Just surfing along, checking your site every day like I do, and noticed no comments! So, have a great day, Wil! I plan on having one too!

Same for me Eva. Wil, Glad to hear you've been busy. It is very rewarding, even though it may be exhausting.

Of course, in a completely selfish way I am glad to hear it has slowed down cause hopefully that means we will be hearing more from you.

Later,

Headra

Wow, I don't think I was ever this early in posting a comment. But hey, its all good. And I know where you are coming from. Just two weeks ago I was complaining I was bored and now, I have been cleaning out our stuff and packing so we can get ready to move in about two weeks. Not to mention, I need to write for my on-line role playing games everyday to keep the rest of my threads happy. But I just love the stress. It just keeps me going. But today, being that it is Sunday and has cooled down, I plan on relaxing, taking a break and reading a book. I hope you have a great day on the beach Wil!

PS. Sorry if I rambled.

Is that it ???? :O only joking, you have a lot on your plate dont you!! In a way its a good thing, it keeps your mind active and in essence makes you more intelligent (and here is me just babelling on "again" like i know what i am on about). Well only 1 week left of school for me ... then the summer starts, so i will have a chance to relax then too. And our school week will start off with ....."Sister Act". Wooooo!

Well keep the devotion you have to everything at the mo and u will be brilliant

=-- Chris --=

I can't wait to hear about the whole trip...

:sits by the campfire and gets out the marshmallows:

We'll be waitin' for the stories when you get back from the beach! :)

Glad to hear your feeling good.
Busy is good, but there is never too much time for family. It's a valuable lesson that I've learned well. Enjoy every moment, there won't be another the same.
I glad to see you'll have more time to be posting and keeping in touch with your visitors. You've got something special here.
Thanks

So glad to see you're back! I was thinking, oh great. I find this board and start posting when he's on vacation in Alaska andhe comes back and possibly lost interest in his site. I miss everything good! (whine) Whew! I'm happy to see that's not the case. Can't wait to hear about the Alaskan cruise and everything else you've been doing. :)

Wil's dog: "What he looking at?"

Fun at the beach; this year even better. With the lack of rainfall, the beach and water will be so much cleaner....

It's good to see you had so much work. Trust me, it's better than having no work at all and watching the bills keep coming in the mail. Unfortunately, I'm in the "no work at all" category right now. So I'm hoping that my wish for more work is granted.

Amen, Wil. Have you heard the song "Grateful" by John Bucchino? www.johnbucchino.com It's my personal theme song these days.

Been lurking for a while. Love your writings, and I always learn about something new & cool. Thanks for sharing yourself and your thoughts.

Wow Wil, I can relate utterly and totally. When I was just working my one part time job I had lots of time to "think" which can be both good and bad. I kept getting hurt by family and friends so I said, once I get a full time job I won't have time for anything and I will have to prioritize my life. Well now I don't even have time to prioritize my life, my apartment is a mess, my friends are all mad cuz I don't have time for them (they magically developped time for me once I got busy). Also I was thinking the other day I should have moved out to the west coast and how was I going to get out there now...blah blah. Then my mom emailed me and told me she got offered a job in Vancouver and wants me to move there with her. Which is awesome that I get to finally move out there but do I want it to be with my mom who I don;t get along with and who abandoned me the first time to move off to Calgary? Plus I saw some guy in my full time job who looked like he was just passing through our city and I was attracted and thought...hmmmm I'll probably never see that guy again, that's too bad. Days later I walked into my part time job at this restaurant and he is our new server! What a coincidence. But!!! The girls told me he is a total creep plus he is 27 years old and I am 20. ANd he has a hairy back.
Does this relate in anyway to your life> Probably not...yet strangely so.

Wil,

I am so glad you updated. I come here everyday and probobly spend more time on this site branching off of your links than you did making them. I always look foreward to your new posts. They always make a sick guy feel better if only for a little while. Thanks for all you do. Enjoy your day at the beach with your family. Those are very special times. Build a sandcastle for me. until your next post........Matt.

Re: "I don't believe that we're ever given more than we can really handle, even if we don't think we can handle it."
I've been saying this for years. There's always a little bit of reserved strength in the pit of people that's constantly being replenished without us even noticing.
Here's another fitting cliche: When it rains, it pours.

