End of an era

Well, this is it.  You know how they say that when one door closes, another one opens?  That's what I'm hoping will happen now.

I am closing down Brainiacs Lounge at the end of the month.

Brainiacs Lounge has been my baby since 2005, and I tried to nurture to something that would be able to help many small and startup businesses become successful, and allow business owners to focus on where their strengths lie.  I wanted this to be a national phenomenon, with name recognition, and great success.

(I didn't want me to be famous, but I wanted the business to be famous)

But as of 3/31/2014, Brainiacs Lounge will be no more.

We made some bad decisions during the course of its life, and those decisions have come back to haunt us.  We recognize our mistakes, and in order to not have any legal wranglings or possible takeovers in the future, we feel that this will be the best way to keep things simple and safe.

Brainiacs Lounge will come back, but under a new name.  Our services and position will be the same, and the energy we have will be there, but it will be called something different.

Expect us to return within the next six months, smarter, better, and more ready to help small and startup businesses succeed!

Slight provocation = Major frustration!

Just to let you know, I'm really frustrated right now.

Since I haven't posted anything new for several months, you probably don't know anything about what has happened in my life (unless you're a pretty proficient stalker, or a good friend).  Well, let me tell you:

After getting laid off fired from my last job, I decided to restart my consulting business, Brainiacs Lounge.  Yeah, I know it's a super-awesome name, and I get comments on it all the time.  It's a great conversation starter.

Anyway, I restarted Brainiacs Lounge, but with a completely new twist: it's no longer a consulting company, but rather a business assistance company.  It used to be a basic consulting firm which would go to a company and tell them how to be more efficient in their operations and marketing and what they need to do.

It was very difficult to find consistent work, and the work received was very short-lived and very rarely would you get repeat business.

Like a jilted ex-girlfriend

Okay.  So I'm still not over it.

I was laid off, I mean, fired, from my programming job a little over a week ago.  It's been bothering me ever since last Wednesday, when I went in to get my last check.  So, here's the story:

Two weeks prior to my being let go fired, I was informed by my superior that I would be let go at the end of two weeks (the pay period) due to budget cuts.  His wording was that I was being let go because of budget cuts.  There were no other reasons as to why I was being let go.  There was nothing about me being fired or anything of the sort.  Nothing.

I was only to assume that I was being "let go" (supervisor's words,  not mine) because of budget cuts.  Let me remind you that I was told this would occur in two weeks.

A New Job

Although it was official two weeks ago, I am now comfortable in telling others: I have a job.

It's a great job where I get to do computer programming.  If you've read this blog for a while, you may wonder why I'm going into programming when my interest lies in starting businesses.

It is true that I enjoy starting businesses, but right now I need to take some time from that and renew my savings.  Starting businesses takes a lot of money, and in order for me to feel comfortable in starting more, I need some sort of a financial buffer zone.

As for programming, I have always had an interest in programming, but because my father does programming, I never wanted to go into it.  I felt pressured to do programming and didn't want it to appear that I went into it because he pushed me into it.  I wanted to feel that I chose that route of my own free will.

Although I still feel like he pushed me into it, I decided that because I really enjoyed it, I'll set my feelings aside and do it.  I need to get over my rebellious nature (better late than never, right?).

Anyway, the company is a great place to work.  I am grateful and happy that I now get to work on things which I find worthwhile and meaningful.

Just trust me...

Trust is the most important thing to me.  If I cannot trust someone, that pretty much means that you will only get enough real information out of me to keep things moving on.  I will not tell you anything really important about me or what I do.

I'm sure that's very similar to most people; when their trust is broken by someone, they don't divulge much information to them.

Why I'm writing about this today is because someone very important to me, E, is not someone I can really trust.  She wants me to tell her everything and trust her completely, but I can't because she hasn't shown me that she deserves to be completely trusted.

Ya, that's really tough, and if she reads this post, she'll probably be devastated and really hurt.  But I need to get this out - it's been really bothering me for a long time.

First thing first: I trust her.  I trust her with many things - actually, with more things than I trust anyone else.  I can honestly say that she is the person who I trust the most on Earth.

So, if I trust her that much, why can't I trust her completely?

She has some bad habits which make it so I don't feel comfortable enough trusting her with everything about me.  For instance, when she gets really angry or depressed, she brings up many past issues and problems which I used to have and uses those as ammunition to support her argument or anger (they usually have nothing to do with whatever is bothering her, but since they bothered her in the past, they are somehow relevant).

It makes me really angry that I have to relive past mistakes over and over again just because E continually dredges those issues up.  Isn't living through them once enough?  Apparently not, because I have to relive them again whenever she is angry or depressed.  Even when I state that those things have already been resolved, she keeps on with them.

How can I completely trust someone who will not let resolved issues in the past stay in the past?  Why should I trust someone who will not allow time to move on?

I am a very forgiving person (to a fault).  Sometimes I wonder if I have the mentality of an abused spouse, who always forgives the abuser, thinking that they will change and become the person I think they are.  But, even after she brings up the supposedly-resolved past, I forgive her.  Of course it takes some time, but I still forgive her.

Unfortunately, by the time I start to feel comfortable with starting to trust her more, she goes and gets angry and depressed.  Then, we're back to square one again.

And the worst part is that she gets angry with me because I don't trust her completely.  This seems to be the main reason behind her anger.  Doesn't she see that her anger and the fact that she continually dredges up the past is the reason why I don't trust her more than I already do?

Sometimes I wish I could tell her that, but then she would get mad at me for insinuating that she's doing something wrong, which is impossible, because she believes that she's never wrong (that's another post entirely).

These are my thoughts this morning.


* The name E is just a representation of a real person, with real feelings

I had a dream

I had a dream last night.  It was a continuation of a series of dreams I had years ago.

The dreams I had before were like a reality show, where I was living in a house with other people, and we were learning martial arts (I'm not sure what kind it was).  In the end, I won the prize, and along the way I made friend with most of the competitors.

It was a very pleasant set of dreams.  They were fun.

Last night's dream was one where I was at the same house, but I was not part of the reality show this time.  It was as if it was the first episode, where all of the contestants were entering the house and I was there.  Many of the individuals there were the same ones from the last set of dreams, and as they saw me (or I saw them), we would start talking.

My review of The Life of Julia

I don't know how many of you have heard about President Obama's new slideshow on his website, but I saw it yesterday, and I was pretty astonished at it.  Not only was it well made, but it was really distressing.

It is a slideshow about Julia's life.  Not really her entire life, but some of the milestones in her life where President Obama's policies have made an impact in her life.  It then goes on and says how Mitt Romney would make her life worse if he becomes president.

Anyway, I will go through each slide, writing what each is, and discuss my thoughts on each: