Cody

Alright, it’s time to take the Queen CD out of my player and put Linkin Park in… this is a job for Linkin Park. Storyline: I took an opportunity for a company called Cost Captain from the P3 website to blog about CostCaptain in my personal blog here. Cost Captain was offering $9 for the post and only required 50 words, for a link that said www.costcaptain.com pretty easy right? I thought so! In fact it was too easy… CostCaptain sells Microsoft products, Cost Captain specialize in the order of selling Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows Vista packages at student discount prices. I wrote a 100 word article about such deals because the more my site relates to Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows Vista products the more they get the value for it to their website which in turn translates to more search engine queries for the terms Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Windows. The problem with my post was that I also included CostCaptain’s description on the P3 website IN ADDITION to the article that I wrote, because it gave them a much better link rating because of the keyworded specificness of Cost Captain description. I thought I was doing Cost Captain a favor, Cost Captain thought otherwise. This is the description:

CostCaptain.com is a Microsoft Authorized Education Reseller. We sell the brand new Office 2007 Suite and Vista to students and staff of schools, libraries and research labs. Home schools qualify too. We have served hundreds of schools, colleges and libraries and thousands of students and staff members.

We offer:

- 100% Authentic Microsoft products at academic discounts

- Microsoft Office 2007 from $129, Vista Upgrade from $89

- Friendly customer service.

- Buyers provide academic eligibility and after that the product is shipped

- Gift certificates that are a great way to give especially during holiday season

Very good keywording if you ask me… but hey, I’m no SEO expert or anything, just because I ranked number two and three on Google for the term “Cost Captain” simply by writing the Cost Captain article on my website… I mean I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about apparently… so therefore I won’t know what I’m talking about all over the net. Cost Captain said that they wouldn’t pay me and denied my post until it was rewritten because I “wrote the article using their description” Obviously the company didn’t want any sort of SEO relevancy so I rewrote the post, I put a 150 or so word description of why I rewrote the article the way I did on top and left what I had described before on the rest… just translated it. You see not only am I a blogger, webmaster of over 9 websites, internet marketing coach, but I also use Opera as my main browser of choice… I just like it. It’s not for everyone, I suggest FireFox for most people (as most of you already do since my stats say that 2/3 of my visitors are FireFox users). I used a widget on my Opera browser to translate the article into Ł337 5ρ34|< (or more commonly known as 1337 5p34k the translator is just hardcore). They didn’t like that either and banned me on P3 which is fine, ban me all you want… my site is more SEO friendly and optimized than your site will ever be, that’s your loss. Of all the bloggers who took your opportunity who ranks for your websites keywords? Oh that’s right, it’s me. I just want my money from the deal… that’s all. So therefore I’m taking my money that Cost Captain won’t pay me. If I can’t get it from the P3 website I will make damn sure I get it from ad revenue on my website.

I heard a story recently.  Can’t for the life of me remember where I heard it, think it might of been at church on Sunday, but my days are so messed up anymore working nights and only having one day off at a time (that I sleep through most of) doesn’t seem to have any sort of break for the week.  Anyways, the story was about a missionary from a time long ago who was sailing with a crew of unbelievers.  They found themselves stuck off of the coast of Africa outside an area notorious for the cannibalistic tribe that lived near by.  As the ship sat in the water without any sort of wind to propel them they drifted slowly towards the coast, where they could see people beginning to line up awaiting their new “guests” with baited breath (quite literally).  The captain ran to the lower deck and entered the room of the missionary, begging him to pray for wind.  The missionary refused, telling the captain that he would not pray for wind until the ships sails were unfurled.  Reluctantly the captain had his crew unfurl the sails and prepare to set out to sea then came back to the missionary who he asked again to pray for wind.  Minutes later the captain came back to the missionary to check on him, asking if he was praying for wind… the missionary said that he was.  The ships captain told him that he had better stop, for they had more wind than they could handle.  Right now, I feel like the captain… in the fact that I know God can do it, I want him to, I know that it will be miraculous, something inexplicable without the use of God’s name.  The problem is I don’t want to work for it… oh sure I don’t mind working once it comes… but actually working before I see the results?  Are you kidding me?

