Hey there, anyone who stumbles by. This is the requisite newbie post, so I will go ahead and get right into it.

I was born in Loveland, CO, and lived there until I was 9. At that point, my family moved to Corvallis, OR, where I lived for about 12 years. Anyone who has lived in or visited the northwest knows that it rains here a little bit, and that took some getting used to. I think there are two types of people in Oregon/Washington: the ones who fall in love with the rain and the ones who don't. The ones who don't are inevitably doomed to 6 months of depression of varying degrees of severity (that was a shout-out, see what i did there?). The ones who learn to love the rain, like myself, are exceptionally lucky, because the Pacific Northwest is one of the most beautiful places in the entire world. Yep, it gets really gloomy in the fall/winter, but there is a beauty in that, too, that I think surpasses the popular conception of beauty in nature.

Having spent most of my developmental years in Oregon, this place is home to me in a way that no other place could be, no matter the length of time I lived there. There are two sides to that coin, though. As is the norm, there were good times and there were bad times. Most of the bad times consisted of attending a private christian school up through my junior year in high school. Part of me regrets ever having to go to that school, but that part of me is overruled when I consider that if it weren't for my experiences there, I wouldn't be who I am today...that's a little bit existential but whatever.

Anyway, after getting the hell out of that school, I went to a community college in Albany for a few years in pursuit of an associates degree in electronics engineering. What should have taken two years turned into five, as I gave priority to my extra-curricular activities, which included consumption of all sorts of mind-altering substances. It was all fun and games for a couple of years, because everyone rolls along with...

Hey there, anyone who stumbles by. This is the requisite newbie post, so I will go ahead and get right into it.

I was born in Loveland, CO, and lived there until I was 9. At that point, my family moved to Corvallis, OR, where I lived for about 12 years. Anyone who has lived in or visited the northwest knows that it rains here a little bit, and that took some getting used to. I think there are two types of people in Oregon/Washington: the ones who fall in love with the rain and the ones who don't. The ones who don't are inevitably doomed to 6 months of depression of varying degrees of severity (that was a shout-out, see what i did there?). The ones who learn to love the rain, like myself, are exceptionally lucky, because the Pacific Northwest is one of the most beautiful places in the entire world. Yep, it gets really gloomy in the fall/winter, but there is a beauty in that, too, that I think surpasses the popular conception of beauty in nature.

Having spent most of my developmental years in Oregon, this place is home to me in a way that no other place could be, no matter the length of time I lived there. There are two sides to that coin, though. As is the norm, there were good times and there were bad times. Most of the bad times consisted of attending a private christian school up through my junior year in high school. Part of me regrets ever having to go to that school, but that part of me is overruled when I consider that if it weren't for my experiences there, I wouldn't be who I am today...that's a little bit existential but whatever.

Anyway, after getting the hell out of that school, I went to a community college in Albany for a few years in pursuit of an associates degree in electronics engineering. What should have taken two years turned into five, as I gave priority to my extra-curricular activities, which included consumption of all sorts of mind-altering substances. It was all fun and games for a couple of years, because everyone rolls along with the attitude that "everything is going to be alright". But then, one day, my close friend and I realized that everything won't always necessarily be alright, and shit had to change.

So I got out of that circle, just prior to my other best friend getting busted. Several months later, another of my friends died. Those, along with a couple of other happenings, were a bit eye-opening. Yes, we had our fun, and yes, we did some really stupid shit that we were lucky to get away with, much less survive.

A year or so later, after exiting the drug scene, I met a girl. She was almost the polar opposite of me. I dressed in black; she dressed in color. I listened to metal; she listened to hip-hop and country. I was a reclusive satan-worshiper in high school; she was on the cheer leading squad and the golf team. And yet, somehow, it worked. We had been dating for about 8 months when she decided to move back to her hometown in eastern Oregon. At this point in time, I was in my last year of school for my AAS, and I had a great CWE position at a local precious metals refinery, so I had to stay behind. I made the drive every weekend, though; all 660 round trip miles of it! Did this for about 9 months, after which time I had successfully completed my courses at school and finally had the opportunity to move permanently to eastern Oregon. Bad Move.

There is no industry there. As soon as I was out of school, my freshly accumulated knowledge began to stagnate, and fast. I couldn't find a good job anywhere. But I subsisted, and we had a house together on 40 acres of land. It was really fantastic, except for how dry and brown the area was. I never really felt like I belonged there, though, and with every passing month I knew that I was getting further and further from ever being able to do anything with the degree I just got.

Fast forward two and a half years. I asked the girl to marry me, and she said yes. Things were going quite well. I knew I needed to go back to school, and she concurred, so we decided to move to the Portland area so that I could finish my bachelor's degree. She, too, was interested in returning to school, and had a desire to get into the radiation therapy field. So we did it. I landed a great job in Portland, and went ahead to pave the way for our transition over from eastern Oregon. It seemed like everything was going so swimmingly.

But there was something wrong, something that wasn't quite right. It started small and slowly grew, at an almost imperceptible rate. It had been there for a while, too...how long had we been together now? Three and a half years...and it seemed like there had been a rift between us for at least half of that time. What had once been a relationship filled with passion bordering raw lust had turned into an arrangement of convenience. There was no single catalyst; just a series of events. I lied to her; she lied to me. I didn't tell her how I really felt about something; she didn't tell me what she really wanted me to do. And slowly but surely, the fire dwindled to a embers, which dimmed to a mere spark.

The rest of the story is to fresh to be anecdotal, so I will suffice to say that she is not here any more. And it sucks. But I am still trying to sort out the precise reasons of exactly why it sucks.

The easier thing to figure out is why it went wrong. We just weren't honest with each other. At the very core of who we were, we hid things about ourselves. It was doomed from the start. It was a tough lesson to learn, but for me, it had to go down the way it did. You can tell me all day that something isn't going to work for a given reason, but until I can see it fail for myself, I am not going to take it to heart. I guess that has it's pros and cons.

So there it is! That is a quick summary of how I got there, why and when I left, and how I came to be where I am right now. I can also tell you about the one time I saw a UFO at Area 51 outside Rachel, NV. Or about the time I flicked a cigarette out my window on I-84 and ended up essentially causing a semi to jackknife across all lanes of traffic, in turn causing a motorcyclist to clothesline himself on the trailer. Or how I witnessed the evolution of man at a most profound level while riding the MAX to a Les Claypool show. Good times, all.

Cheers!

Youngblood