No, I didn't get abducted by aliens.

What Up, Blogland?
Sorry it's been so long... It's been one heluva year for me.
Working like crazy, a relationship, etc.

I'm working 4.5 jobs right now.
Still working for the Wolcott Hill Express (my hometown ambulance), the city Ambulance service ( just got active again back in July. Didn't have time to diddle around with the ride-outs, nor the motivation for a while. When you get hired or advance levels, you have to ride out with a crew for 5 shifts to make sure that you meet the uber-high standards here [sense any sarcasm?] So after being on my own with the WHE for almost 10 months, I finally did my ride outs here. I've worked some shifts since, I've also done standbys at the race track that we cover.), also back driving school bus again (talk about irony... I life-long homeschooler driving a school bus), I just got hired at a local pizza place as Delivery Driver/Kitchen Bitch (straight from the kitchen manager's mouth at my impromptu interview while I was there for lunch with a friend), and still occasionally working up at the bar.

"Adam, why the hell are you working 4.5 part time jobs instead of 1 full time job?", you ask.
Well, several reasons.

#1: Not a lot of worth-while full time jobs around here. Every one that I've looked at either has bad reputations as employers with how they treat their people, or they're specialty jobs.

#2: I'm working double-full-time hours with The WHE, but the pay sucks. But I also have no gas budget since i'm right in town anyway.

#3: I'm seriously considering moving out of state next year, therefore I am going to be doing some traveling over the coming months, investigating areas that I'm considering calling my new home. It's a lot easier to get time off from 4 part time jobs than it is 1 full time job. (I know, in the big picture, it isn't too logical, but I never claimed to be completely logical all the time.)

I was originally in a toss-up between Oklahoma and Montana, but now it's leaning toward Montana or Wyoming.

I was going to stay in NY and go to either Ranger School or get some environmental degree and try to get into a Fisheries Management job, but I'm really getting sick of NY. There is not a lot here. The economy sucks, a lot of the people suck (I know you get that everywhere, but NY has a special breed), and we're taxed and regulated to the point of strangulation here.

I was originally considering OK because a few years ago I had decided that if nothing was going for me here by the time I hit 25, I was either going to go work as an OTR truck driver or move to Tornado Alley, find work, and chase storms. OK started sounding even sweeter when I was told that they are practically begging for paramedics (who get paid appreciably better than here in NY), the cost of living is 1/3 less, plus... I could be a storm chaser.
Then I started wondering if I really wanted to trade Nor'easters, lake-effect snow, and nose-hair-freezing cold for Diaphoreses-caliber heat, Rattlesnakes, Scorpions, and the chance of getting sucked into the sky by a Hoover from Hell.

I still like the thought of storm-chasing and not having to deal with the crappy weather we are famous for here, but I don't think it would be something I'd want to do forever. I don't like oppressive heat. It can be near debilitating for me. If I can barely stand a NY 95 degree day, how the hell would I be operational in OK heat?
Montana is definately more up my alley. The mountains, the woods, the wide-open spaces... I've always wanted to visit MT and I am going to, sometime this winter if I can save the money for the trip. I want to go visit to see if it's just another hair-brained idea or if it's something that I would definately enjoy. I know it has the bad winters and everything, but the way I look at it is that it's easier to warm up than it is to cool down.
I'm still gonna visit OK next spring if I can swing it. I will be going to Texas in the next few months to visit an old friend that I haven't seen in about 8 years and just regained contact with, so that'll be cool, too.
There is a lot of investigating to be done for sure. I'm not making this move on a whim. I'm gonna have a job lined up before I move. I'm also going for my National Registry certifications next time a class pops up around here.
If I do decide on MT or WY, that'd be an awesome area to work as a Forest Ranger in, or to work in fisheries. I'm already daydreaming about flyfishing for trout in MT or WY. :-D

So, there's the trailer for the next year or so of my life. I'll update the plot and script as time marches on. I can't make any moves until after August '08, since the town paid for my Paramedic tuition. They didn't make me sign any commitments, but I decided to give the town and WHE 2 years of service as a paramedic as a bit of a Thank You for paying for my tuition. It'll most likely be early '09 before I do anything... Stick around for Christmas, move shortly after that. Part of me is hesitant about moving that far away from my family, you know? I love them and I don't want to be the missing face in the family photo, nor do I want to be the one who has to race cross-country to get home if something bad happens. We shall see what happens.

In other news, I'm single again. I have been for about 2.5 months.
I had mentioned a few posts back that I finally got myself a girl. It went great for a while. We went from meeting to being a couple over the course of 2 weeks and we were inseperable from the start. We spent pretty much every moment together for the first 3 or 4 months while she lived in town. Then she moved about 20 miles away to her parents' house things still went well for a while. The last month or 2 we were together, things were getting kind of stressful. There was a lot of BS going on that I'm not gonna get into tonite because I'm not in the mood to elaborate. Basically, things were still going tolerably (from my point of view, anyway), and she went from totally in love to "I'm feeling suffocated, miserable, I love you but I'm not in love with you anymore, blah blah blah" over the course of about 2 weeks. This was late in June.