As has been the theme of my blog for the last few months (minus a slight derailment in my life) I truly feel God is calling me to be a missionary so to speak to the Ren. Faire crew of people (who are mostly Wiccan, or pagan) through my work as a blacksmith, and chainmail jeweler.   I just love that crowd of people though, it’s the group of people that never want to leave the theatre, so they make life their stage.  Truly being a Thespian myself I’ve never seen so many Thespians as you will at the Ren. Faire’s.  They really are a funny group of people though, last summer at the St. Louis Ren. Faire with Tiana and her family several girls were coming up to her with inquiries like “Who’s your friend?  He’s kind of cute.”  to which all Tiana had to reply to get them to not pester me was say “He’s a Christian, he’s a Republican, his name is Cody by the way.”  which turned all of them away… sometimes I feel like the black sheep around them… but it’s good because despite the difference they don’t shun me because I’m accepting of them.  I’ve watched other Christians come in and try to force their religion on them, or tell them how things should be… and they will rip them apart.  They exclude me from such bashings because I don’t believe in the religious aspects of Christianity, nor do I push them on anyone else, as Godfrey’s religious adviser said to Balian “I put no stock in religion. By the word religion I have seen the lunacy of fanatics of every denomination be called the will of god. I have seen too much religion in the eyes of too many murderers. Holiness is in right action, and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves, and goodness. What god desires is here [points to head] and here [points to heart] and what you decide to do every day, you will be a good man - or not.”  Christianity is not a religion, so much as it should be a relationship.

Anyways… haha yes much rambling, and rabbit trails in the mind of Cody as of late.  You guys know (or if you read this regularly you do) that going on my bike trip was part of my great revelation to run my business, allow God to take care of me with complete trust and admiration that he would not abandon me, nor give me something that I could not complete.  Moving into the house here with Jordan and Zack puts stress on my finances… obviously.  Which I’ve been there before, and not minded one bit, I can take a little bit of pressure.  However when there are two other people involved you can’t be playing games… even if they are religious games.  So with what I thought was wisdom from an older Christian guy who said that it was unfortunate that artists cannot make a living from their art I went ahead and went with Jordan to get a job at Target working nights… And you know what?  God still hasn’t “blessed” my business with amazing miraculous inexplicable sales or anything like that.  The problem I think, is that the faith is there… there is no doubt that I have faith in God taking care of me… there is no doubt that I have faith in God leading my business to the next level… the problem is the action.  Faith without action is useless.  So I think we’re going to go at this again… with a bit of a different approach.  It’s a scary thought however… With this job (or one at LifeTouch) I make $800 more per month than I absolutely NEED to survive on.  So I get stuck on the money thing… my mind goes “With that money you could have a forge, anvil, and everything you need to start blacksmithing by this summer”  “With that money you could visit Joanna in a couple of months”  “That money is steady and guaranteed for a minimum of effort and you won’t have to worry about your bills”  Do you notice a trend with those statements though?  Shortcut, shortcut, and shortcut… God doesn’t take any shortcuts… nor do I think they’re right in any way, with anything you do.  So the question is… do I quit my job and sound like a crazy person when I tell my cousins that I quit my job because God told me to?  But gain back my soul, and peace of mind.  Or do I stick with it a little bit longer to fulfill those shortcuts before taking faithful action?  And lose my soul, and all sense of peace in the process.  When you look at it that way it’s a simple decision… but I’ve had to train myself over years, and years to see things that way…. because in all honesty it’s only a minor compromise.  Technically I’m still doing what I believe is God’s will (going to see Joanna, and taking up blacksmithing)… the problem is that it involves no trust, or faith in God.  It’s as if I’m saying “Sure thing God, I’ll do exactly as you say, everything is for you… I’m just going to do it my way because your way seems scary and dangerous… even though I’m sure there are many lessons that I must learn from doing things you way, and doing things my way will skip me over those lessons and leave me unprepared when I reach the point of doing things as you designed… I like safety and comfort a lot.”

