I am sitting here Sunday night with very little to do and what seemed like a good idea several moment previously was to run through the various thoughts and ideas that were on the top of my head. Of these I decided it was about time that I took the effort to update things I do every so often.
I am currently in the Kansas City area waiting for Tuesday to come to start work. Tuesday will be my first real job since obtaining a Master's of Science in April, but in reality it is my first real job with benefits and 401Ks and the things that should be considered. Previously all my work experiences never really had these things. This is definitely a new chapter in my life, especially since I have spent the last 6 years in Utah attending school.
Recently in General Category
The slow realization that I am almost done with a Master's degree has finally landed. After one failed project (there are bitter feelings there) and 8 of some of the longest weeks so far in my higher education, I defended my project. With the single class I am taking this semester to finish, I am rather close to finishing the degree. All looks as though I am on track to have an April graduation date, which was the goal from the start of this experience.
All that is now left to do is to get edits back from the department editor and then go thru the steps to submit the write-up to the University. There are two major deadlines left one this week and one next. I think I can make both of them which will be nice. At some point I will have to come up with a simple explanation of what the project was. It just wont be today.
Even though it is Spring...it just doesn't feel like spring.
For the past four years I have been plugging away at getting a higher education. Last year, I fulfilled the requirements for a Bachelors degree, in that I came to realize I wanted more than that, applied to Grad Schools, and waited. About this time a year ago, I decided where I was going and what that would mean to me.
Since September and in contradiction to people around me, I have been spending my time preparing and studying. In about five weeks I get to take a comprehensive test covering the materials from classes over the last five years and there is a part of me that seems a little apprehensive about that. I don't think I am ready for that test despite the hours of time I have put in weekly preparing, learning, studying.
I dont really think it is spring because I havent spent anytime outside playing.
***
I can recall a time while in Germany, using the idiom "Water off a duck's back", and then getting to explain what I meant.
The past few days, I have felt somewhat like that goofy boy trying to explain an english idiom to a german speaker in german...
It's not like I have said something out of the ordinary, it just seems that way...
~u
Announcing for those of you interested, I have with help from Jordan set up a new site to discuss my status as an "Armchair Political Pundit".
http://www.armchairpolitics.net
I am doing this for two reasons really. Mainly I wanted to share my political views and knowledge, but I didn't feel it fell under a Blatant Obfuscation topic. Also I felt I wanted to give others I know a place where they could also share their political thoughts with the understanding we have no real clue the inner workings of the minds of politicians nor the any clue of the back room deals made within the political machines also known as political parties.
Well, enjoy those who venture there...
~u
To the surprise of a a lot of people, I tend to be knowledgeable in the realm of sports. Now mind you I don't know a lot of the particulars or the records that are set, but I do know enough of about each of the sports to hold my own. Problems arise that I have a hard time following most team sports because the number of games played in a single season exceeds my artificial limit of interest.
Take baseball, the season starts in April and ends in October. Baseball isn't interesting until September because you start 'weeding' out historically the best teams. I will admit I will watch the All Star game in July just because it has merit for the World Series, but otherwise all of the information that can be provided by playing so many games is not very interesting. I guess the same can be true for basketball.
I am partially biased due to hearing announcers come up with random facts, pass them off as a statistic and talk about nothing really. I am not really interested in hearing about batting percentage of a left handed hitter against a right handed pitcher during a night game on Tuesdays. It seems useless.
Now I will follow football. I follow football religiously. It may have something to do with the place I was raised. [Football is a religion in Texas...it just is...] But it is one of those things that you start in September by December the season is over. You know things. Football over the last 10 years has extended the bowl games for college into the second week of January and the NFL goes until the first of February. 19 games is the most I have to follow.
Interesting things come into play. Looking at a stochastic decision model, it is important to look at what you have available to you, where you are on the field and what down it is. A decision becomes interesting if you know that going into the wind your quarterback can make a 15 yard pass, your opponent is gonna blitz on the down because you are on the 30 yard line, so the question is the best play to call. [If anyone is wondering stochastic models are interesting to me...stochastic is a form of random...]
