So, here it is again, another year and some months since the last time I posted. I'm sorry personal blogs, I do not mean to neglect you, but time has a nasty habit of slipping away on me. I do want to kind of start writing at least weekly summaries of what the fuck has been going on in my life. Cause sometimes memory gets a bit spotty, especially when you're stressed. But, I digress.

There's a lot that's happened since the last time I wrote in the blog, so I will focus on the recent past, up until the present.

Let's start with probably the most significant thing. Jessica. I met her through a group of mutual friends that I had met years ago, on tumblr. At first we didn't talk in private, but soon enough during one of our group calls where we answered surveys together, we both dropped hints that we wanted to maybe get to know each other better, and see where it went. We talked for about a week before I asked her out on a skype date, and we watched some movies together. After the movie we stayed up all night talking, and decided that we were officially going to be a couple. I went on vacation with my parents in early October (which I will cover in a separate section), and then right after we got home, I turned around and went and visited her in Oklahoma. The visit went well, and we were pretty head-over-heels in love after that. Things were fine until the end of December, when she went to visit her other partners (the same mutual friends that introduced us, she's poly, and so am I; The catch was she wanted me to be monogamous for her. She could not handle me being with anyone else for some reason. I went along with it, but it seems like a mistake in hindsight). After she got home she was very much withdrawn and depressed. That is okay, it's going to happen sometimes.

But days of no communication turned into weeks, weeks into a couple of month. I knew something was amiss. Turns out a new fella that we all knew, because they were an ex of one of the people that introduced us, had been visiting her the at the beginning of February. She did not mention this to any of us, and although she maintains that she didn't cheat, everything in my being, and her behavior said otherwise. I decided right then and there that neither of us were happy in the situation for whatever reason, and parted ways. It's odd, I was deeply in love with this woman, and when things were starting to go off the rails, and until the very end I was fighting for us. Now that it's been over for a little bit of time, i've processed all of the stuff, and the anger has faded. I'm left with simple confusion over why she felt the need to hide something from me, when the terms of our relationship allowed for what she was doing as long as it was in the open.

Now that I got that out of the way, I mentioned my vacation with my parents. We went to Branson, Missouri. We had a good time at all of the shows we saw, and we all got to spend some good quality time together. My favorite parts of the trip were when I got to go off on my own. The first of those things being to take a trip through the Titanic museum they have there. The outside has a life-size replication of the front however-much of the ship.



There's me standing in front of it, just for reference. They had a bunch of artifacts from the actual ship, a lot of replicas and models of the different mechanical things on the ship, and information about all of her passengers. They also had simulations of the inclines that people on the deck would have faced when the ship was sinking, and a bucket full of water cooled to the recorded water temperature the night of the sinking with a clock to challenge yourself to see how long you can keep your hand in there. I was able to keep my hand in there for a minute and a half, which is a long time, but pain sets in about 20 seconds after our body comes into contact with the water. The other cool thing was that I got my first tattoo. It's the letter "O" from the logo for the band Opeth, which they are one of my favorite bands. I chose this as my first one for a few reasons. The design of the letter "O" is ornate, and looks good regardless of whether or not you know the band or not. While it obviously is something I got to symbolize my love for the band, it's also something to symbolize my love for music, and especially metal as a whole.

Here is my tattoo in all it's glory:



So, the last 6 months or so emotionally have been a roller coaster. From soaring highs, to abyssal lows. But, I've come back to baseline, and in the past couple of weeks have been reaching out into the internet to have some new social experiences, and I said what the hey and decided to take the plunge into websites that are specifically for dating. Since I took a little break from one of my 2 main social circles online because of the fact that they were all very intertwined with the person I had just gotten out of a relationship from, I decided to seek out human contact elsewhere. That let me to two places. Reddit and OkCupid. It's getting late so I won't recount the Reddit (a skype group) story here, but let me tell you about OkCupid. I make my profile and in the first hour or so I get a message from a girl who lives a couple hours away from me. At first she seems cool. We have a good chat, and what have you. I go to bed, wake up the next morning to an "I love you" message on my skype. I was extremely uncomfortable with this, and was honest and told her so. She proceeded to flip out on me, and say I was an asshole. I proceeded to block her means of communication with me. To put it tactfully, I just did not see it working out at all. Hopefully I have better luck in the future. There's more to say, but I will post those things tomorrow. Mainly the reddit story, and my realization that I really am polyamorous.

