And We're Back!

Two months ago, I had a situation happen.  Someone I knew contacted me out of the blue, and then was trying to get some personal information about me in a round-about way.  Not sure as to what the motives of this person was, I decided that I needed to go into a "lockdown" of personal things I had online.  That included this blog, my photos posted to online photo albums, my twitter account, and verifying that Facebook and MySpace were already locked up to outsiders (they were).

This lockdown represented taking a major step back for myself because I do try to be pretty open about my life because it's not like I talk about or post things would violate an employer policy.  Unfortunately, some people like to stick their nose into everything and then try to spin it into something evil.

Despite that, it's not like I stopped blogging, posting pictures, and tweeting, it just meant no one else could see it at this point.  However, I do like to write and put things out there, and see what people think, so I figured that this lockdown would not be permanent.  I would just let things get calm, wait until it looked like things were safe, and then come back online.  It has been 60 days since the initial lockdown, so I feel it should be fine by now.

The sad thing is it is not like this is the first time in my life I have had to do something like this.  I went through a similar lockdown a few years ago, and so to set up this lockdown was rather easy because I knew the steps I had to take.  I also had a number of things that were not easily seen by outsiders, so it was just a matter of tweaking one setting and increasing the privacy level.

Oh well, we'll see what happens.  If this person finds all this and tries to start trouble with this information, I believe it's going to come back to haunt them.  My life should be none of their damn business anyway.

On the other hand, it also gave me the chance to find a new layout for my blog and give it a facelift as well.

If I had Any Doubt Before...

...I was shown today that there is a God who is looking out for me.

For the very first time in seven years, I lost my cell phone.  In this case, it had fallen out of my pocket at Archives/Navy Memorial/Penn Quarter Metro Station. I had gotten to Greenbelt and I was getting up when I realized that I did not have my cell phone, period.  I frantically searched my pockets and my bag, but it was gone, and while I suspected it was at Archives, I was now 11 stops away and it was likely picked up.  

During that search, I discovered on another seat of the train that someone had left their cell phone.  I picked it up and turned it in to a Metro worker so that hopefully whoever lost it would find it again.

In the meantime, I went home and put up a tweet and a Facebook status that said my cell phone was lost and not to text or call it unless someone thought they could recover it.  A friend of mine on Facebook, Shane, said he had found it, but I called bullshit because I thought he was just messing with me.  I went to the Verizon store so I could get the old phone deactivated, and also get the ESN because Metro's lost and found would not necessarily be able to match up my phone unless they had it.  Besides that, I needed a phone, simply because I am one of the many households these days that only have a cell phone, no landline.  So, I forked over the $150 it was going to cost me since I am nowhere near eligible for an upgrade and headed home.

When I got home, I had a message on Facebook from Shane, giving a description of my phone and where he had found it, and everything matched.  It turned out he had found the phone on the bench at the station and decided to open up the phone and see if he could figure out who it belonged to, and he recognized some mutual contacts, and then found a picture of me in the phone.  He called one of my contacts to let them know he had found my phone, and he was about to call another but then it had locked out thanks to me going to the store to get it deactivated.  I was floored that he was the one who found it and that he also works up near my apartment.  So arrangements have been made for me to pick up my phone tomorrow, and I will return the one I just bought.

I really truly believe Shane was meant to find my phone to get it back to me, but only because I had done the right thing in finding that other person's phone on the train and turning it in to Metro.  If I had not done that, I doubt I would have seen my phone again.  Call me crazy, but I am willing to take a leap of faith on this one.  The odds were very low that not only someone would find my phone and get it back to me (lots of people due to the ride festival), but that it was someone who knows me, and works near my neighborhood.  So because I did the right thing, I got back something very good in the process.

So major thanks have to go to Shane for finding my phone.  I can get it back and I should be able to get Verizon to switch my phone back to my current one.  I'm also hoping I can get them to waive the re-stocking fee that they will charge me for returning the new phone because I have not removed any of the protective covers or taken anything out of their bags in the box.  If not, well, $35 is much better than $150.

It happens

It's a fact of life that things are not always going to be perfect, but damn if I can't try to keep it that way. Still, sometimes you have your moments where things potentially go wrong if only to serve the purpose of being a wakeup call in some ways.

May has been a bit of a rough month for me for a lot of reasons, and I chose the wrong person to take it out on. JH and I ended up having a serious discussion last Tuesday night about it where he called me out on some bad behavior, and by the end of the night it came down to taking a moment to step back and let cooler heads prevail.

Wednesday was my day off and I used that day to put a lot of things into perspective. I also did things that were far overdue, are finally done, and do not have to be done again. By Thursday JH and I basically had a chat about what was going on. I was honest and straightforward about what was going on and so was he, and by the end things were better than they had been before.

Is it any wonder as to why I love this man, even when things aren't always going right we can both step back, take a breath, and then get through it like two rational adults should? I know we both turned to friends for some advice (you know who you are) but at least we were willing to listen to them and to one another.

So life goes on, and it's only getting better. Thankfully a lot of crap has calmed down.

To Paraphrase My Friend Serena

If I didn't know you*, I'd dislike all lesbians.
*KS and KW

--Thought that came to mind after reading an E-mail this morning