So this week marks the beginning of a 17 week enjoyable time, with college games on every Saturday, and an opportunity to be armchair coaches come Monday to discuss what teams should have done, and what the outcome of the upcoming week will be...
It was week 3 of the floor hockey session.
The Game started late as one of the sets of goalie gear left the floor without anyone noticing. It was pretty bad, but did give us a chance to warm up.
We have been breaking a stick a game and this week was no different. Carter on a sweet slap shot broke the blade of one of the sticks. It was a sweet deal, the broken piece went further than the ball ended up going.
But to the game itself, it was a loss (4-1). But what can you expect playing a bunch of Canadians. After Thursdays game the Pirates are 1-2.
Next game for us is Thurday the 8th @ 9:20pm in 134 RB.
With a win, it is all good...its amazing what subs can do for a team.
2-0
WAHOO!!!
Pirates will play next Thursday (2/1) @ 7:30pm.
I am not sure why I would want to start anything off in that way, but it seems to fit.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am alive, and if by alive, it means that I somehow make it to campus and classes each day, do the homework and what not...then yes I am alive.
I have fully recovered as best I can from last semesters 17 credit hour load and have found myself knee deep into this semester. What does that mean for me, well not much, just a lot of homework, I think. I have tuned my schedule as best I could to maximize my time this semester.
My original plans for the semester was to take 12 hours of classes, nine related to my field of study and three of general eds. It was a great plan until I sat over the break and realized that I could possibly graduate in December if I were to add 3 more hours this semester, but it was not any three hours it had to be the right three hours.
So upon arriving back from Georgia at the beginning of the month, I sat down and listed everything I had to take and everything I could take to fulfill the requirements for graduation. It was a good list. I looked at the online course listings and came up with a couple of viable solutions to graduation and then I scheduled a meeting with Dr. Scott [the stat department chair and my current boss]. The meeting went well as it was mostly work related and then I asked him about classes I should take.
I need to list out the classes in order for this to make sense. I am seeking a degree in statistical science which in and off itself meant a lot of theory/application classes in stats versus the other degrees where you end up with a minor in some other field. I stayed in statistics since changing majors.
So required classes I had left to take were Statistical Theory part 1 [STAT441], Statistical Theory part 2 [STAT442], and Experimental Design [STAT431]. Then I had a set of choices were open to me for the remaining 5 classes I could take. So the big dilemma in choosing focused on what could help me for a possible grad school route as well as obtaining a job after graduation. Knowing that I still had at least 2 more statistics courses to take, I simply selected the two most interesting topics to me Statistical Computing 2 [STAT424] and Applied Time Series Forecasting [STAT469] which meant I had to come up with a plan for the other classes. I looked at the list, and couldn’t see 3 classes I wanted to take/could take in order to accomplish a very real goal of a December graduation.
I did see a possibility of classes, but my interest laid in the more Math oriented classes, so not really a good thing for my aspirations. So I looked at the classes and came up with 3 possible classes: Intro to Reliability [STAT466], Quality Control and Industrial Statistics[STAT462], and Stochastic Processes [STAT545]. But to my dis-heartening the Stochastic Processes class was only to be taught in the spring this year and then go to a winter semester class starting next academic year. I spent some time and concluded to that STAT466 for the simple fact I was interested in the concepts the syllabus stated it would cover, the only problem was a pre-req that I was going to be concurrently enrolled in. After some discussion with the teacher and other students I felt I would be able to perform in the class. So I signed up.
Now this leaves some interesting things. Mainly I have a desire to have an internship of some sort this summer [May1 to Aug 14th] and I have begun feeling that out. But for my last undergraduate semester it is already planned out. Sort of.
Baring some mishap of a bad nature, I plan to be taking STAT442, STAT469, STAT424, MATH350, and my last GE Physical Science 100.
It wasn’t until I realized how close I was that I got excited about it. I am two semesters away from being done with an undergraduate degree…
I feel that the time has come to work out a plan for keeping the site up to date better. I am not really sure what that means. Maybe it means simply planning out a set number of entries I would like to see up each week or month. I am not really sure which is better; whether it is a weekly quota or a monthly quota. I will figure that out sometime this week.