Ok, so you guys can see I’ve got a decision to make… I’ve been putting it off, and I don’t want to… I’m just addicted to safety and comfort… and it’s a hard addiction to break… so if you guys are willing to pray for me, maybe some words of encouragement.

I’m sure you guys are tired of hearing about her by now… and I don’t blame you… We only went out for a month and a half, and honestly there was a lot that I should of seen as potentially dangerous… that I did see but chose to ignore.  The reason I’m writing this blog, even though I told myself I wouldn’t talk about her anymore is because I don’t believe that I’ve failed at anything in life… and I don’t plan on starting now.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve messed up before and “failed” in the worlds eyes, but as I see it as long as you learn something from your experience you’ve not failed.  Anyways, on to the list:

1) I’m a very selfish person - this is one of the first things I noticed, almost instantly when I started dating Jessica… and I’ve really not done much of anything that wasn’t for me, or that didn’t benefit me in some manor.   Definitely something I’ve got to work on, I’d like to think I’m cured of this, but seeing the problem and admitting it is really only the first step
2) I want kids - maybe not right now… but I do want kids.  I always wondered how I would handle kids because I really don’t have much patience for other humans (over abundance of patience for metal work, and other artistic crafts, just none for humans), but I think I handle kids well… they really are a joy.

3) I’m a lot weaker towards the female gender than I ever imagined - When I’m in a relationship I really do depend more on the affirmation, opinion, and acceptance of that person more so than anything else… which is very bad!!!  Now that I do know it however I’ve been praying about it, and intentionally turning away from pretty girls to take the time and pray to choose God first…

Those really are the biggest 3 things that I learned… or at least have noticed that I learned so far.   One thing I have to say (because I know you’re going to read this) partly because of number 3 I’ve got to watch myself.  One of the reasons I’m feeling much, much better right now is because of an awesome Christian girl who took the time to talk to me and I can’t help myself but like her.  Joanna talked to me all day yesterday and made me feel a ton better… but I’ve got to watch it and make sure that I get things straight with God before I start falling for and flirting with some other girl.  Not to mention I have a tendency to like the idea of a “safe” relationship and 22k km between us makes it safe or however far it was.

Alright… so in the middle of the night I was feeling okay about things… reading my bible and praying I felt a nudging from God… and acted on it. Sometimes those nudgings are there to get us to do something stupid though… I sent this to Jessica via YIM and got her response. If she really does have a new guy (or got back with Rodney) then we’re done… if she doesn’t and was just saying it to get me to leave her alone… that’s pretty rude, and we’re done.

cody sortore: Jessica… I don’t know what offense you hold against me… but I do know that I have a great offense against you, and against God that has to be reconcilled. I put you first in my life, even though we had only been seeing each other for a short time I put talking to you and hanging out with you even before God. I fell exactly where Adam did. The bible is clear that Adam was never decieved, but rather chose to live in sin with Eve over a life with God… he was also too weak to help her in her time of deception… What I did was unfair to you, and did nothing more than put pressure on your already hectic and increasingly pressured life… I’m sorry, it’s something that I must work on daily, I don’t blame you for being mad at me. I’ll take pastor Jesse’s advice now and give you time…
cody sortore: if at some point you want to be friends I would like that. Although I do understand if even that isn’t a possibility. I’m doubly sorry if this message is just another annoyance… I was reading my bible tonight and praying when I felt what is hopefully a nudge from the Holy Spirit saying “pursue her” which seemed a fruitless endeavor since for the last couple of weeks all I’ve managed to do was make myself out to be more and more of a nut in your eyes attempting to pursue your heart… I hope that before the problem was that it was me trying to pursue your heart for the wrong reasons…

