So it's still Star Trek Month on my livejournal. The entry for July 6 was my favorite Star Trek youtube videos. Feel free to come browse and list your own favorites

at my livejournal

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

mood: melancholy music: Orchestral Suite from The Inner Light -- Jay Chattaway

I'm sure you've all heard about Star Trek: the Experience closing.  I emailed Chad Boutte, the Operations Manager/Director of Marketing to thank him for trying to save the Experience and to express my gratitude for ten years of great memories.  I got this reply:

mood: amused

 Just how bad were they?

 

off to dinner with 1360AM folks.

Feel free to interpret. I think his friend had the answer.

 

A list of all the Ferengi "Rules of Acquisition" revealed in Star Trek episodes and movies so far: [link]

(proof, by the way, that Republicans survive well into the future)

music: Hitch

Well, 3:27am technically.

I should be heading to bed but I don't feel like bed yet.

This has been a good weekend so far. Friday was a pool party and then a few of us went to the fireworks show in Grapevine. Instead of going down to the actual show itself we went to a friend's apartment nearby and walked to a street with a nice view.

Today about a dozen of us went out to Southlake Town Center for Wall-E and dinner. Wall-E was fun. :) For dinner we walked over to a Cafe place nearby. I'm thinking we'll have to try it out again. It had decent fries and turkey sandwich. Dinner was followed by some hanging out at my place. After everyone left I finished up the series "Gilmore Girls". *sniff* It was a good series.

Now I'm watching "Hitch" and playing a bit of World of Warcraft. Tomorrow will be reading and stuff.

mood: thoughtful

So...

I have decided that there really is no other place that i want to be other than New York City. This is not to follow some big dream or anything that concentrated... It is simply a plce where I have wanted to live for many years. I originally moved in with my mother here in Middletown, RI with the intent of saving money and moving to NYC this fall.

Well, finding and securing a job has not been as easy as I had envisioned. Apparently when people say we're in a recession, and unemployment is at an all-time high, they're not just after big headlines or good TV ratings. I should have considered this more closely before quitting the somewhat ok job I had and moving from the Cape. Although, staying on the Cape was not exactly an option, when the intent was saving money. Moving in with my mother, as tough as that pill has been to swallow, was the best choice I had available. I do have a job, offloading trucks at The Christmas Tree Shop (a New England-based company, for those of you not in the know). Right now my hours vary between 9 and 20 hours per week. Obviously this is not enough to pay my mother what I agreed to pay ($250- all inclusive. Very minimal, I think, were it not for the job situation), and save a decent amount of money in order to move in the fall. Naturally I am looking for additional work. Actually one of the receivers at The Christmas Tree Shop was a no call/no show today. And word is he may have quit. If that is true, then I'm the obvious choice to replace him, because even though I've only worked for this particular store for a month, I worked for this company for 3 years (3 years ago, actually), doing the very job this guy may have just quit. And there are enough managers from various stores that I've worked in who will tell the management of this store how good I was at this job. Still, even if this does work out, the company, due to new ownership, can only fill this position as a part-time job (it used to be full-time when i had it before). So at best, I could only hope to have 32 hours per week there (most likely a bit less), which is better than 9 hours, but I would still need to find another job to feel like I was saving what I wanted to be saving. As a result of my financial problems, moving to NYC in the fall seems impossible, unless something were to change drastically. Yet I am sure this is where I want to be, so I am willing to postpone the move until winter (January, perhaps) and work more and save more.

