Dying

So the past few days I have spent sitting next to my cousin. He is/was one year older than I am now. Its let me think a lot about life and death, Noah has been dying of Ewing's Sarcoma for the past year of his life.

I never had a chance to say goodbye to my brother before he died, so I wasn't going to not have the opportunity to say goodbye. Over the past weeks he has gone from being scared and bitter about dying to the past few days at peace with the idea. Thats a lot for anyone to handle especially at his age. My fathers side of the family which I am no longer close to by any means has been around him off and on for the past weeks. Its sad how the only thing that brings that side of the family together is someone dying, and shortly afterwards we part our ways and wait for the next death.

Things that really pissed me off about the situation.

Noah is dying of what started off as lung cancer, eventually tumors started forming all over his body, including his brain and chest. Several "friends" and family members that have been around him the past weeks still smoke around him. His own mother was laying next to him in his death bed smoking a cigarette less than 4 inches away from his mouth. I can not fathom the lack of intelligence it takes to do that. Another one of his "friends" has been next to him off and on for the past several days chain smoking. Do people not understand that smoking is what started killing him to begin with?

We've been sitting around and waiting for him to take his final breath, its sad to say but we know his mind wants to let go and be out of his pain, but his body won't let go and his heart continues to beat. We all hope that his death will come sooner than later to ease the pain.

I guess we all have our ways of looking at things, especially death. I am a strong proponent of Euthanasia and wish only to end his suffering. Why isn't this an option? why does my cousin have to lay in bed wishing for a death to end his suffering and no one can help?

A few months of updates

Location: Kansas City, Missouri

So, its been a few months once again.

What has the digger been up to?

Well, I made it back to Ireland and England and had a blast. Driving/riding passenger in a car in Ireland was a little more terrifying that I had hoped. Ryanair still manages to continue its love/hate relationship with me. This trip was different from any other I've been on, though I would do a few things differently if I had the chance to do it all again, less things for sure. I couch surfed for the first time which was Awesome, thanks Dylan and Maude.

I've been thinking a lot the past few weeks, and I feel I am in a rut. I'm content with my current job at the moment, though it doesn't really offer me what I aspired to do in my lifetime. I have applied for a few jobs internally but they never seem to amount to anything and I keep getting promised "you'll go far in the company" but in reality I haven't seen anything. So right now I find myself writing a CV for the first time in my life. Sure I've written plenty of Resumes, but instead of writing a CV I find myself updating my blog which has gone grossly unattended over the past couple of years.

So the Big challenge is, if I apply for some of the jobs that are now back up that were on hiatus for over a year, and I get an interview, and with luck get a job offer, what will I do? Kansas City has been great for me this past year. I've definitely changed my views towards the place I have grown up but I'm not sure this is the place for me anymore, I would like to move on. So I think its time for me to throw my hat into the ring, and start applying for jobs again. Maybe the feeling of this rut will pass, maybe it won't but it is always good to know what your options.

Who knows, maybe my next post could be from Edinburgh.

Where are we now?

Location: U.S. Missouri, Kansas City

Topic: Freedom

So this may be a bit of a rant.

I've never felt so free as I have the past few months. I look around and see that so many of my friends have gotten married, and have families. I think to myself, I am soooo not ready for anything like that. I love that I can pick up and leave everything here and go off to a far away place without much repercussion... maybe a little ding in the bank, but it is freedom. I've talked to a few of my friends that have been married and have kids, seems like their big things are what they are going to do for the weekend in town... whereas I talk about what country I am going to go to next and what adventure I hope to find. I'm randomly going to Ireland and England in May with a girl that is as crazy as I am. This is the second trip I have planned from a bar, but the first one that has actually accumulated to actual tickets and plans!

Why would people give up freedom like that? Maybe its just me but I love living in an apartment with a door I can shut and leave for a week and not have to worry about what to do with the kids, or who is going to mow the grass while I am gone... I think I may take more trips like this because I guess I'm still searching for the ultimate adventure. Where am I going to go next?

I've been making a list:
Egypt
Greece
Peru
Alaska
Eastern Europe


and its going to keep getting longer and longer

Wow... Has it been over a year?

So as the entry is titled, its been over a year since I have last posted something on blogger...

So what has happened this past year.

I was lined up to have the best job in the world for someone like me, but I lost it before I ever started? Hows that for luck... but this post isn't about pity or sympathy... because what I learned along the way has definitely brought me closer to something I have always wanted.

I spent most of last summer applying for jobs... it was quite boring, and i had a lot of self pity and all that for being another unemployed engineer, however I was getting close to giving up and going back to Iowa State for a masters just to buy me some time. I stumbled upon an opening in an industry I promised never to work for... those of you that know me, know I probably said I would never work for the railroad... but here I am 6 months after employment a pretty genuinely happy worker.

I read a book on basic electronics, and took a certification test to be a licensed certified electronics technician... that was the most boring 2 week read of my entire life...