Today, I have had time to sit down and work on things that have been backlogged in my to-do list. I have been meaning to do them for a while, but it always seemed that something jumped priority. Examples of this include the book John Adams by David McCullough. I have wanted to read this book for sometime. I got it as a Christmas present and for the last 8 months it sat the first few chapters read and nothing more. I had read 1776 by McCullough and felt I would give this a go. Needless to say, I dug the book out of the tub it was in and started over today. I have returned to the chapter I had left off on and now I look like I might be able to get past it this evening.
I recently moved. It was a simple move as I moved two houses north of where I was living. I figure that I might have made the daily trip to campus shorter by 150 feet or so. I t is an epic change. Two major differences in the move, I am currently living upstairs of the new house instead of in a basement and once the current squatter is out there is to be more room available. I am more looking forward to living with Nels. Nels and I met due two years ago when Nels was living in the basement of the house and attended the ward. He and I formed a fast love-hate relationship as we call it. We are looking forward to BBQ-ing this next year and for the most part having fun.
I think this was a needed change. The place I was living wasn’t healthy for me. All I did was, enter my room and do nothing. Due to my lax attitude, my schooling suffered this last year. It could have been better and I feel that had I been around people. So this should be an interesting social experience.
So taking Spring and Summer term classes has burnt me out. I am glad that there was a two week recovery period in here that I am able to do whatever I want. It has helped this week to recharge the batteries and get ready for the coming semester. Speaking of which, I need to be a hawk and look at the classes I am registered for and decide if I really am going to be taking them. I hope that all goes well. With me getting most of the GE requirements out of the way, I am left with major related classes and now I am getting to take classes that excite me, but when I tell people that I am taking Methods of Sampling come Fall, they get a glazed look on their face and I am overly excited by the class.
Oh well, life goes on.
So I was looking online at my current calandering usage and discovered it is also International Labor Day. Is that important to me? No, not really. I am here at work and the development server is down [I have been informed due to overheating problems]. So I am trying to find something really substantial to work on. This means nothing really to me other than I am bored.
There is nothing much that is happening today. Really nothing at all is happening. I got up early and cleaned for a bit, but after 30 minutes or so I had gotten done with my pre-designated weekly cleaning and had nothing of substance to do. So I did the only thing that I could think of, I jumped onto WoW and tried for three hours to get into a group with my pally for one of the higher level instances to get some dungeon set pieces. It was no use. I ended up giving up and moving onto the next item on my list of things to do.
Last Friday marked the beginning of Finals for the semester. I think everybody around me deals with the stress and pressure to preform that finals puts on a person. I have my quirks, but mainly I try to avoid the situation all together. I have played a lot of violent video games in order to vent some of the stress. I really like to play First Person Shooters (FPS) because really it is something to do, and it doesn't take too much time to play a few rounds before going back to studying.
"I got a great Idea" is pretty much all my younger brother told me when he planned to head south to come "hang out" this evening. Well I knew something was up and for the two days that I knew about him coming down, wondered at what scheme had come up with that would need him to come talk to me face to face and not so much over the internet or over the phone.
Earlier today I ended walking into the testing center to take a test that was 'popped' on my Statistical Regression class at the end of last week. I had studied what was indicated that would be seen on the test, as well as all of the material that was covered in the 4 or so chapters that had been 'covered' since the last test. It didnt take me that long to find out that yet again the test covered a totally different set than what the teacher gave us to study.
Late last week, in the midst of some serious smack talking between Nels and I, an idea was born. We have been talking sports for the better part of the year, and recently golf has come up as a main topic of conversation. Golf looks like a fun sport to play were I to have the clubs and the time to spend to improve my inability to play the sport.
Somewhere in the conversation, Nels brought up miniature golf. He began to talk about a course in the area that had some pretty cool sounding features to include sand traps in the form of shag carpeting.
So this past weekend the server changed IP addresses and I was behind the ball. Well actually I was rather sick the last week and although I was informed that the server was going to be changing IP addresses it didn't register with me that the server was changing IP address until some time Monday afternoon.
