I had another bad dream this morning. I was with my brothers D. and M. when they were really young. For some reason, we were taking a break and we stopped at a shopping center. We walked through the parking lot to a grassy area between buildings. There was a steep cliff beyond the grass, and we decided it would be fun to walk along the large boulders at the top of the cliff. The ground beneath D. caved in and D. held onto the ground with both hands.
The situation went from fun to dire in an instant. M. was next to me in complete safety on the grass, and I had to go rescue D. before he fell to his death. I pulled out my cellphone and decided it would be a good idea to call 911 before I put myself in danger to rescue D. I wanted to go immediately before D. lost his grip, and I thought it would be best if M. stayed behind on the phone with 911.
The only problem was that I felt M. was too young to understand the situation, to young to put my faith in that he would be able to get us the help we needed. I had to make a choice to save D. and possibly get stranded myself, or stay on the phone and ensure emergency services were on the way.
The boulders were no longer stable, and the moment I set foot on them, all the boulders could crumble away and we both fall to our deaths. I felt trapped in an impossible situation and I felt helpless.
Thinking clearly now, when I’m completely awake and just back from a long walk, the choice is obvious. Rescue D. at all cost. I wouldn’t even dial 911, I’d just toss the phone to M. and tell him to call. It wouldn’t even matter if 911 was on the way or not. What matters is that I do everything in my power to save D., even if it meant that I die. Even if it meant that we both fall, I could at least protect D. on the way down. I would sacrifice myself if it meant that I gave D. a fighting chance.
The worst part of the dream was that I was indecisive. I only felt trapped because I couldn’t make up my mind. I could walk onto the rocks and pull D. up out of the hole he was dangling from, but I hesitated because I was afraid of what would happen to me.
Seconds count in a situation like that! My indecision was absolutely terrible! Thank goodness it was just a dream. I’m chocking this up to practice for a situation in the future where I have the opportunity to save someone. I’m going to save that person, even if it comes at great cost to me. The alternative is sitting there and acting helpless, while that person dies in front of me. Does that alternative sound good to me? Fuck no!
I’m reminded of what I heard from an airsoft player at one point. We weren’t playing airsoft on the day he said this, we were working on improving the airsoft field. What he said had to do with the responsibilities of a man. This is all his opinion, of course, and I’m not sure if society today would agree with it, but here it is.
A man’s responsibilities are the 3 P’s. Provision, Protection, Procreation.
Anon
I think it went something like that. So in the case of saving someone, protection comes into play, and that’s a man’s job.
So what do I think? Do I agree that a man’s job is to do these three things? Eh, it sounds pretty good, but I’m not so sure about provision and procreation.
Maybe in my heart of hearts, I believe these things, but because I’m not able to follow them, I’m ashamed. I’m broke; I can barely provide for myself. I’m a virgin and I’ve never been in a serious relationship. I have nobody to protect, nobody to fuck, and I have no children. I have good reason to be ashamed.
I’m not even on a path to work towards being able to satisfy the three P’s.
I think I need to dispel a myth. The three P’s are not a universal law, they are simply a standard that another man has adopted. He was passionate enough about it to share with me. The three P’s are that man’s recipe for happiness, and that recipe is just one of many recipe’s available for men to choose from.
Another recipe available, that some men choose to follow, is a life of religion, celibacy, and service. I don’t like that recipe either, but I can respect it.
I acknowledge them, I respect them, but I don’t choose them for myself. Myth dispelled!
I just got an E-Mail from eBay that is very welcome right now!
My eBay seller fees are being deferred a full 30 days! In addition, I get 50,000 FREE insertions! Hell fucking yeah! Insertion fees are my biggest concern on eBay right now. I’ve got thousands of cards I need to list, but I’ve been so afraid of the upfront cost of extra insertion fees. Fear dispelled! I’m going to go listing-crazy now! Woot woot woot! Hell fucking yeah, my dude!
