows the obvious reasons for the change this year. But the added kick is that today I found out she is moving on. If nothing else she has a date for the evening. My compassionate and caring side is ok with this, it wants nothing more than for her to be happy, if not with me than with someone else, or no one else if that is where her heart and mind coincide currently. But the emotional and self-caring part of me wants to scream out for bitter retribution against the injustices against me, against the part of me that cares about her deeply and unconditionally. The word "Why?" repeats over and over in my head. Comprehension eluding me as I try to determine the causes of all that has happened against the effects that resulted. In so many ways I want to just hate, empty every bit of me that gives a fuck about anything and focus inward on the anger and pain until they are all that is left, then to pass on and need not concern myself with this life but only with the next. I hurt, I cry, I curl into a little ball trying to become a singularity that consumes itself into nothingness. None of these help. So I move on, put on a happy face, pretend that work isn't so bad, that my shiny new Nintendo Wii will solve all problems, and that life actually revolves around pie, or Pi, or cheese, or donuts, or whatever else suits my fancy in the fleeting moment of awareness before the darkness returns to envelop my soul.

Today we expect at least a foot and a half of snow, probably closer to two feet. Normally this would be cause for celebration, getting to drive around, then settle in under a blanket and watch movies or play games, or light a fire. But I have no running car with which to play, I came into work because I've been sick the past two days with food poisoning or an alergy, home may be hours away, and even when I get there games or movies will be done alone, and a fire is a wishful thought and nothing more.

So today, for the first time I can remember, the snow is my bane. Bringing yet another reminder of the things that could have been, but may never be.

This time, I find myself at a loss for words most of the time. I sit here wondering if things aren't better off, partly due to information gleaned from others, partly due to my own experiences, and the strong desire to seal myself and my emotional dribble away in the darkest, deepest location that I can possibly find.

Unable to relate even to myself things seem to be slipping away. The other night I watched most of a movie about a guy who couldn't separate dream from reality. It was the most I've identified with anything recently, and only because I feel that road creeping up on me. These days my dreams are filled with things from my life, not the random insanity of the past, and the random insanity of my dreams seeps ever more into the reality that I am taking part in.

Really I just want someone to snuggle with, but I attach to much importance to that role to let just anyone slip into it for an evening, or even a few evenings. Not that the opportunity has really presented itself, but that is mostly my own doing.

The rattlings in my brain tell me to sleep now, and not to post this, recognizing that these words mean nothing and tell nothing, but simply are a disconnected set of thoughts coming out of an exhausted and influenced mind. The mind is a terrible thing to waste, but what good is keeping something that is unappreciated by most, and at best appreciated by those in no position to reciprocate?

Ice on the river cracks and shifts each time I poke my head outside. The destructive sound soothing in ways unexplainable.

Bolo says "Achoo!"

Stupid car.
Stupid house.
Stupid squirrels in the walls.
Stupid love.

First and foremost I've changed hosting providers. The new provider is HostMonster.com and has a very suitable package for me. They continue to use Cpanel as the management software which saved me some hastle in transfering my site(s) to the new server. But the big benefit is in having the ability to host multiple domains with one account and having 200GB of space to use. Admitedly I probably wont ever use that much space, but it gives me breathing room where I didn't have any before.

I've also finally rebranded the MediaStor project to HoardStuff. I've had the domain www.hoardstuff.com for a while, but couldn't use it with my old setup. I've finally made this live and moved things over. Whether or not I ever complete that project is up in the air, but at least it's finally on it's own site and setup the way I wanted to get it.

I've also picked up a slew of other domains all pointing to my main site, but they'll give me flexibility and ownership down the line should I want to use them. eliashunt.com, elihunt.com, raetha.com, feitae.com, praethos.com, naerden.com. Bulk rate domain purchasing is nice.

Anyway, at this point I believe all DNS changes are complete and email and site should be happily working in their new locations. There is the possibility that certain things aren't working correctly. If you find one please let me know.