I was tempted to leave the entry at that but I decided that I might fill it in a little more. Last Tuesday evening I came down with something, i like to refer it to the quasi-flu as I had a lot of flu-like symptoms but at the same time I refuse to say I had the flu. It was a long week.
Wednesday I had a lab that I needed to teach and dragged myself out of be, and walked to campus to teach the lab. Being sick the normal 10 minute walk from my apartment up to the Talmage Building on the far side of campus from where I live became more of a 25 minute walk. The experience teaching the lab was a good thing for me as it gets me out of the comfort zone that I develop.
Other than trying to explain to concept of the coefficient of correlation, the instruction of that lab went well. I mean how hard is it to understand that 'r' is the measure of how well the linear association between variables in a data set is. It was one of those if they had simply read the book it made it clear as at least Dr. Pepper.
Well off to do other stuff...
I played Baulderdash or maybe it was 'Beyond Baulderdash' for several hours last night. I happened to be playing with some old friends from Texas, one of which attends BYU and the other who was up for a visit and to snowboard. As we were playing on of the words that came up was 'splacknuck' and as I recall the definition on the card is was something on the line of 'odd looking person or animal.' I like the word.
So let me back track some. Saturday morning I woke up before I normally would have, to go do some snowboarding with my friends. So being up before the crack of dawn [actually up before the crack of noon] threw me for a loop as I was trying to get everything that I would need to have for the day. I thought that included some Advil.
There has to be a beginning to everything.
As I began to play with this I have been thinking the purpose or goal that I wish to accomplish with this site.
So i realized that this semester is really eating at me. I have spent the last month and a half fighting the constant battle of time. I spend so much of my time doing homework and so little doing the things that I really havent had time for me. So this week I took sometime for me at the detriment of my grades.
For those that dont know I became a fan of the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan some time ago. I think I was just beginning high school, so i have been at it almost a decade. Book 11 of the series came out this week, and I was determined to finish it this week with out have other things interfere with my enjoyment of just reading.
So Tuesday after buying the book about 6pm and getting home about 7pm I sat down and read and finished the book about midnight. 5 hours straight reading. Let me tell you I loved it, I hadnt done that in a long long time. Well Wednesday evening came around and since I am not the biggest baseball fan, I again returned to re-reading the book.
Yeah, I have read the book twice in two days. I am currently working on getting my other books in the series sent to me so I can re-read all 11 books in order.
man I feel like being lazy...
Have you ever wondered at the irony of Labor Day. It is a day that we get off to do no labor what so ever. (Alright its a holiday...)
So my labor day weekend was themed by a need to leave the confines of Happy Valley (aka Provo/BYU) and go somewhere 'better'. My 7 month basement project at my brothers hadnt had much done to it in a few weeks. Mind that I did put up all the sheetrock before I returned to Provo for school was a big plus in my book. Well, my brother was being dragged to a retreat function thing for the weekend by his wife so, I decided that I could have his house to myself and that I could do a good deal of the sheetrock work of mudding and floating and more mudding. I didnt get far into the project itself. I kept coming up with snags in it. I did accomplish getting everywhere mudded one coat. But the hopes of sanding and getting the second coat on were of no good.
Well then after the first week of school it seemed prime time to relax, but there was homework that had to be done (and some of it had deadlines on Saturday night). Well So after getting tired with the mudding in the basement I would 'relax' by doing homework and other fun stuff like that.
The big bonus for the entire weekend is that I was able to purchase a Deep Fryer for Turkeys and the sort. I have wanted on for a while (and although my mother gave me one my father contends that it is his and refuses to give it to me). I played with the Fryer by frying up a turkey breast with a marinade but it wasnt as good as some of the others I have had. So I am on a search for cheap boneless turkey breast to use as I attempt to perfect the deep frying skills in time for Turkey Day 2005.
Well that is all I can report for my weekend, it was full of labor and work as I finished mudding the last part of the room and hallway I was working on early Monday afternoon. I am still sore and tired.
Well until later
I sit here working and I have decided to take a minute and empty out some thoughts that I have.