So this promotion goes until April, which means that any items which don’t sell within that time might need to get pulled. When May comes around, I’ll get charged ten cents per item I have in my store which goes beyond my 1000 item limit. At that point, I’ll have to make a decision to pull items and re-list as bulk lots, or eat the insertion fee if there is promise that the item will sell within the next few months.
I would like to not have to worry about insertion fees at all. It’s kind of ridiculous that insertion fees are even a thing, especially when I’m paying eBay $60 a month for the privilege to have a store. The only thing I can do about it is subscribe to the enterprise store level where I would get 10,000 free listings a month, but that subscription level cost $300 a month. Someday I might get there, but that time is not soon!
Ok then, this is good news during this COVID-19 time. I have nothing to hold me back now… I’m going to list every card that I have in my inventory and not worry about a thing!
Oh yeah, I need card sleeves. I have 10,000 on order, they should be arriving this week. Yesterday they were in transit in Des Moines, Iowa. I knew a guy who lived in Des Moines. Chris Pirillo. He’s quite the guy! I met him at VloggerFair 2014 and got to shake his hand. That was a cool experience, I really enjoyed his vlogs and I looked up to him. I haven’t seen his vlogs in quite some time. I wonder how he’s doing?
I keep thinking about that $400 office space… I could work there and spend most my time there during the day, then go home to a trailer which would cost me another $400 per month to park. Squeee! I want it so bad! I could get rid of my phone! Hmm… Maybe not. But maybe so.
The thing I was thinking there is that I could use a SIP phone service. I’d put my lightning fast internet to use and just use a landline at the office. If I got the right service, maybe I could use it at home as well. Or I could just get rid of my phone for personal sanity reasons. I tend to make myself unavailable via phone anyway, so I probably wouldn’t mind.
The thing is, when I go to conventions or something… That whole paradigm falls apart. Hmm… Maybe I get a 100% VoIP phone which doubles as my home internet connection? That’s the real dream right there. Then I can have a kickass office internet connection which can provide data for my servers and webSDR and all that jazz.
I got a few sales on eBay just now. Some electronics junk which I got from thrift stores. It’s so funny how I often get more profit out of a little piece of cardboard than I do from bulky electronics. Plus cards are way easier to ship than having to package up electronics. I’m learning a lot, here!
I just want to scale up somehow. I want 50 cards per day to go out the door. I’d be set at that rate. I wonder if I can pull it off? Now is the time to find out, now that eBay has given me 50,000 free insertions until the end of April. No excuses not to list! And list I will!
Luckily I have enough sleeved cards ready to list, which will last me until my order of 10,000 sleeves comes in. It’s amazing how fast I went through 1000 sleeves. It was literally 3 days and I was out. Live and learn! 10,000 sleeves is the minimum I’m going to be ordering in the future.
Alright, so I’m planning for the future here. I gotta make rent in 7 days and I’m going to make that date. No excuses!
I’m checking my bank account here, and it looks like I have $558.72 in my checking account. Very good indeed. Paypal account is sitting at $88.12. Ok then, this month’s rent is locked in, but I am in no position to relax. I had a big break this month due to selling a share of TSLA, but next month I gotta make rent again, and I also can’t drive for much longer because my auto insurance is about to lapse. I can’t make that $200 payment and I’m not going to do a thing about it other than let it lapse and look at acquiring a bicycle. Shipping large packages is going to become an issue, but I think I can simply get those packages picked up instead of driving them to the post office.
I can get rid of my truck which means an extra $500 of income, which is enough to get a bicycle or something. Maybe my mom would sell me one of her bicycles.
The electronic sales are rolling in today. Third sale just came in. Lots of people at home during COVID-19 with nothing to do other than shop, apparently! Now if only the otakus would come out of the woodwork and make that many card purchases, I’d be sitting pretty!
As far as electronics go, I have a few things to restock my store with. Lots of little USB dongles and flash drives, etc. I suppose I could list a few of those a day, in addition to the hundreds of cards that I plan on listing.