I have been working as an E.T. for 6 months now, my job sounds like I repair electronics and all that... that's not really the case. I spend most of my workday waiting for a 15+ year old computer system that has been running 24/7-365 days a year to crash. It's my job to insure that when it does crash it comes back online as quickly and efficiently as possible, time is money. When things do fail I do tend to go out to the field, that being the train yard which the aging computer system runs. I work for the department known as "Signal" basically everywhere else on the railroad they control all the lights and help with the logistics of all the trains, but in the train yard they control most of the switches, and the classification of trains.

I'm probably rambling at this point but its hard to update the past year without writing a novel... maybe I will try to update more later for it.

So new things going on...
In a few days I will be registering to take a test at work, it will allow me to make a few more steps up the food chain in the railroad, and allow me to actually put my degree to use. There have been a few job openings recently in the engineering, that actually sound like I would be more adept for, so I will probably go to an office job with standard hours soon... Oh yeah I work 2-10 pm tuesday through saturdays... which has been nice so far... but It would be nice to have weekends with the rest of my friends.

I've become more spontaneous in my life over the past year, along with several changes here and there about myself, basically after my "plan" came crashing down it gave me a lot of time to reflect. So that's why in about 7 weeks from now I will be embarking on a trip 1/4 of the way around the world, with essentially a girl I just met. That may make me sound a bit crazy, but I think we all need to be a little crazy right?

Well, what else is there to say. I live in a 9th floor apartment with an amazing view of the city. I sometimes go on random adventures, with no particular destination in site... because the journey is what is starting to fascinate me more.

Oh, One of my best friends in the whole wide world got married last week! Yay RIVKA! I wish I could have been there though...

I feel like I should start writing more, I also think I'm going to transition this blog over to a travel blog... maybe a life and travel blog.... either way I think I am going to retitle this blog "Life and Travels 3.0"

What am I forgetting?

The more things change, the more they say the same.

I was recently looking back on facebook all he people in high school I knew. I now realize that every time I go back to home, nothing has really changed. The majority of the people are still there doing the exact same thing they were doing in high school. I don't know if there is some cosmic time warp there, but it just seems to me nothing has really changed.

So I ask myself the question... what has set me apart from it all.

I guess I came up with a few answers, but I think the main one is.... the fear of failure.

I see it as a failure if I spend my life where I started, I don't know why... I just had to get out, and thats where I am today. I feel like I'm on the verge of mild success or ultimate failure. I hope something turns in my favor soon or I am going back to the vacuum of where it seems so many have been sucked backed to.

Half a year

half a year has gone by since my last blog, I should go back and read what it was.

But my life as it appears to me know is very stressful. I have 5 projects that I am currently working on. This takes up almost all of my time, Plus I have been working a lot as well.

My five projects for this semester are as follows

• designing a Low cost wind turbine, specifically designed for lower income countries
• designing a alternative energy vehicle, its based upon hydraulic pressure and an internal combustion engine. Hopefully we will have some working components by the end of the semester
• I am working on a team with Engineers Without Borders to develop a way to make homes in Mali more weather resistant. I have a few good leads on what we can accomplish, so I am hoping that will make it possible for me to travel there this summer to implement my ideas.
• My Art Design and Engineering class is finally working on the project which I signed up for in the class, it is to design the interior of a passenger jet. With a lot of effort we should be able to have this designed by the end of this semester and built next semester.
• Lastly, I am working on a paper on the Viability of Wind Energy in the United States.

This semester I have been struggling with a lot of things. I have never had this problem of not being able to focus on class work before. I mean there was the occasional spacing out in class, but I feel like lately I have been really detached from the world. I spend a lot of time with a few of my friends because I can't really take being alone all the time. I guess to catch you all up to speed, August 31st 2008 my half brother Jay took his life. For nearly a month I felt nothing I never was able to see his body, this has caused me to not really realize he is dead. I still imagine I will see him at Christmas when I return home. I went to a memorial service for him, and I spoke at it. My family was glad I was able to return home for it but still my grandmother has not said a word to me. I really hate that it took a death for my family to speak to each other but as the months have passed since then the relationship has broken down once again.

This summer Katie came to Iowa to live with me here. It was great having her here all the time but, it caused a lot of problems once she left. I have not seen her in 3 months, after spending 3 months with her then not being able to see her at all it really is a shock. I will be leaving in a couple weeks to go to see her in Cleveland for Thanksgiving. Though I think that only seeing her for a week won't be enough.

The big question I have right now is, where will I be next semester, or this summer, or next year. I have a lot of places I would like to be and what I would like to be doing, but I just am lost as to what is going to be next for me.

Nick

Sorry for the 1 month break

Sorry for the month long hiatus of my blog, I have been really busy with this semester.

So lets see...
Three weeks ago I went to Trashionals in Chattanooga, TN. It was a ton of fun, and Chattanooga was a really nice place.

Two weeks ago was Veishea, which was interesting, since I lost my wallet on a Friday and had no money of my own for the rest of it.

Last weekend was the Iowa State High School Championship for quiz bowl which went a lot smoother then the previous tournament.

So other than weekend events. I have been aimlessly trying to finish my Term project for one of my classes with no real success, I had an inspirational in my sleep on Thursday night so I just need to implement it into my project, Hopefully that will make everything work!

In completely other news, I applied for a job at Mad Science of central Iowa, and was able to get the job. I am excited to get back into the "mad science" world of entertainment.