Yesterday I returned to Provo for the upcoming school year. As I moved things out of my brother's basement and into my living space for the year I determined that I would remove some of the clutter that I so naturally accumulate. So I spent a lot of time last night going through notes and pages of homework to determine if I should keep it or toss it. I have a big stack of papers to throw out now, but I came across a few things that I am undecided what I should do with them.
I took a creative writing class a year ago, and mind you I have felt that most of the crap I produced in that class was a load of BS to say the least. There was nothing that sparked my interest (although the short story section did a bit). So I was scavenging through such paper work trying to eliminate clutter and separate things out into "useless garbage" and to "recyclable stuff". I would never label myself as a truly "eco-friendly" individual, but I hate throwing out stuff that could be recycled. In going through the papers from the creative class I came across a couple of items of some worth one might say.
There was this girl that I thought was cute, but due to my ineptitude I never got the guts up to ask her out. Alas, I came a across her old number/email address and I was thinking about emailing her, but then my gutless self wouldnt know where to begin
Then I came across the story that I worked hard on and felt that I did well on. So I started to save all of the drafts and revisions and corrections I made on it. I must be a pack rat of the worst variety cause I ended up saving a lot of what I did in that class cause it had some connection to the short story.
Then I started going through other papers from other classes. I sat there debating the worth of keeping old homework assignments from Math classes. I was about to make a list of why I should keep them, and then I was hit over the head so to speak with reality and they immediately fell into the recycle pile.
Now I have less stuff cluttering my life, although the two stacks are still in my room. I feel like I have done some thing over the last two evenings. Now I just need to rid the room of the two piles of stuff.
All other things aside, thus far the week hasnt been too bad. I have been able to move in, get "organized" and prepare for the fall. I did decide in an executive manner that my 5 class 15 hour load was going to increase to 6 classes and 17 hours this fall. It is all in plans to get out of here as fast as I can. I am getting the cabin fever syndrome with being in school.
And thus we see the downfall of man...
This weekend is the last one I have before I move back down to Provo. In reality, I am not really planning on anything major happening. I have packed up 90% or so of my crap so the move should be putting clothes into bags and loading up a car.
So does mean the summer is over...do I really have to go back to school?
I guess it would be too bad, but I have taken way too long in my opinion to get to where I am currently at. Now granted, since I am paying for my own education, it was way better for me to piss away the time and money at a junior college trying to figure out my plans than going to some university and trying to sort that all out. I am pretty sure that over time that I saved more and had better life lessons going the way that I did, but damn...
So I sat down last night and reviewed my Fall schedule (I continue to contemplate another class) and then took the time to review a full course of classes I could take and where that put me graduating. (BTW BYU is have summer commencement exercises today). I figure if i did it just right I could wing the Winter semester of 2007...maybe have to delay it to the summer of that year, but that would be it...
Onward I guessâ¦only a few more hours of work and then it is to go play...
So right before I headed out the door at lunch today, my cell phone rings. Well it hardly ever rings as I have this hatred of talking on the phone and the number of people who have my current number isn't that many. I more use the phone for a clock than anything else. So back to my tirade. so my phone rings. It is a friend from Texas (Johnny) who wanted to call and tell me what he had for lunch (Dickie's BBQ). He just happened to be in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area for work, and happened to be near a Dickies and so he just had to tell me all about it.
For those of you are wondering why I am posting a blog about a phone call to tell me about BBQ, need to be informed of my obsession with 'good' BBQ. I spent a good deal of time once I got my driver's license searching for good places to eat that were within a reasonable distance from home. Some time after high school I got into this BBQ and down home cooking phase, and spent a good portion of each weekend driving around looking for restaurants to eat at. I found Dickie in the interim, and fell in love with the food. It wasnt 'BBQ cookout' quality of food, but it was pretty good, ready to order food that never took too long to order. I really liked the sauce.
So over the years I began taking people to the various places that I had found or had been told of. I can remember various trips to Austin and Dallas and trying to get people to stop at Dickies to eat, but for the most part to no avail.
Even when I was in Texas I wanted to eat at a couple of places I had missed over the past year (I have this thing for Chicken Fried Steak), and I ended up going to a BBQ place, but not to Dickies as it was out of the way for the terms of the week.