Take a break, enjoy some time off and then immerse yourself in it again. In the meantime, don't let the sudden slow down bore you. Use the time wisely and breathe.

Summer is for frolicking after all, at any age.

Well, Wil, you once talked about the balance of things. Here's proof that you were right on!

Nice to know that you're doing good. I'm heading down to Virginia this coming weekend. Flying down instead of a nice long 12 to 14 hour drive. Drving is fun to do but near the end of 12 to 14 hours I feel like I am an science laboratory experimant gone wrong.

I have been on holiday for the past week, found your sight, and just started reading. Hey Willie, She likes it!! Have a great day at the beach,

I think the true business will come when Paramount realizes the goldmine they've been sitting on and hires you back as Wesley Crusher: Borg Queen.

Excellent.

i know how it is, wil.
i should have been careful what i wished for recently...
but its all good
-k.d.

You go, boy.

*not to be confused with Dee*

Have a great day at the beach. There's nothing better than relaxing after life gives you a whole shitload. I'm going on vacation in 6 days! WHOOOOHOOOO!

This webpage is truly addictive.... I'm glad you got a lot of work done, Wil! And I'm even gladder (more glad?) that you're taking a break and spending time with your family. Enjoy it! 'Cause once those boys get to be teens and then go their separate ways (college, jobs, whatever), it's gonna be empty nest syndrome! My parents are about to go through it, and I kinda feel sorry for them. ;-)

Anyways, times for laundry. God bless!

:) Thanks for the smile, Wil.

what would be a "minor ocean"?

Enjoy some time off. Oooohhhhhh Beach, nice.
Have a good one.

I hope you have a good day at the beach relaxing with your family. You sound like u need a brake, from the last couple of weeks you've had.

Amen to that, "brutha"! : )

"It's A Great Day to Be Alive", sung by Travis Tritt...

Take care,

I wish I had all that work to do. I've had nothing to do lately, because I'm still searching for a good day job. Hope ya have fun at the beach.... I wish I could go to the beach.

I with ya on this one will, these last 3-4 months have been the busiest I have ever been. A new project every week and it seemed that the deadlines were all for the same day, and then they would delay ... all to the same day. I am finally finishing the final one very soon and then I am on holidays.. and conincidentally I was just saying to my wife that I have never been so brain tired in my memory. Hope your period of relaxation is succesful in recharging your creative batteries.

Larry

Have fun at the beach Wil, but please heed my advice...

I've just come back from a lovely camping weekend with the girls by the coast and after spending only 40, yes thats FORTY mins basking in the glorious sunshine, (probably the ONLY sunshine us Brits are gonna get this summer) I can now do a brilliant impression of a Lobster Thermidor!!!

"Oh for a bed of ice to rest my weary brow upon!"

i wish i had an ocean to go to...but it's just too far...so i'll settle for a ride in my truck...and surf the cars...d. burr

I'm pondering your comment about work volume. Well, I'm not sure I agree (I was contracted to write 700 pages in ten weeks), but as I sit here swamped with work while trying to get over my burnout-induced flu, I appreciate the positive sentiment... "No use complaining when you got a job to do".

Did I miss something or did you talk about your northern vacation yet? Where's the pix of the big ice cubes, man?

"I don't believe that we're ever given more than we can really handle, even if we don't think we can handle it." That's nice, but how do you explain Bud Selig?

Do some relaxing, enjoy it for a while.

Glad to see you around, Wil!

I'm sorry, but that "nobody gets more than they can handle" thing is completely untrue. I'm sure there are some people who can handle *anything*, but what about all the people who snap, have nervous breakdowns, kill themselves?
I know all the holier-than-thous will say those people are weak. Fine, but if they were that weak, then they *did* get more than they could handle, didn't they? Not trying to bring everyone down, it's just my own personal experiences have taught me that that statement isn't true. I can't stand to hear it.

Spread the wealth!

"I don't believe that we're ever given more than we can really handle, even if we don't think we can handle it."
A reminder I needed very much Wil. As always, thanks. Lex

Exodus??!!??

Laura, your pessimistic view is thought-provoking, but I think you are slightly mistaken. People that "snap" only *believe* that they can't handle, and wallow in too much self-pity to ask for the help and support of the people around them. Not to say that they are weak, they just seem mistrusting of the people that love and care for them. There's never anything wrong with asking for help and support. BTW, We all are aware that suicide is one of the most selfish acts a person can commit, right? We're stronger than we all make ourselves out to be, we just don't realize it.

...

Umm. Beach good. Yeah.

Always remember there are Cherry/Coke Slurpees...

I know what ya mean... try being in the military and being in 3 different countries in less than a 24 hour period.

One thing we agree on Wil -- Coffee and Exodus.
And so it goes... Life IS good!

Oh yes! The Indian Ocean and the Arctic. What a lovely site. HA!

Courtney, everyone is selfish. If you expect someone who is completely miserable to stick around rather than end their suffering, then *you're* being selfish, no? Also, you're assuming everyone has people who love and care for them. I'm not saying that to be self-pitying, I just see things from a different perspective. I realize happy people can't imagine the feeling, it just gets on my nerves when people say *NOBODY* or *EVERYBODY*.
Either way, I've obviously taken a wrong turn into Optimism Land, I'll go back to my dark corner of the reality I know.

Laura P:
This is why I try not to think. That way, I don't have to ponder upon which side of this question I sit.

Ooo, hey, cereal!

We certainly aren't given more than we can handle... that's what coffee is for!

Wil,

having family and friends, good work
coffee and mans best friend at your side

that's the life! :)

sorry no time for chat, I gotta go..
some guests here just got sick all over my lobby floor... and I've the "lucky one" to clean it up.

that's my life.. :)

Busy busy busy busy busy busy...

Me? Learning Photoshop 7 is more work than I could have imagined -- what with all the summer yard work that I guess must be done...

Was making sandcastles on the agenda? Great to read your words again.

Laura, not necessarily trying to pick a fight, just trying to understand why the pessimistic view. I understand what you are saying, but honestly, there is almost always a way to get through, as difficult as it can seem. I know it all depends on the situation, and we are both being kinda generic here. Yes, there are some cases, where someone is physically and possibly mentally unfit to go on. I don't think I ever used the terms "Everybody" or "Nobody".

Yes, we are all selfish in one way or another. Agreed. But suicide is pretty extreme. I don't think I "expect" people to stay around for me, but for themselves.

"Happy People can't imagine the feeling?" I don't think that anyone is exclusively Happy or Sad. We're just... people.

Hugely curious about which 4 states. I always like to be on the lookout for possible Uncle Willie Sightings.

I saw "Reign of Fire" this weekend with my buddy, Jeff. On a scale of 1-10 it's a 4.5-5, at best. It's much better than "Battlefield Earth", but what isn't?!!? Okay, maybe that gawd-awwfull "Ator" movie from '83 (can you hear me vomitting from the memory?).

N-E-way, the best thing about that whole movie was the preview for ST Nemesis! I loved it! Though we seem to be in that low lighting / dark phase with the set again. Some stuff looks swesome though! Can't wait for another preview!

Hope you enjoyed the beach!

(Be gentle: first time poster, (as opposed to a first poster). Love the site, Wil).

On the whole "I don't believe that we're ever given more than we can really handle" thing and selfishness and suicide...

A few years ago I attended the funeral service of a friend, who after a long illness, hanged herself (I'll call her J and for any grammer nazis, that's the correct tense. Meat is hung. People are hanged. Be glad if you've never had to learn that for reals). This was while we were both still at university, and I'd previously gotten to know one or two of the College chaplins following student deaths earlier in the year in my capacity as the student government representative at those funerals.

In the funeral mass, the priest used almost the exact phrase Wil did: "God never gives us a burden more than we can handle." How this was supposed to help a church full of mourning family members and students I have no idea. It certainly seemed to pass the blame on to J. But to some extent I simply ignored it as, after all, I was an atheist, so maybe this was just what the doctor ordered for everyone else.

Uh-uh. I vividly remember one of the chaplins (of the same religious denomination as the funeral priest) giving me a lift back to campus. He was livid. "What the hell was that 'God never sends a burden' crap? Obviously J *couldn't* handle it!" was almost the first thing out of his mouth. He was fantasically unimpressed, for much the same reasons I was.

Suicide is not about selfishness or weakness. In many cases, it deserves to be considered as the final phase of a terminal mental or physical illness. We don't rail against people who die of, say, cancer, as being selfish or otherwise unwilling to bear a bearable burden.

Believing we're somehow cosmically shielded from impossible situtations may be comforting but I gotta put it up there with Santa Claus and the tooth fairy, alas.

Stephen
- ObCheeryNote: CD's make a really pretty sparkly pattern when you nuke them in the microwave.

Wil you are just SO sweet....

Stephen,
Thanks for the story. I think that the priest made a mistake with that statement as well. As mentioned above, I agree that people with incurable conditions are often left with no choice. It's people with stressful situations that I was mainly referring to, anyways (since Wil's post was about situations and tasks anyways!). Perhaps I was to generic in saying suicide is an selfish act. Suicide as a last resort in response to stress and/or overburdening is not the answer. People that are ill, I have no judgement on what their choices may be on taking their lives, if it ends their suffering.

"I don't believe that we're ever given more than we can really handle, even if we don't think we can handle it."

Well spoken Wil. I'd have to agree with that. (But I'd have to say "WE never give ourselves more then we can handle.")

Beau

I hope you had fun at the beach!!!

"I don't believe that we're ever given more than we can really handle, even if we don't think we can handle it."

Interesting, Will. Why do you believe this? And who does the giving?

I am sorry. I know it's Wil, not Will. Just call me RRaannddyy.

I think that even more important than the "Careful what you wish for," is the "What you want is not always what you THINK you want."

I never used to believe that "Everything happens for a reason" schtick. I just couldn't bring myself to accept that all the horrible things that were happening to me were part of some greater plan to make things better.

It's kind of like those cartoon characters who are trying to get through a brick wall, and they try to run through it, bounce off... and keep doing the same thing over and over, because all they think they want is to get THROUGH the wall. But it never dawns on them that they can go AROUND the wall instead.

I think that when we are presented with many, many challenges at once, that we become so overwhelmed with what's in front of us that it really is impossible to see further ahead. It's not our fault, it's just like rafting a river or climbing a mountain.

When you hit those rapids, or when you're hanging off that cliff, you really don't have the time, energy, or capacity to think about how nice it'll be once you reach the flat water, or once you reach the summit and have a grand vista surrounding you. All you can think about is how much you're hurting.

But then, everything levels out, and you CAN take a breath... and the rest falls into place. You can sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor - the beautiful scenery... or a successful project. And you can take that respite to restore your energy and to prepare yourself for whatever else life tosses your way.

Nice to see things have slowed up a bit enough for you to go running off the beach, All the times I was driving for trucking companys and I never got to see the ocean, I envy you...
Things don't slow for me, every since I got to Germany I had people knocking on my door for one thing or another, 'can I bum a pepsi? can I have a bandaid?' 'what till you hear this crap..' I didn't relize that I was the neighborhood 711, Computer repair man, stress relief person, hell you name it and I bet I've done it. Talk about stress...I can't even watch a freckin movie all the way threw! Took me 6 hours and I counted...6 hours just to watch Harry Potter. That's how many times I was interupted,(and I still can't watch it all the way threw without some one knocking on the door, and yes I have put a do not disturb sign out before, doesn't work!!! they still knock) I don't know how you do it, maybe you can give me some pointers so I can finished the 12th re-write on my book...LOL Anyway, basically in a nut shell, You go have a blast at the Beach with the wife and kids and remember to jump in for me! Take it easy Wil!

Sorry for venting...my bad!

Hello! Just have to jump in here! Re: the whole "don't believe we're given more than we can handle" thought. I'm guessing there are many humans from the Holocaust, Rwanda, South Africa, Somalia, etc. who would disagree with this idea. Women and girls around the world might disagree with this.

You maybe could apply this to grown men and women of industrialized nations.

I guess I'm just cynical. Though I think I'm simply being realistic. And from a religeous point of view it would be nice to think that God doesn't "give us" more than we can handle, but I don't think God gives us anything other than life and precious free will.

Maybe I don't know how that term is supposed to be applied. I just find so many exceptions to it even in the police log of the daily news paper.

Holy Cow! And NOW I check to see that the above conversation was in July 2002! Well, color me pink!