As for my living situation: I Love my mother. Dearly. She is like my best friend in many ways. But most of the time she is just too... motherly. I am a solitary person and require a certain amount of space in order to feel comfortable. I wouldn't say my mother makes me uncomfortable, or invades my space, but I do feel censored around her. I mean it's not like I'd be walking around the house naked and watching porn all the time if I didn't live with her (not often at least), but not living with her for the last 5 years has instilled a certain level of freedom in me that I had become used to enjoying, even at the most base levels. I never had anyone asking me where I'd been or where I'm going. I didn't have a sense of routine, i.e. dinner time, or a television schedule by which the household lived (I never noticed how much of her home life revolved around the TV... maybe because I used to watch a lot more TV as well when I was living at home years ago). And more importantly I didn't live 24-7 with an acute knowledge my mother can observe aspects of me now that were not there years ago, and even though she may not understand why I am the way I am, she still has an opinion. It is not a bad opinion, but just not an informed one. I think she sees me as her baby-boy still in many ways, which is touching... when I'm not living in her house. She does not seem to fully accept the identity which I have developed over the years of being out in the world and being an adult. A lot of my views and ideas, as hard as I may try and explain them, will just never be grasped by her, not because she is not intelligent, but because it just doesn't reflect the world she's known all her life. In short, we get along fine, and we have a strong relationship where we do talk about a great many things that most parents and children don't, but if I have to live here past the summer, I may pull my hair out! I need to be on my own.

But at the same time, I want to work and save money to move to NYC in the winter. So the dilemma I have is how do I do this and manage to still move out of my mom's at the end of the summer, and enjoy my sanity? The thought I had, which has been something i've considered for a while, is when I have some money saved, get a car, live in it, borrow people's showers and frequent laundromats, work a lot, save a lot, pay only car expenses (which would still be cheaper than rent). I don't know if it's the best solution, but I don't see myself being able to afford to rent an apartment and save a good amount of money. I also don't imagine finding many places that I can live in from September to January. Maybe if I look at it as only 4 extra months, life under Mom's roof doesn't have to seem so constricting, but when I originally moved in here, i thought it was only for 4 months... not 8! She tries to let me have my space, she really does. But I require something that no good mother whose son lives with her can possibly give: I need time to myself, sometimes days, where I am just left alone to contemplate things quietly. I can't be explaining every little detail of what's going on. I Love her for caring, but these discussions about my life were a lot easier to handle when they were limited to one or two phone calls per week.

So, if anyone is still reading, and has any advice to share, or knowledge on how to live cheaply and save significantly on your own, please toss it this way!

Love.

Bought a new couch today. Hopefully the pets won't tear it up!

mood: busy

So I figure since the few of you on here have pretty much said you haven't been able to project yet or have given up, it will be okay to catalog my events! I haven't reached it yet either, but it's something I pursue obsessively. I think communication is extremely helpful, especially if I could get the rest of you guys to do it with your own experiences ;) wink!

I have read Robert Monroe's first two books, which I find fantastic but very believable from a skeptical standpoint. If you haven't read them, I strongly recommend it. Can usually find them at bookstores under metaphysical or check your library.

Anyway, I practice projecting nearly every night and often during the late afternoons whenever I have the time. I use deep breathing, also counting my breaths, and then kind of a mixture of silencing my mind with some inner dialog. I usually tell myself I am relaxed, I will feel no sensations or discomfort, and will slip in to a vibrational state. If I am having a particularly stubborn time at it, I will do an entire body-relaxation routine starting with my feet and moving up. It's much like self-hypnosis and I've been wondering how well an actual self-hypnosis audio clip of myself would work? In theory I think it would work great, just haven't gotten around to trying it yet!

I've been able to induce some serious vibrations. The strongest felt as if I didn't know where my face or hands were anymore, like they were flipping around all over very fast. It was a sensation so intense I literally laughed out loud, it almost tickled like when your foot falls asleep and you nearly can't stand it but it doesn't HURT. But that doesn't happen all of the time... Anyone else experienced this?

I also want to share a few problems I've encountered.
1.> I sometimes can't stop focusing on my breathing, and it induces panic the closer I get to separation. I'm sure that my brain is freaking out in fear thinking that if I leave I'll stop breathing, so my heart rate speeds up and other assorted nonsense... it's been difficult to overcome but lots of people say that fear is the number one obstacle.

Thanks for reading guys, I hope this helps and gets some feedback!