Jesse Green: this is her man quit sending her mail bitch

I was just outside to take out the trash, and it was cool outside.  I wasn’t expecting it at all since it’s been so dang cold out lately… but tonight it was cool, and calm.  A light breeze swirled around me as I looked up at the clear sky to see the nearly full moon.  The light that shown from it was enough to see clearly, showing the sillouhette of the evergreens across the ridge in the distance.  I walked to the back yard and went to the dam to lay on my back and just stare at the stars for a minute.  Reminding me that all beauty on this earth comes from God, and he is ever trying to woo my heart, more so than anyone else ever could.

You know what’s funny… I’ve only had two people say anything to me, or even attempt to comfort me in some way. One being Joanna who’s just some random person I met online… a really cool Christian girl that I met from MyYearbook (which is surprising in itself being that MyYearbook is quite possibly one of the worst sites I’ve ever seen in terms of blatant sexual usage, which is actually encouraged by the admins.) The other from Pastor Jesse who I had sought counsel from on the situation with Jessica. I’d like to talk with some other people… but I guess I’ve not really given any details therefore can’t expect anyone to know that I need someone to listen to me.

You know… I keep coming on here intending to say what happened and how I’m feeling… every time I get on here I feel different.  Sometimes I’m fine…. other times I’m so desperate for anything that I just want to be sitting in front of Jessica so we can talk about things.  What I think happened between me and Jessica is that I got too overbearing… I tend to do that.  I get clingy and possessive and push people away.   I don’t really know what happened because she’s not even talked to me for the last couple of weeks.  I was ready to let her go… then Aimee responds to my bulletin on MySpace and gives me a glimpse of hope… if you guys know anything about me a glimpse of hope is hope indeed.  I know that our relationship was a total God thing… whether we’re supposed to be together, or if it was just a learning experience (because believe me I could learn a lot from Jessica) I don’t know.  What I do know is that I need to learn to put God first in my life… I have the tendency to follow in Adam’s footsteps and choose Eve over God… Which isn’t fair to the people I date just as much as it isn’t right towards God… That was another major reason why I wasn’t even looking for a relationship before Jessica… I think I just need to let her go… if nothing else leave her alone until she wants to talk (if that day ever comes).

Oh yeah, the point to this was that I need someone to talk to… about anything… Just something.

Yeah… So I definitely don’t even know how I feel.  I’m doin’ ok I think… but I feel sunken, that’s the only way I can describe it… I keep saying that I’m ok though.  I can’t say that I didn’t know it was coming… she didn’t respond to me the last time I saw her at all… I touched her arm, or put mine around her and there was nothing.  Oh well right?  I messed up the same place I always mess up… maybe I’ll talk more about it later, right now I’m just gonna go to sleep since I gotta work tonight.

Hey Jessica.  I post this on here for a couple of reasons.  One being that I don’t want you to read this… no I want to talk to you.  However I am posting this here because I’m afraid I’ve driven you away to Isle de Jessica and you’ve left me with no map, or magic compass to find my way.  Even if I did have a way to call you, or come talk to you unfortunately you wouldn’t speak to me… which makes me wonder what exactly you’re holding onto?  Why you’ve not changed your status to single on MySpace, or quit putting up the facade that we’re still dating… obviously we’re not.  We’re not spending time with each other, and you’re no longer willing to let me be any part of your life… which I fear is my fault, pushing you away by moving too fast.  If I’ve come to the wrong conclusion… it’s because I don’t understand what’s going on.  When you don’t talk to me it scares me.  I come to all kinds of conclusions when you don’t say anything to me… I don’t know what in the world is going on, and it’s driving me crazy.  When you don’t talk to me it reminds me of the many times before that I’ve gotten close to someone and they disappeared.  Something specifically that has come up nearly every time I leave you a message or say something and you don’t respond is before going to Jamaica there was a lady I liked who seemed to like me.  Right before I went we went to hang out with some other people and ended up getting kind of closer than usual cuddling a bit before the end of the night… seemed like we both liked each other, and she initiated it so I saw nothing wrong.  When I got back from Jamaica I gave her a call she never responded.  For two months I tried everything to try and get a hold of her and she never responded… I will never know what went wrong, nor do I care so much… but when you don’t talk to me it makes me feel like you’re leaving me behind… (btw, if you are please just tell me) there’s a voice inside my head that pesters me saying “see I told you, you’re not good enough for her.  See you pushed her away.  See she doesn’t want you anymore.”  After a while I start listening to that voice, an it takes a voice of reason to bring me back.  The first time you mom encouraged me, this time it was pastor Jesse.  I don’t want you to hate me, I don’t want you to leave me behind.  I know that you’ve got a lot going on right now… but I don’t see that as ever changing for us… so if you really do want anything between us please reply to me… I don’t care if it’s a one word reply, anything to just let me know you’re still there.

