While it’s possible this may be lost on some people reading this, I certainly hope it isn’t.  If it is, let me know and I’ll have you over to experience the beauty of vinyl.  I actually need to experience it myself a bit more than I do.  Anyway, sometimes you get that record that starts out really great. It’s full of energy and just pulls you into the music.  Over the course of the first side (or even the whole thing), though, it mellows out. It may eventually even coming to a slighty melancholy ending.  At this point the needle is supposed to reset back to it’s resting place, but sometimes it gets to the end of the last song, moves along to where it is supposed to reset, and then gets stuck.  It just keeps moving over that empty space at the end making the subtle thumping noise that it does when it skips back to the other side of the space over and over. Lately I feel like the needle endlessly moving back and forth just waiting for someone to come flip the album over.  Waiting to go back to the beginning when things were happier and more exciting.

After getting Ida the iMac I thought I might actually update this thing a bit more since the new keyboard is kind of fun to type on, but alas this appears to not be the case.  Anyways, the last month hasn’t exactly been the greatest.  Work has been busy and I’ve been there a lot more than I’d really care to be.  Overtime pay is good, though, so there is that silver lining.  Beyond that I’ve been doing the usual stuff while adding in some time spent fruitlessly pursuing a potential lady friend.

Which brings us to the lesson for today.  I’m no great mind on relationships, but I’ve been around long enough to see them come and go with myself and others.  Now while I can only really speak for myself, I’m sure that there are at least a few people who will probably agree with the following.

If a guy asks a girl he has no pre-existing relationship with to do something, she can readily assume he is probably interested in her.  Most people in general don’t go around randomly asking folks they don’t really know to go do stuff.  Yes, that’s a good way to get to know people, but there are usually other avenues that get taken for that sort of thing.  So a guy’s interest at this point is pretty easy to gauge in that if he continues to try and make plans, he’s still interested.  The unknown variable at this point is the girl.

In comes “the talk.”  “The talk” is basically the move forward or move on point in a relationship.  This is not usually the most pleasant of things, but more often than not it is a necessary evil in order to clear the air and figure out where everyone is at with things.  Girls I surveyed (including married, engaged, dating, and single ladies so they should know) during my recent pursuit all basically said that by about the 3rd outing or so they usually know if they at want something more to happen with the guy or not.

This is kind of a critical point in the blossoming relationship and should really be handled with a great amount of honesty and care.  Going into “the talk” both parties should know three basic things about the relationship: a) can we hang out without wanting to kill each other, b) do we have enough common interests that we can spend time together and not be bored out of our minds, and c) do we have enough attraction/interest to keep things going.  The first two are key for any relationship whether it’s friendship or more, but the third is the critical element here for something beyond friends.

During “the talk” it isn’t just what you say, but how you say it.  See, up until this point the guy knows that the girl is at least willing to spend time with him.  Now he is looking to find out if she really wants to spend time with him.  There is a difference.  She should assume that he obviously wants to spend time with her because who really goes out of their way to ask someone else to do stuff that they don’t want to spend time with.  Just agreeing to go, though, doesn’t always signify a strong desire.  It could mean someone is just too nice to say no, etc.  Regardless of where each person is at, they probably want and hope that the other is at the same place. If you want more than friends, you really don’t want to hear, “I just want to be friends.”  Likewise, nobody wants to hurt someone’s feelings if they don’t have the same attraction.  Now having established that the guy most likely wants to end up somewhere more than friends since he’s continued making the invites, the girl has to know what her answers to “a-c” are and be ready to state things clearly to the guy.

In general there are three basic ways this goes depending on what the answer to “c” is.  If the answer is “no”, then the girl should be upfront and clear in telling the guy that she isn’t interested in anything beyond friendship.  The door is shut, case closed.  If things went well as friends maybe the two of you can continue on as such, but generally I’ve found this isn’t the case.  No hard feelings are present, but the driving force behind the friendship beginning in the first place is the guy’s attraction leading to his asking the girl to do stuff.  With the door closed to that attraction leading to anything, there may not be as much incentive to continue going out of one’s way to pursue things.

The second option is a “yes.”  Now everyone is on the same page and things can move forward.  The results here include increased time spent together, reciprocal pursuit, more phone usage, etc.

The third option is the one that typically leads to the problems.  The “maybe” or “not sure” answer.  Keep in mind that if a guy is really into a girl, he’s going to go for as much as she’ll give.  This means that unless a girl provides a definitive “no” it is going to translate in the guy’s mind to a “yes” of some degree.  He will also probably expect some of the things that come from a “yes” to play out on some level.  Unfortunately these aren’t things that can really be faked for too long if a girl doesn’t have the interest.  I’m all for being very honest about things in these situations, but if a girl is going to downplay the truth of her feelings at all, it is better to just shut the door entirely and deal with an attraction developing later than to give a guy false hope for something more and end up stringing him along.  Assuming he hasn’t moved on to someone else, a guy is probably going to be open to the idea of revisiting things if a girl feels like things have changed further down the line.  Girls just need to realize they can’t go leaving the door cracked even a little bit, because a guy will try to at least keep his foot in there and when it finally comes time, it’s going to hurt a lot more getting the door slammed on his foot.