I was devastated. She was my first relationship, things looked great... i was planning on proposing in February, actually. Now I'm glad I didn't jump the gun and do it sooner. I've had a personal ground rule for a long time that states that new relationships (from meeting to engagement) require a year and a half before popping the question, to really get to know the person, etc. There are exceptions, for example if it were someone I've known and been friends with for a while, if it became a romantic relationship it might not need as much time.

Anyway, I got to see some true colors in the last month or 2 we were together that I didn't really like, plus there was other stuff that I'd been ignoring (i'm sure the same is true the other way around, too).
I actually did alright getting over it, for the most part... Aside from the part of drinking a little too much... I drank more in the month after we broke up than I had the entire previous year, possibly longer. I didn't spend the month in an alcoholic haze by any means. I had several times where I got markedly intoxicated, especially in the first 2 weeks, but after that it wasn't bad... somewhere between social drinking and a good buzz a few times a week.

I've been really good for the last month and a half or so. I can look back on it without getting misty-eyed or depressed and I can actually enjoy the memories that we'd made. We still talk from time to time, we've met up for C&C (Coffee and conversation) a few times. The first few post-breakup C&C's were rough afterwards... Seeing her made everything fresh again and would put me in a funk for a few days. The last time we had C&C though, it was good. I was good with it during and after, it didn't throw me into a funk or anything.

The first month and a half or so was definately a roller-coaster. I'd have good days and I'd have really really really bad days. Some people say that if they could go back knowing what would happen that they'd never let it happen to begin with. Not me. I learned a lot of things while we were together and after the break-up. My self-esteem shot way up and I've got a ship-load of great memories. Not only were we a couple, we were great friends. She even says that still, after the break-up. Being able to talk as friends is good. I still have my moments where I'm like "WTF, man..." Sometimes I get a little perturbed, sometimes a little wistful and "what if" and all that, but I know it's best in the long run.

Actually, the night she broke it off between us, as absolutely devastated as I was, I breathed the biggest sigh of relief through my tears on the drive home. It felt as if a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. As I look back, I see a lot of things now that I wasn't seeing then, both in me and in her. Things that other people were seeing that I either wasn't seeing or was ignoring, stuff that I'd shrug off when it was brought to my attention... You know how it goes.

So I'm single again and I'm actually enjoying it. The alone time, the freedom to do whatever (within reason, of course), the sudden and quite relieving lack of drama in my life, all that good stuff. In the meantime, I'm just cruisin. I'm not searching for another relationship, I'm not out hooking up or dating around, nothing like that. I'm not getting serious again unless I'm pretty damn certain that there is long-term future potential. Besides, my "game" sucks, anyway. LOL

I think I've typed myself out for one night. I'm at the City ambulance, working a semi-unexpected overnighter. I'd signed up to work the races Friday and Saturday. Friday night went well, Saturday (yesterday technically) was iffy. It rained all night and into the early morning Fri-Sat, so they spent a few hours working the track to get it raceable (it's a dirt track), then they had the hot laps and the heats for qualifying, then just before the feature race (a 200 lap race), the skies opened. So we sat there doing nothing for several hours (if we leave, the race is called off because they have to have an ambulance there, so we stayed until they told us to leave). A little before 2100, they decided to call off the race and hold it Sunday morning at 1000. So we watched the fireworks and came back to quarters, after which I was planning on going home, throwing my uniform in the wash, and going out for a little while to check out my favorite local bartender. :-P
Jumping back a few days, one of the paramedics who was supposed to be on tonite had called and asked if I'd work for her when I got done with the races. She said she had another call into another one of the ALS guys, and she'd let me know if she ended up needing me to cover for her.
Well, she never called me back, so I assumed that the other guy was covering.
As I went to punch out tonite, the shift supervisor looks at me and says "Aren't you staying?"
I said "I wasn't planning on it.
He said "Amber (not her real name) said you were gonna work for her tonite."
I said, "Really? I said I'd work if she needed me and to call me to let me know for sure, but she never called back so i thought she had the shift covered."
Eyes then rolled as most of the guys on duty tonite made some comments and I said "No problem, I'll stick around, i just didn't know I needed to"
So here I am working the overnighter, then working the race, hoping someone will relieve me at 1430 if the races are still going on, because I have to work the delivery job at 1600. Fun stuff.

Ok, enough typing for one night.
Again, sorry about the absence, I hope all is well with everyone!
Be safe,
Adam