The internet is a terrifying place.

I googled myself this morning. It's been a couple years since I've last done it, so I had no idea what would come up. Turns out, a lot. As far as I can tell, I'm the only person with my name. Anywhere. So if someone were to do a search on me, they wouldn't have to look very hard.

The search turned up links to a bunch of my online accounts, such as Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm, and this blog. It also pulled out accounts that I haven't used in over a long time. Even my Webshots account made the list, and I haven't used that things since the end of my freshmen year in 2004. I also found items about me that I didn't know were on the web. You can see what awards I won in a few design competitions, what year and and which district I made Eagle Scout, my grandmother's obituary, and even a list of 1984 births for the county in which I was born.

I think we forget how open the internet can be. Since I'm back in full job hunting mode, I wanted to see what kind of stuff a potential employer could find out about me just by using Google. Granted, I'm not a scandalous person by any means. I don't have any arrests or charges to worry about showing up, nor do I present myself online in any way that can be taken in a negative light. But it's best to be safe as far as what you put online, because you don't know when or where it'll turn up again. The internet was made in part to make our lives easier and put the world at our fingertips. You don't want to put too much of yourself at their fingertips, though.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go post a Tweet and update my Facebook status to tell everyone I wrote a new blog entry.

The year so far.

I'm not really impressed with 2009 so far. Since the year rolled over 53 days ago, not a lot has gone my way. Aside from the small things like people hitting my parked car and my electric meter breaking and recording my electric usage way to high, I've also been hit with two whoppers that have changed a lot of things for me.

The first, chronologically, is that a large part of my life from the last few years is now on the other side of the planet. I think the hardest part of this is the removal of something that's been part of my everyday routine for three years. What do I fill that space with now? It's especially been difficult because I live in another city than everyone I know all by myself. Granted it's still part of the DFW metroplex, I usually only see my friends about three days a week. I used to be content with my time alone at home during the work week because I knew I had something not too far away to look forward to every weekend. But now, I just feel lonely. Even after a fun weekend with my friends, in the end I have to go back to my lonely apartment in Irving and carry on by myself.

The second and most recent event is when I got laid off. Because you can never be too sure on the internet, I'm not going to go in to details, but I feel I was unfairly let go. And it was so sudden. I was on my way home less than fifteen minutes after I'd been told I'm no longer in their employment. Now, I face a lot of uncertainty as I try to regain my composure. What's next? Where am I going to be? When is this next phase of my life going to come about and what am I going to do until then? I did plan on moving on in the near future, but I counted on it being a transition, not an abrupt end followed by a quick scramble to get back on my feet. This is certainly not a great position to be in and I will be glad when it's over.

Please don't take this as a "woe is me" post. There's just been a lot of turbulence in my life recently and I wanted to get my thoughts down. We're only a few weeks into this new year so who knows? Maybe the remaining 312 days will be more than exceptional and blow away this first bit.

Work in progress.

Changing up the look a little.

I owe you a post Sunday.

January 2009.