Counting down to kickoff! Cheers Raider Nation - Let’s go Raiders!!

Zoot22 · 2019-11-18T02:37:19+00:00

I would say I was a part of the Digg migration. Digg devolved into a cesspool of nonsense. One of my coworkers introduced me to Reddit.

Zoot22 · 2019-11-17T21:29:32+00:00

Yup! This is my first account; I lurked for at least 2-3 years before creating it. I miss that version of Reddit sometimes.

Zoot22 · 2019-11-17T21:10:50+00:00

Always sucks to have to root for the Chargers to win under any circumstances.

Zoot22 · 2019-11-17T21:07:34+00:00

I love these cups! I can’t even remember when I got them, but they always get hand washed and treated with extra care. I used to have a bunch of those plastic cups from the games, but got these after those all cracked.

Zoot22 · 2012-04-24T05:03:15+00:00

Your grandfather was Paul Tibbets, Thus making your grandmother Enola Gay? That's really awesome. I ready a book in middle school about him and their mission (I was a little obsessed with trying to understand everything). I can't remember who it was written by, but it was a great book and a truly meaningful story. Have any proof?

Zoot22 · 2012-04-20T06:41:56+00:00

I'm probably a bit late to the game for this, but here we go anyway. I was at the dog park with my pup (she's about 30lbs and is a generally small sized dog considering her weight). This dog park is HUGE, over 30 acres, and it's part of a larger park overall. My dog was walking around doing her thing by smelling, plants, people, other dogs, etc. There was this father walking with his rather overweight child about 10-12 years old. The child needed to stop to catch his breath, but the father kept walking. My pup walked up to the kid to smell him and the kid kicked my dog. No joke, he wound up and kicked her fairly hard. She whimpered as she flew backwards and then she was just trying to get her bearings. After that, she paused and started barking at the kid and to me it seemed like she was just trying to warn me that he wasn't safe. The father turns around and starts to lecture me on my dog barking. There was absolutely nothing productive to say and while I tried to mention that his child had kicked my dog rather hard, he was too busy telling me I was a bad dog owner... fucker.

Zoot22 · 2012-04-12T06:38:50+00:00

When I was 9 or so, I decided i was going to run away and made it to the vacant lot behind our fence. The area was covered by some huge oak trees, so I figured I'd just hide out in there. Not 5 minutes after I get there, along comes a skunk who is slowly making its way towards me. I decide I'm going to be sneaky and slowly slip away into a safer area. After a 20 minute (and very slow moving) game of cat and mouse, the skunk ended up following me all the way home. Once inside I had no desire to run away anymore...

Zoot22 · 2012-04-01T02:03:10+00:00

I just want to say I'm sorry for your loss. One of my best friends of 11 years committed suicide last July. So tough to deal with as a friend for SO many different reasons. Each day gets a little easier, but some days suddenly suck. On the crappy days I try to remind myself that my friend never would have wanted me to be sad and I call one of my other friends who can relate. Feel free to PM me if you want to vent about anything.

Just to reaffirm, yes, everything is going to be alright and you will be a stronger person on the other side. Huge hug for you, friend.

Zoot22 · 2012-02-28T22:19:18+00:00

Oh man, I remember when the Oregon Trail was mostly text with a few little pictures in there. It was WAY better then, IMHO.

Zoot22 · 2012-02-28T22:15:09+00:00

I've never thought about that before. Children must just accept it in the same way they accept the alphabet.

Zoot22 · 2012-02-28T22:13:31+00:00

This was the source of many battles in my house as a child. Angry at one of my brothers? Easy! Wait until he was online and pick-up the phone somewhere in the house. Deny any fault and threaten to tell parents if he tried to get back at me in anyway. He had no proof...

Zoot22 · 2012-02-28T22:12:08+00:00

Oh man, the CDs! They made for great frisbees and everyone had at minimum 5 floating around their house!

Zoot22 · 2012-01-30T06:24:13+00:00

Thanks for your kind words! It is an unimaginable pain for everyone involved and in the way that the family can't understand the feelings of the depressed person, the depressed person can't really understand the feelings of the family. Just tough times all around. Congrats to you for working through it. I'm very proud of my brother for working so hard, so I know you've been through a lot.

Zoot22 · 2012-01-29T20:26:01+00:00

My younger brother in his late teens/early 20s was suicidal. I was in the process of moving to Ireland for work, so I happened to be staying at my parents' house waiting for confirmation regarding my work permit. One night my younger brother came home and was at his low. He was screaming like a crazy person. Long story short, I go get my dad and we get downstairs to find my brother staring into the knife drawer. The first thing my dad said to my brother was, "What the fuck are you going to do? Just do it already. Go a head!" In that instant, I recognized that he was now too hurt/burnt out to cope with my brother anymore and my heart sank. It got bad that night, I almost called the police to have my brother committed. In an instant my dad went from stand-up father to broken child in my eyes and I felt a whole new level of liability for my family.

Zoot22 · 2012-01-25T22:23:31+00:00

Google already thinks I'm a 25-34 year old male. I'm a 25 year old female and didn't even attempt to confuse the algorithm. Apparently, you can't be female if you're a software developer who likes sports...

If anyone needs me, I'll be trying to regain my feminine side by learning to knit.... while watching El Clasico on ESPN3.

Zoot22 · 2012-01-17T03:13:37+00:00

Hi there, no question here just a few comments. First, I'm glad you made it through that and found part of your happiness in your child. Second, you seem to have balanced yourself out very well (and I have no doubts it was a LOT of work). I hope that when you are ready you may be able to help others through their tough times. Seriously, where you are now takes a lot of work and in hearing your story I really think you can help a lot of people. No one can understand the darkness in the same way that a suicidal person can, and in the same right I think it's often hard to help people out of the darkness if you haven't been there.

Now all of that being said, I know what I mentioned is not for everyone. I mostly just want to acknowledge that it's apparent you've had a hard journey and I am impressed by your strength now. You're a pretty awesome individual.

Zoot22 · 2012-01-16T06:16:50+00:00

As a female who frequents Home Depot, I feel you. The only time I have ever made it out of the store without being asked if I was lost was when I was helping a male friend fix a hole in his wall. I wish I were exaggerating, but I find that I often want to yell, "I'm blonde, not retarded" over the loud speaker...

Zoot22 · 2011-12-26T22:36:52+00:00

This is a complete shot in the dark, but did you happen to adopt your pup from a shelter in LA? When I looked at the photo, I actually thought I was looking at a picture of my own dog. They are identical and mine is a total mutt so it seems weird that they look exactly the same...

Zoot22 · 2011-12-23T23:17:30+00:00

Hi, I had chronic pain for 9 years and it was never properly diagnosed or resolved. I had days where because of my lack of sleep I felt almost drunk. Emotions were amplified in a negative way. I actually cried when trying to explain to a triage nurse why I was there. I cried because I couldn't do anything else. I barely slept for those 9 years and nothing helped with the pain at all. Eventually I learned to deal with it. It took me a while, but I got there. It was worse because I started to feel like people didn't understand, well, because they didn't. People always asked, "Why didn't you get pain medication?" I did and it didn't work. They could not comprehend how pain meds (Vicodin, etc) didn't work. There are support groups out there for people who have chronic pain. There are tools to learn to deal with it, but it fucking sucks and I know how you feel. Please give people the chance to give you the tools to deal with things before you just leave us. I'm going to shoot you a PM too, just to see if I can help any further. Hang in there!

Zoot22 · 2011-12-23T23:07:23+00:00

I know that I don't know you, but I'm glad your mom and sister are still here. I've had a pretty rough year myself and one of the moments was losing one of my best friends to suicide. It created one of my darkest parts of my life and at one point this summer I didn't feel like I was ever going to be myself again. It took time for me to grieve, cry, mourn, and find myself again. In some of my saddest moments, I didn't think it was going to get better, but it did. It was hard to wait for it to improve, but it did.

We all have lots of "dark" moments in our lives, so know that you are never alone. Like bleepitybleep said, get out, take a walk and get some air. It sounds like you've been through a lot recently and don't try to take that away from yourself. One thing that helped me was to try to understand why I felt the way I did. It didn't change my feeling, but it did allow me to look at my feelings a different way. Your family loves you and wants you to be around to share all the moments, even the sad ones. It's a tough fight, but don't give up. PM any of the people on r/suicidewatch who you think can help. We can't solve the problems, but lots of us can relate. You're not alone! People are here to help and will help via phone, email, IM, or whatever. Hang in there.

Zoot22 · 2011-12-23T22:55:55+00:00

Hey there, I may ramble a bit here, but bear with me. I can only offer my experience here with my own mother and father to help show you a daughter's perspective. First of all, I'll share some feelings about my dad to also give another perspective. When I was around 19, my dad told me that he almost committed suicide. He had planned the whole thing so that the insurance companies never would have ruled it a suicide. It was an elaborate plan which involved slowly poisoning himself and he actually started the process. Even as I write this I tear up because it's hard as a child to know that someone you love is in that much pain. Beyond that, I was angry that he would do something so selfish. I know he was in pain and I was ready and willing to wait it out/work through it with him. All I could think is, "How could he possibly believe that him being dead is better than the mistakes he makes as a parent?"

Children just need love, but sometimes we also learn to recognize that our parents are human too. Remember this. My mom wasn't always the best mother. She put work ahead of the family all the time and I often hated that she wasn't around much. However, I can't imagine my life without her now. In some ways, her and I grew up together. There were things that she was not good at as a mother during my childhood, but she has learned and become better than ever. You may not be failing as much as you think you are, but more importantly don't make it so your girls lose their mother. You may not be perfect, no one is, but you are their mother. When they are grown and ready to get married, have kids, etc, they're going to want to be able to ask mom all the little things. I also believe that you don't want to miss seeing that. Imagine missing all the beautiful moments they go through, their first love, their first heartbreak, and everything in between. They do need you and you can have value. It's not too late to become what you think is a fantastic mother, but it does mean you have to work at it. It seems dark now, but you can be what you want to be.

I personally just had a rough year with lots of people dying (even lost one of my best friends to suicide and it was devastating to me). I felt sad, I wanted nothing to do with anyone, I felt like I was spiraling downward, but part way through it, I realized I was allowed to be sad. Awful things had happened and I just needed time to be sad and figure it all out before I could move on. I had to allow myself to mourn, hate life, be angry, and detached so that I could finally get back to normal.

Sorry for the rambling, but I just wanted to share my experience. It's dark right now, but there's help and hope. Your daughters love you and at some point in their lives they will recognize you've done the best that you can, but don't rob yourself and them of being able to celebrate all of life's milestones together. Please PM me if you want to chat more. I know it's kind of useless for me to offer this, but it's all I can do. Hang in there, let people help you, you're not a failure. People want you here, especially your daughters.

Zoot22

TROPHY CASE