Here we are several months home now. My evil twin is no longer "freeloading" at my place currently -- he has gotten himself employed again. My shop has paid its own bills and occasionally paid for things like food and gasoline. However, it isn't paying everything. I am considering my options at this point. I may have to take that unemployment I've held off on getting. On one hand, I've always wanted to get the business going on its own steam, but right now it (and me) needs a serious infusion of cash -- all of the extra money has been going into building the cafe, and currently development in that direction has stalled completely. I guess that in reality, I've been paying into unemployment since I was 16, so taking some of that back in order to save my business isn't so bad... it still feels like a cop-out however. Over the last 3-4 days, there really hasn't been any need to get out of bed -- business usually picks up when school starts, but now it is dead. I think that higher gas prices are to partly to blame. How am I supposed to funnel money from the wicked to just if none of it is coming my way?

On a more personal note, I have put my overal social/dating life on hold for the time being. I have my "core" of friends, my click, my knuckles that I see regularly, but the act of going out, meeting new friends, and dating is getting put on the back burner. I'm starting to wonder if there actually are any single Christian women near my age in the area. I am a single-white Christian male that practices abstinence, which puts me in a very small minority it seems. As I look around at women my age, I mostly come across one of the "nons". Non-single, or non-Christian, or non-childless. I don't have anything against children, but I am waiting till marriage to have sex. My partner needs to have that same commitment, to understand and respect that. I have it on good authority and dating experience that a born-again virgin is even rarer than an actuall virgin. They may say that they're going to wait this time, but the invitation is out there.
So I'm a bit picky when it comes to women. I have this thing for smart, attractive Christian women that share some of my ideals. I've decided that I am too picky to be going out and looking for a match... I will bide my time and wait for one to enter my life.

I have been having serious problems connecting to this site from my dsl connection, hence the lack of updates. However, I figured I should throw some stuff out here.

1. The layout and design of this site sucks. It may have been a cool thing several years ago , but errors and mixed formatting on code are becoming seriously dated. W3C has nothing on this site. Expect an entire site overhaul soon.
2. I have now fully moved into the shop. Some people have a home-based business, well I have a business based home.
3. I was looking back to nearly 3 years ago on rant number 28 about when I removed the computer from my house and talked about getting rid of my cell phone. Well, the opposite has occured. I have gotten rid of my cell phone, but have a computer practically anywhere I go. I'm going to try this out for the next 6 months or so, and I might not be getting one again.
4. I am now living off of unemployment and income from the shop, which is to say that I am living entirely off self-employment earnings. The last time I got an official paycheck from anyone was April 29th. So if I'm not spending money on gas to come up and visit you, or going out to the movies, or stopping at the local burger joint as often as I used to, it's not because I don't want to. It's just every single cent counts so much more now than it ever did before in my life, and I expect this to remain for a few more months until the pace picks up.

(19:41:18) Abellbubba... unknown: hi
(19:41:18) Squegie  :  doing work around the shop... later
(19:41:49) Abellbubba... unknown: o.....k
(19:47:56) Squegie: hi
(19:49:49) Squegie: i'm afraid i don't know who you are
(19:50:30) Abellbubba... unknown: im ALEX
(19:50:54) Abellbubba... unknown: helo
(19:51:04) Abellbubba... unknown: luigi
(19:51:14) Abellbubba... unknown: ?
(19:51:16) Abellbubba... unknown: ?
(19:51:18) Abellbubba... unknown: ?
(19:51:20) Abellbubba... unknown: ?
(19:51:22) Squegie: back
(19:51:29) Abellbubba... unknown: hie
(19:51:47) Abellbubba... unknown: who are you
(19:51:52) Abellbubba... unknown: ?
(19:52:04) Squegie: john
(19:52:12) Abellbubba... unknown: oooooooooooooooooooooh
(19:52:21) Abellbubba... unknown: poop
(19:52:37) Squegie: hmmm... not the best reaction in the world
(19:53:09) Abellbubba... unknown: your luigi ahhhhhhhhhhh dahhhhhhh im not retarded
(19:53:29) Abellbubba... unknown: :-) bear
(19:53:45) Squegie: luigi? like mario's brother?
(19:54:10) Abellbubba... unknown: no like kid in my class
(19:54:27) Squegie: sorry.. wrong person
(19:55:00) Abellbubba... unknown logged out.

I AM BACK. Well wasn't that fun. While I can plan on not being deployed again, it's now time for me roll the dice and see what life has in store for me. Interesting things are bound to occur. BTW, I've put out the first issue of JHN (John Hogenmiller News) on The Source of H. How is it that I can simultaneously feel like Mr. Awesome and a looser? I've climbed rocks, jumped out of windows, been shot at, did my own taxes, dated two strippers at the same time -- from the same club, led a prayer group, out-chugged a chugger, hung drywall, hot-wired a car, sat home alone many a night, walked 3 miles barefoot through town just to say I did, got cut in a knife fight, choke-slammed a Marine, took out the trash, did laundry, and wear open-toe sandals. Just who am I?

I haven't really been watching this site too much recently since I've been mostly focusing on my other site Iraq again. Maybe once I get some of this other stuff out of my way I'll post some more updates here. I've been working on a lot of stuff recently, from running the internet bunker, to my extending an accounting package, and working on coWiki. Cheers, Squegie

I get a bit worried when someone will come up to me and sincerely thank me for something. I respond graciously enough with "no problem man", but inside I'm thinking "Who is this person and what do they think I did for them?" Well, I guess it's better than people coming up and cursing me out for things I don't think I did.

Happy Saturday! For those of you tuning in back home, then Merry Christmas! Here in Iraq, it's business as usual, just another day. But it is also important to note that for me and my gange, we've past the halfway point and it's all downhill from here. That is a good cause for celebration. Cheers.

You know, sometimes it sucks knowing what the right course of action is. Instant gratification is a bitch to turn down, especially if you don't know how well the "delayed gratification" will turn out. Why does doing the right thing seem like the boring one?

I talked about it with some people, but now I have finally launched the site Iraq... again. I am going to put all Iraq-related blog entries and pictures on that site, so start looking there instead of here for a while. Of course, things that are just my usual musings and findings will naturally go here.

From Slashdot:
Yeah, but...they're spammers.

It's like the Indiana Jones movies. Melting people's faces is bad. Melting Nazi's faces is awesome. Because, honestly, they're Nazis.

I'm not saying spammers are Nazis, just that we should melt their faces.