CoDA is today at 6PM. It’s a virtual meetup via ZOOM, so I have no excuse not to attend! I also have some homework to do which my therapist assigned to me. The assignment is #2 in the CoDA sponsor questions. My therapist is being my unofficial CoDA sponsor until I find a sponsor via CoDA. I have to read a bunch of pages out of the CoDA blue book, then answer the question– “do you see that you are truly codependent?”
I’ve been putting off doing that, but today is the perfect day to work on CoDA stuff. I’ll probably wait till after the meeting to do it, and use the meeting itself as inspiration to study.
I exercised this morning. Firstly I shipped 4 items. It’s pretty simple to ship when shipping means just walking them to the mailbox! Luckily those four items fit into the mailbox. Two were bulky. A DVD burner, and a RAVNICA Fishing game. The other two were cards, very tiny. M. got a bunch of magic cards in the mail. I have a suspicion that he is putting together a deck for me. We have been playing magic every so often. I went to his apartment the first time, and the second time was on Saturday when he came home and we played. He’s too good at magic. He wins every time! I had a close game when we played with premade decks. I got him down to 2 health when I was at 10, then he drew a perfect zombie card which gave him a huge army in a single turn. He completely turned the tables in his favor and pulled off a win. I was so stoked to finally beat him, but nope! Maybe next time.
So yeah, i think he might be putting together a deck for me, because last time we played, he asked me what my perfect deck would be. I told him that I’d like a nuker deck. As in, hold out somehow for rounds and rounds, simply to build up one extremely powerful attack which decimates my opponent. Or a beast deck, where there is no strategy other than attack each turn if able. I’m lazy like that, LOL.
Anyway, I could tell he got a bunch of magic cards because the from addresses on several envelopes mentioned magic or trading cards. Also I could feel the rigid toploaders in the envelopes!
I took note of how those companies are mailing cards. USPS First Class with Intelligent Mail barcodes! One out of the 4 used Endicia, and they for some reason affixed an extra $0.15 stamp. I guess it makes sense because the Endicia label said $0.50, and that $0.15 must have been for the rigidity. The others just used forever stamps, some of them not even bothering about the $0.15. I suppose it’s up to the postage handlers at the post office making a call on whether or not to be nit picky about the rigidity.
Alrighty then. I’m going to go prep some food, and list a shit ton of cards. Excelsior!
3. I am unique
4. I can and I will do things to promote healing in my life.
5. I can handle this one step at a time.
I’m grateful for my brother M. He has an enjoyable, humorous, sometimes off the chains goofy personality, and I enjoy his company and I’m put at ease by his carefree attitude. I enjoy rollerblading with him as well, and his skills and dedication to learning new techniques is inspiring.
I’m grateful for my brother D. His wit is contagious and his passion for learning language and biology is admirable. I appreciate his cooking and his willingness to try new foods. He’s so good at video games! League of Legends comes to mind, but there isn’t a game he plays where he doesn’t succeed. It’s not only the mechanical aspects he’s good at, but the statistical stuff as well. He has a great story about how he won free rent at his apartment as a reward for winning a video game competition! At first, the competition admins thought he was cheating and banned him from the competition. Only after he submitted a report on exactly how he honestly won was he awarded the prize. He spent countless hours learning the game and studying the AI to come up with the most optimal path to get the quickest time on the track and secure his place as #1. Amazing story, it should be a YouTube documentary!
I’m grateful for my brother B. All three brothers made my grateful list today! B. is a wonderful, fearless rollerblader with hundreds if not thousands of hours of experience. He’s got skills and style and I love to see him bust out the rollerblade dance moves, Jet Set Radio Future style! He’s got a spicy, opinionated personality and he knows what he’s into and everything else doesn’t matter. His wife comments on this all the time when he gets into a heated argument over the best console, best gun, best game, best politician, best whatever. “He’s very passionate!” she says. That passion is contagious and it makes sense that he’s the alphadog when it comes to playing video games. Everyone looks to B. as he’s a natural leader. I’m very grateful that he is in my life.