So, I guess i'll just dive right in. A lot has happened since I wrote on this blog the last time. The biggest thing that happened was that my grandma (step-grandmother if we're speaking in the strictest of terms), passed away. She had ovarian cancer, and apparently she had the cyst since 2011 but refused treatment for it. So, the majority of my winter was spent going out to the nursing home to see her, helping mom clean out her house and have an estate sale, and then the funeral. I'm not a stranger to losing family, but this is my first time being so close the entire process, and actually being cognitive of what was going on the whole time. When my biological grandmother passed away 13 years ago, mom shielded me from a lot of because she knew I wouldn't be able to handle it, and for that I am now aware of just how much of a good thing that was for me at the time. I am so thankful that I got to spend a little more time this time with my Grandma before she passed on, and that we were here in town to take care of her. I will say that however, selling the house has been an absolute nightmare. The people mom sold to were being real and utter shits. They were grandma's neighbors across the street, and members of my parents' congregation, and people they considered friends. Apparently they had mom sign a paper when she was a) on some medication that affected her judgement and b) when we were trying to deal with grandma's funeral arrangements and the like. So they got mom when she was at her most vulnerable and took advantage of it. I wasn't expecting this to happen, because they always seemed like reasonable people. But, it's pretty much all over and done with as of today, and maybe mom can finally get some closure, and some real relief from the stress that mom puts on herself by worrying so much about everything.

So, the last time I wrote an entry here, it was about the swath of drama that caused me to fuck off from my guild in World of Warcraft of 3 years. I took a bit of time off from the game, and played Hearthstone heavily, and dealt with real life shit that was going on. A few weeks ago, Blizz announced that Siege of Orgrimmar normal / heroic modes were available to be raided cross-realm immediately following the announcement. So, I saw my opportunity to hunt for new guilds, or at least progression for the moment. I queued into a 25m pug that night, and got lucky, seeing a good guild that was looking to do shit but that didn't take itself too seriously, and most importantly recognizes that hey sometimes real life shit happens. I only have my one toon in the guild over there atm cause i'm not paying to server transfer all of my toons over cause that's just way too damn expensive, but I have my main, my death knight, and I have since continued to kick asses and take names with him. I've also as previously mentioned been playing Hearthstone. I got to rank 14 last season before the ranks reset, and am currently at rank 15. Last season I was playing a lot of control pally, and now I'm playing ramp druid. I have been lucky as hell, getting 3 legendaries in the last month. Ysera, Rag, and Leeroy (I just got Leeroy today!!). I am so excite about the Naxxramas adventure mode they are putting in the game soon, and it can't come fast enough!

Other than that I haven't really been doing a whole hell of a lot, except for watching tv/movies on netflix and other places online. I've watched a lot of random shit (sabrina, ax men, etc). But, it is fucking game of thrones season again hooray for that. Season 4 has been absolutely nuts and i'm loving every minute of it. I have been driving a lot more, but just around the park here to get mail, but still it's getting me more comfortable behind the wheel. One of my best friends might come visit me in July. It's something we've been wanting to do for a number of years right now but as you all know situations don't leave me in a good position to be away from here for more than a week. I also took a trip to the casino for funsies with mom a week and a half ago, and that royally fucked my sleep schedule, but I think have that remedied now, hopefully. I'm sure getting drunk for the Game of Thrones premiere didn't help in that regard but fuck it was Jack Daniels and i'm weak when it comes to Jack. It just tastes so good. The hangover was a shitlord, though.

I also did something I never thought i'd do software wise. I switched my music playing software. When I was out at the casino with mom, my skullcandy's finally went out. I had made a comment a week earlier when we were at target (where I bought them), that they'd lasted a long time. Well, fucking jinx man. So, I purchased a new pair. JVCs, a great set of headphones as long as you have a decent equalizer to soften the bass a bit cause the bass in these headphones is powerful as shit, okay. I was using winamp, but now i'm using AIMP3. Overall it seems to be a tiny bit less memory intensive, and as I said the EQ definitely does the trick w/ these new headphones. While we're on the subject of music, things are going to be exciting here in music land for me. The new Lacuna Coil album is out (which I haven't listened to yet because I forgot). Angela Gossow stepped down as the vocalist from Arch Enemy, and was replaced by former The Agonist vocalist Alyssa white-gluzman (sp?). I didn't mind the new single I heard, but i'm really gonna miss Angela. Sure the last couple albums could've been a little better, but she still had an awesome warface and a bestial fucking growl. The new Opeth is coming out in June, I think. I have come around on the "Heritage" record, and I love it now, but i'm still not a giant fan of the guitar tone on it. It's just a little too "warm". The clean vocals don't bother me as i'm a fan of Mikael's cleans just as much as his growls. Seeing them last year was still one of the most amazing experiences of my life, and it really made Katatonia grow on me by leaps and bounds. They have made a spot in my permanent rotation of tunes. Also there are new Tool and Testament albums in production, so we'll have to see if those materialize at all this year or not. Still dreaming about a new Dimmu record, if it's been this long either it's not coming or it's going to fucking steamroll us by how brutal it is.

I think I will go ahead and end this here, but with the intent to blog a bit more regularly. Possibly even once a day. I really do want to write on here more though. For now though, here's the first contribution to that end.

Basically, this whole Darren and Jan reached it's conclusion, at least for my involvement in it last night.

Darren, quit the guild on all of his toons yesterday when Jan broke up with him after finding out that he lied about his pictures. His one profile pic on facebook, all the pics he sent. All fake. He ADMITTED THIS.

Made up another lie to cover up the first lie, that he had to have "reconstructive jaw surgery", which was later confirmed by a family member of his who is also in guld as bullshit.

So, with all of this information, and the abscence of pretty much any semblance of order going on, and this being a cycle that's happened in the guild since i've been in it really at least with him gquitting - happens every 1 or 2 months - I figured that although yeah it's about Jan and D's relationship, the guild as a whole deserves to know that they are playing with someone who is a dishonest person.

So meeting goes fine whatever. I can only assume Darren is chatting with people as the meeting's going on or after it's over. Cause basically after the ensuing facebook conversation, I get made out to be on an "anti-darren campaign" and I was like fuck yeah I am. I'm not going to sit here and know that this motherfucker lied to a person he claimed to love for 3 years and not call that into question, i don't care if he's too much of a chickenshit to come defend himself.

Well, after meeting i'm on Skype with Jan and Lou (another guildmate who had my back) and everything was going fine for a while.

Then I noticed jan got reaaaaaaaaaal quiet, but I could hear her typing. I can only assume she was talking to Darren but i got a pretty giant knife of a message in the back.

"What you ultimately did kenny was not only go behind my back and spreading my private business. But you also ruined another person's life. No one deserves that no matter what they do. Darren has done more good than harm. And I know you thought that it was in my best interests or the guild best interest but you are wrong. And even lu said people don't understand the situation. So why include them on a topic they know nothing about? Honestly I'm pissed and hurt. And you became the second person in a row to lose my trust."

So, I really at that point felt utterly and completely done with the whole situation. I told jan that basically I couldn't continue giving her a life saver if she wasn't willing to take it, wished her the best in life, but said that I had to end our friendship there because it was too much for me. I then gquit on all of my characters, deleted mostly everyone from the guild from everywhere.

So here’s how my christmas went. Spent the morning watching silly shows (fast food mania, finished up river monsters) and played a bit of hearthstone. I helped mom cook, and then we opened presents. I got a Cell phone (which I knew what that was since I picked it out lol), a microSD card for the phone, and a charging station to set the phone and my ipod in by my bed at night. There was an issue with the phone when I opened it, though. They shipped it with the wrong battery, and well that makes it a paperweight for the next 2-4 days, lol. In my stocking I got a giant hershey bar with a snowman on it, a candy cane full of reesey cups, and some scratch tickets which I won 2 bucks on (yay silly thing to buy with $2 - maybe a pack of cards on hearthstone to get the free gold gelbin mekkatorque card). After that we went up to the hospital and visited with my grandma. She’s doing alright, considering, but it was good to see her. I just wish I had been a lil’ more awake when I was there, cause by that time I was kind of out of it. Also a giant ugh to winter cause I was freezing when I woke up this morning and i’m a little congested. Right now I am jamming out and backing up things that are on my external that aren’t vital/too big to do so to the cloud, and then erasing them off my external. I also cleaned up my internal PC hard drive, woot. Just trying to make some room for the massive amounts of hard drive space capping stuff for gifs takes. I am gonna make spaghetti for dinner tonight, I think, and watch the Doctor Who christmas episode, and try and get something in order for my tumblr theme/sidebar cause christmas is over now.