Well I made mention the other day that I was looking for some good BBQ to Johnny. You know brisket and sausage. I find that when you dont have both beef and pork it really isnt BBQ, it just isnt the same. Well anyway today the bastard called and told me that he went to one of my more favorite places to eat BBQ and had to rub it in...like pouring salt in an open wound...it hurts...
Okay I guess I can et over the tirade now....
I dont know why, but something has been eating at me for that last few days. I dont let people really know about it, but there are those times that I just feel like the bubble is about to burst and the world seems to be crashing down on me. I just cant seem to explain it. Something bad is coming.
I remember seeing one of the coolest sites before, and I dont think you would quite understand it unless you have seen it, but let me try to explain. I was out in West Texas (okay more of the panhandle) on my way to or from somewhere not really important. Let me illustrate the scenery, the area I was driving through is relatively flat. It is flat for miles and miles. You just see farmland and an occasional house and buildings. I had stopped in a little town to fill up my car and to stretch my legs for a bit, when I looked out towards the western horizon. There I saw the ominous dark clouds of a Thunderstorm as they were making their way east. I went in to pay for the gas and asked the attendant how much time until that storm hit. He had looked out the window towards the west and responded "about a day or so."
I had grown up with the notion that when you saw those dark almost black clouds on the horizon it was time to call it quits cause you maybe if you were lucky had an hour.
Right now, I am at one of those moments. I am filling up at the pump and see the storm clouds forming a ways off, but now there isnt someone here to tell me when the storm is to hit.
It might just be me, but I feel like something is up and coming. A change or something that will throw stuff out of balance for a while.
I have been struggling with this all summer.
So for a little back history here. About 3 years ago, I was working at the USDA ARS research center in Temple, Texas. I had been a lazy person and hadnt gotten a hair cut in over a year (I think the actual count was 15 to 16 months). Well I was given a bunch of shit for having hair down to my shoulders. So after a few months of my co-workers, people at church, and friends continually giving me crap, I decided to get a hair cut.
I went to the cheapest place I could find (I spent the afternoon going to different places) and sat there and waited to get a hair cut. After an hour of waiting I just left. I called a friend who had gotten into town to see if I could borrow his mother's hair trimming clippers. I figured I could cut my hair just as well as any one else. I went hog-wild and trimmed my hair with a little help and had a buzz cut....a nice short buzz cut. I looked in the mirror, pulled out my razor and shaving cream, lathered up and shaved my head bald for the 1st time.
So the next day at work, I was first mistaken for some random person as I was working on whatever I was working on, and then after realizing who I was, I was given shit for shaving my head bald (I couldnt win for loosing).
Well, so I let my hair grow for a month after the first bald head shaving experience, and decided I kind of liked the bald head, and so I shaved it bald again. This didnt bring too much surprise to people as they had seen my head bald a month earlier. And that was the 2nd bald head experience.
The third experience was 15 months ago and having been the fruggle person I attempt to be, I hadnt gotten a hair cut in a period of 6 months or so. Well I let someone cut my hair, knowing full well that I could shave it off if it was bad. Minding that the hair cut wasnt too bad being the persons first experience at it, and I tend to wear a hat most of the time, I was fine with keeping the hair cut. Well I was wielding on some project at work, when a piece of slag jumped onto my head and burned a patch of hair to the scalp. I am not one to have a singular bald spot on the crown of my head, so I did the only thing I could. I shaved it bald.
So a few weeks ago, my sister-in-law had been harping at me to get a hair cut (again I had gone a few months with out one). So I contemplated where I could go to get one done quickly. I settled for the neighbors (they offered to do a buzz cut for free). So I had a ..2 buzz cut for a week, and the entire time, I was thinking how much cooler my head would feel if it were to be bald. So a week ago, I returned to the neighbors and had them do a ..1 buzz to see if that were any better. I should note that at this time, my sister-in-law had been vocalizing her opinion against me having short hair or shaving my head bald.
Yesterday, I returned a second time to the neighbors for a hair cut, only this time I brought my razor and cream. After 45 minutes of carefully shaving my head (didnt want to cut it), I returned with a bald head.