So, I'm looking through IMDB on the character list for the up comming movie. I noticed something that I haven't heard anything about before, there's at least one Klingon in the movie. Has anyone heard anything about what they're doing about Klingon makeup? We are all well aware of the fact that because of budget constraits klingons looked the way they did in TOS, but Enterprise went and made it cannon.

Anyone know anything?

mood: geeky

 I went to Star Trek: the Tour in Long Beach a few months ago, and thought I'd post my pictures here for anyone who's interested in seeing them.

They can be found here at my journal.

Dallas Fair Park fireworks were good. Traffic sucked. Home now. Home is good.

I almost forgot:

Click for m15m icons >>> <<< Click for Fox icons

mood: geeky

Happy Birthday USA!

mood: peaceful

I'm in a process of becoming inspired. It's causing me to review my life and see that a lot of what I say I like and don't like is based on decisions I made years and years ago, and have stood stubbornly firm on.

Just a few days ago, I was in a Barnes & Noble here in Middletown, and I was talking to my friend, Lily, on the phone. Somehow the discussion got to Kerouac and how for years I cared not for anything he said or did. The reality was, I'd not read any of his work since high school. She was talking about how much she enjoyed reading The Dharma Bums over the winter and how inspiring she found it to be. Well, something came up and she had to get off the phone. It then dawned on me how ridiculous I sounded to myself for being so vehemently disdainful of an author whose work I barely even remember, except for how as a teenager I did not like it.

Then I remembered how at one time I did not enjoy Walden, and thought that aside from Civil Disobedience (which always struck a chord with me), Thoreau was just someone who mooched entirely too much off of Emerson. A few years ago, I re-read Walden and was very surprised with the amount of rapport I felt with what Thoreau was saying. I considered this for a moment. Then I had a moment of odd rationale: If The Dharma Bums inspired Lily, and Lily (like all my friends) inspires me, could The Dharma Bums possibly inspire me as well? Since I was already in the bookstore, I decided to grab a copy of The Dharma Bums and actually read it. I sat down and read the first 41 pages.

While I cannot say it struck me the way Lily seemed to be struck by it, I also cannot say I did not enjoy it. In fact I rather liked it. It was as if it were an entirely different book than I had read over a decade ago. I would have sat and finished it, but I was struck by a thought and had to walk as I pondered it. the thought was this: How many other things are out there which I decided long ago were of no interest to me, but could now be things I may Love? It suddenly occurred to me that I may have no idea what I truly like and dislike. Even my Love of James Joyce has somewhat diminished. I could once relate to him because, like him, I too once felt I was more intelligent than most people. Now, while I don't feel unintelligent, I find that too much intellect can alienate the soul. Too much joy can often times be overlooked by one who is "smart enough to know what he likes, and knows when he sees it." I want to know what I've overlooked. Maybe YOU can help me!

I want you to make me a list of things you Love. You can post it here, or send me an email (luckysaturn@gmail.com),if you're bashful. On this list you may put ANYTHING you enjoy, be it books, movies, poems, art, music, food, sexual position... just anything that moves you, inspires you, or gives you any sort of positive feeling. Nothing is too stupid or inappropriate for the list. If you feel like it belongs there, put it there. I doubt I will be able to try everything on every list, but hopefully I can try at least one thing from every list offered to me. If you would like to accompany certain things like books and movies with a brief description, or if you'd like to mention why you Love a certain thing, that would certainly be appreciated, but not at all necessary. I can Wikipedia things if needed :)

Thanks for playing, if you so choose!

Love.

 

So a while back I went to Star Trek the Tour in Long Beach, CA. A nice little drive from San Diego. I wasn't sure what to expect since the star trek website didn't have many pics and the floor plan and descripions were kind of confusing. I was definitely surprised though and I got to see a bunch of props I've never seen before. 

So here I bring you a picspam of my experience. It's image intensive just so you know.

 link to my livejournal