Generally I only drink like once every 3 months or so… which isn’t any different from this time. The real difference is that I was distracted while drinking. Oddly enough… that’s exactly what I needed right now. Had I been paying attention I wouldn’t of let it go so far, generally I drink to intensify life, when things aren’t insane enough I’ll do like 4 shots in the time span of an hour and a half which gets me buzzed and keeps me that way for a couple hours. Usually sends both my mind and my body over the edge so that I feel everything to 1000% intensity and must either brake, or rise to the occasion. Jordan and I were playing some Company of Heroes after work… both have had a rough time lately and so his idea was that we should play a drinking game while playing… being that I can’t even take so much as a sip of beer without vomiting that wasn’t gonna work. So he drank the beer I got jack and coke. Started off with a shot to get the buzz started, then was sipping on probably 8oz of jack, and a can of coke. Normally I’m great about moderating my drinking. I know the exact point to stop, and I can feel exactly when I start fading and need a booster if I need the intense emotional state for a little longer. Problem is I was playing a game that when sober takes perfect concentration…. drunk it’s dang near impossible. Trying my best to concentrate on the task at hand all I noticed was how much I was slowing down, but kept sipping away at my drink until it was gone in about an hour and a half or so. It was pretty obvious that I wasn’t exactly sober when to start the game I went to build a set of engineers and missed clicking the correct button 6 times in a row (alright, it’s not as bad as you guys think. Most of you are using trackball mice, which are horrifically slow. The rest are using optical mice which have a 400 dots per inch resolution on average… my mouse is a laser precision gaming mouse with 2000dpi resolution so it’s literally 5x faster than a normal mouse). After finally winning the excruciatingly long game I stood up to realize that I was way more gone than I had ever been before. I also found that instead of intensifying my emotions… they were gone, euphoria the only thing left. It was nice… A little gift you might say, after several weeks of battle, I was trying to push myself to the breaking point just to have the pride in myself that I was not only able to make it, but I survived… instead I got relief… not exactly what I was looking for, but exactly what I needed.  It’s nice when God presents us with these little gifts in life, as it says in the bible all things good and beautiful are of the Lord… and also quoting my buddy Benjamin Franklin “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