On sort of a side note here, if a girl tells a guy she wants to be friends for the time being, she shouldn’t expect anything more from the guy.  If she sets a boundary for things and he’s respectful of that, then he will probably treat her like his other friends that he’s hopefully not trying to romance.  Granted his treatment of her may differ in that his other friendships probably have a lot more history, trust, etc. already established therefore he may feel more at ease around those people than he does with her.

In the end it boils down to whether you feel it for the other person or not. Obviously this is a pretty quick black and white approach which doesn’t account for all of the infinitely possible nuances of different relationships.  While not being able to speak for girls too specifically, I would also say that this plays out in a similar fashion if the genders are reversed.

Well it looks like I won’t be getting an iPhone until 2010 at least. I can only hope that in the meantime Apple continues to improve that thing if for nothing else than to put Motorola out of business. This shouldn’t be too much of a task given some of what I’ve read about Moto recently. Motorola makes decent phones and at one time they made great phones, but their glory days are in the past. My phone for the past two years has been a Razr. My phone for the next two years will also be a Razr. And why would one get the same exact phone? Sit down a spell and let me tell you.

Back in 2006 when I originally decided on getting a Razr, they were still relatively great phones compared to most of what was out there. I won’t go into the sordid details of what all happened in my attempt to get one. Suffice it to say that it involved 2 different phones, 2 different service providers, and used up part of my 4th of July vacation. Interesting that today I get invitations to a 4th of July get together. Anyways, my Razr has been a good phone for the duration of the time I’ve had it. Up until yesterday that is. Yesterday it decided it no longer wanted to turn on.

Now since I don’t have a significant other/spouse with a cell phone and this is my only type of phone, this presented a slight problem for me. So after work today I went by the Alltel store to see what they could do to help me out. Sadly I knew the outcome of this going in, but it didn’t make things any better. I showed it to the guy there and told him what was up. He takes it in the back then returns a few minutes later trying to find an extra battery. Apparently Alltel does not keep any extra batteries on hand for folks. I thought about the fact that surely they had an open box one in the back somewhere. After not finding a battery he asks me to come over to his desk and he pulls up my account. Of course because I didn’t get the phone insurance they can’t do anything about it, but I’m in luck because I can get the upgrade discount…if I sign a new contract. Begrudgingly I go over and take a look at the phones they have for sale. I really didn’t want to spend very much on a new phone. Too bad even the crappy ones cost over $100 without the discounts or I would have sprung for one of those for the time being. They had some relatively cheap Blackberry Pearls, but it appeared the cheapest plan for those is twice what mine is now. If I’m going to pay that much for a plan, it’s going to be for use with an iPhone. In the end I just decided to stick with the Razr. It was fairly cheap and I wouldn’t have to change my plan. I didn’t really notice it while I was in the store, but thinking back I don’t recall seeing any Nokia phones there today. What’s up with that Alltel?

Thankfully the guy helping me had disappeared into the back where he wouldn’t return from for like half an hour because nothing is more exciting than standing around in the Alltel store completely bored. Finally Count Slapula came back from wherever he was and got to sell me a new phone. He seemed a little disappointed in my choice of the now cheap Razr. I don’t know if they get commissions or anything, but I hope not because he did nothing to earn his. If he really wants one, he should go work for AT&T. $199 iPhone 3G…suck on it Alltel. I digress. He gets out the new Razr and decides to try its battery in my old phone. Lo and behold that thing fired up. It apparently cut off again, though. That or David Copperfield trying to get his sale just made it look that way. Not wanting to deal with it anymore and run the risk of the thing crapping out again I stayed the course and got my new phone and contract. As much as I loathe the idea of it, I even went for the phone insurance so when this one bites it less than a month before freedom I can get it replaced.

When I got home I swapped the batteries again to hopefully get the old one fired up long enough to get my contact numbers off of it. One plus for the new phone is that it works great with iSync. Typing on this new keyboard is way better than entering in all that info using the phone’s keypad. There you have it. Meet the new phone, same as the old phone (mostly). The best part about all this? The fact that the old phone with it’s original battery fires up at will once again. Seriously.

Many of you have heard me speak of Youngsville. This is where my mom’s side of the family grew up and where her sister and youngest brother still live. This weekend her other two brothers and their wives came to visit so we had dinner out there Friday night and lunch on Sunday. There was also a family reunion on Saturday, but I had no intention of going to that.

Well my Aunt Shirley and Uncle Wesley live at the end of this dirt road. His parents used to live just up the dirt road from them, but have since passed away and now their daughter Angie lives in that house. Their other daughter Vickie and her husband Tim recently built a house in between the other two on the opposite side of the road. Besides the houses, though, all that is around them is woods, a pond, and some fields which they let people grow vegetables in.

After dinner on Friday night, I was leaving to go meet some folks to see The Happening, and as I was driving down the dirt road in the dark I saw three deer on the side of the road which then proceeded to cross in front of me. Nothing scary or tragic about it. I was going slow and they were well in front of me. Sunday afternoon on my way out there going down the dirt road, I saw two more deer up ahead in the field who took off across the road in front of me. Deer are funny when they run. It looks more like they’re bouncing than actually running. At least that’s how these looked.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been out there and seen deer on the road. As somewhat remote as it is, the chances are actually fairly good for a sighting. It is still kind of an interesting and moderately awe inspiring thing to see. Maybe because they’re probably the largest wild animal I’ve ever really seen out and about.