I’m still reading The Way of the Wild Heart and really am only about halfway done. So obviously my journaling is still going to be about that Anyways, in TWOTWH (You like that? There are only two groups who like acronyms more than anything that’s the Military, and Nerds… but I think the Military wins since they’ve got entire dictionaries of acronyms) he describes five stages every man goes through to becoming a man. The first being The beloved son then comes The Cowboy (or Ranger for the LOTR fans) after that there’s The Warrior on to The Lover and finally The King. Each stage builds on the next, and really overlap…. You could say that I’m in a transitional period between the ranger and the warrior… Unfortunately I feel as if most of the ranger stage was fake…. not all of it, there was a lot of good, but a good portion of it. Adventure is key for the ranger (as is work) to develop properly into the warrior, and a lot of the adventure for me was completely faked. There was a lot of good adventure; I got to crash my second car… and crashed it good, it was awesome! I’ll tell you about it some other time, my mom would say it was scary to see, but she lies it was awesome! So wish I had my camera back then to take pictures of it because… yeah… total awesomeness! I’ve got some really good mental snapshots, when they figure out how to get computers to read mental imagery I’ll show you what it looked like… it was great. Also during this period of time I was in wrestling most of it, which was both good adventure and hard work. There was theatre, bike ridding, my recent bike trip, and a host of other solid adventure… but there was one major mistake…. I squandered a good deal of time that should of been seeking adventure, or doing hard work (one of the only reasons I lasted so long working at Wal-Mart is because it was excrutiating physical labor unloading trucks… and I loved it) in playing video games. Don’t get me wrong, I think that video games have been a great social outlet for me with the LAN Parties and everything. And in they’re not a bad thing… but they should be limited more, and they are no substitute for true adventure. Unfortunately I did look to them for adventure a lot of the time, they’re much easier than actually taking the risk of going and finding adventure… and a lot easier to get permission from my mom to do…. even at 21 it was hard for her to let me go on my bike trip. Now especially after that wonderful expirience out on the road alone, I want something substantial… something meaningful. Which is driving me crazy being here with my cousin because we used to be gaming buddies… well still are. All he wants to do all the time is game, even though we should be doing work online to get some sort of extra income he wants to spend 8 hours a day playing games and it’s driving me nuts!!! Nine months ago dude I would of been all over it, 12 hours a day all gaming, all the time… but now it doesn’t satisfy… nothing about it even appeals anymore… even as a time waster it’s lacking. It doesn’t feed my soul like it used to seem to, and I really am not understanding what the appeal was before for me. Even two months ago it was a good destresser/time waster, but now that’s even gone by the wayside. I need something substantial, and I need it quick. I’m thinking with my first couple of paychecks I’m definitely getting the stuff to build a forge… start learning blacksmithing.

Blacksmithing is a whole other subject. One of the reasons I decided to go ahead and get a job (oh, and btw, for those of you who don’t know I got a job :-P) besides the obvious of need of money for rent and everything (oh, and btw, for those of you who don’t know I finally got Jordan to understand that I had to move out, or they’d be alone so I’m now in my new place). I was with my mom and we went to eat with one of her old patients who’s a really cool Christian guy, who had cancer but got better from it, and offered to teach me to ride motorcycles…. which I may take him up on… but that’s another story for another time. While talking to him, he’s got a friend who’s an artist actually makes jewelry and he was saying I should meet her. I love meeting people who are actually making a living as artists… it’s hard to do, I know first hand. Anyways he was also showing me a painting she did and was joking about how he shouldn’t of paid what he did for it because she owed him money or something but still did because their work as artists is worth far more than most peoples but unfortunately they can’t make a living from it. It made me think back to this other guy I knew who was an awesome artist from here in Kansas City and actually world renowned. Jean Paleologue if you’ve ever heard of the artist Pal that was Jean’s father… Pal is a VERY famous artist, but Jean was very well known worldwide as well. Even being world renowned and celebrated… he made a very meager living. I’ve seen some of Jean’s work sell for tens of thousands for a single painting… unfortunately Jean never saw that. Artists often have to settle for selling their pieces for whatever they can get at the time, and then the person who got it holds it for long enough that the rest of the world can appreciate what that art meant at the time and then sells it for 10, 20, 5,000 times as much as they bought it for. Jean made a living as an artist… but there was something about him, something that I’ve noticed about everybody I’ve met who actually is making a living as an artist… they don’t stick to one art. Now they usually have one that they are most passionate about, one that they love, but they usually take part in at least 3 artistic fields to survive. So until I’ve got blacksmithing down, continue with my jewelry stuff, and also can do webpage design I’m going to have to hold down another job. Doesn’t really bother me, so long as I can keep a physically laborious job that pays decent I’ll be ok.