I kind of like it. Only now I have to keep it âlotionâ-ed. Dont want it to dry out or anything.
Okay I am going to be rather honest here...I like the phrase "what the hell" a lot, a whole lot. I find it better then the obligatory WTF that people love to use, and it is by far less offensive compared to the WTF phrase.
So yesterday, I purposefully stayed later in Provo to accomplish some tasks on my ever increasing, rarely decreasing To-do list. I should have check bus schedules before being so rash and making choices like that but, none the less I did decide to stay. Well I failed to account for the bus schedule and found my self at the mall for 40 minutes as I had to wait for next bus to take me to the vehicle I am currently using (BTW land rovers suck).
So i continue to say to myself, as I do almost frequently...what the hell...
I dont know if anyone remembers the short lived comedy one ABC called Sports Night, but I find it rather amusing. Well somewhere in the second season, the character played y Joshua Malino is at a bar talking to this woman. He comments to the affect that it normally took the girl to hand him a sign and hit him across the forehead, before he could act. Well I find myself in that situation. Well I have found myself in that situation since moving to Utah. I find that I am never sure of what to do/say next. It is perplexing.
So i sit here...and I work on this blog, I find that I get distracted easily...
But to my line of thought...so a few weeks back I had a nice (would say lovely, but not quite the right word) conversation with a girl on the bus. Which was great, well hesitant as I have become, I missed a prime opportunity to ask for her number. I wish right there and then she, or anyone would have held up an obligatory sign and slapped me upside the head.
But this dilemma has been going on for months. I think Utah is affecting me somehow, and it aint good. Do they put something in the water here?
Until next time...
Okay so I am just excited. I have had 5 profile views within 24 hours. Now that makes me feel special.
Well...it is Wednesday and that is good. Although I am not sure how that is good. I have no plans for the weekend. I hear talk of heading up Saturday morning to an art festival in Park City, but other than that I might just be in a basement working on sheetrock. Fun and exciting stuff I know.
Well if I get motivated I might actually work today at work, but that would require my boss getting back to me with an new assignment. I am not sure why I get pleasure out of this, but I just do. Yesterday I was getting ready to leave and I was able to finish off my two assignments. Well as I left I told my boss that he could report them completed and that I would need something to work on today. Well I got to work, no sign of my boss. I checked my email, no emails telling me what to do. So I have been surfing the internet, reading conspiracy theories from the moon landing to the hanging chad of 2000.
Well I might get motivated and post another blog entry later....until then
So work is great. Work pays the bills and lets me eat. But work also means dealing with other people who under another circumstances I am sure that I wouldnt associate myself with unless absolutely forced to. I have found that I enjoy the people I work around, they dont chatter about things, it is a nice and quiet environment to get things done. Good thing. I work at being anti-social, and I tend to succeed.
So, I have a pet peeve...and I find myself more aggravated by it here in Utah (especially going to school at BYU) than I ever had a problem with it growing up. See the notorious "f-word" is something that I dont necessarily take issue with, rather the substitutes that proliferate the air. I sat reading Bertrand Russel's History of Western Philosophy as I have been for the last month. It seemed that every time I got myself engrossed into the ideas expressed in the chapter, some random person would say something that contained one of the many substitute "f-words" (freak, frick, frack, flip, etc.) emphasized in a way that mentally I heard "blah, blah, what the F***." It wouldnt have been bad. No it would have been tolerable had I been anywhere else other than sitting on campus.
So the advantage I am told to attending BYU (I have yet to experience this) is that you are surrounded with people with similar standards as yourself. Well, I remember signing the honor code thingy which address your speech as an area that falls under honor code violations for vulgarity. But since the substitute words arent the actual word it must be okay to use them. That is getting annoying being around people who purposely at this point use these substitutes in place of that actual word.
If I only had a soap box....
Off my soap box now. My weekend was nice and relaxing. I finally got back to what I somewhat enjoy doing. Last December, my older brother and I start to tackle finishing out a portion of his basement. Well in April when I moved up to his place for the summer we rushed to get his office done and then being burned out we kinda came to a halt on the other room to be finished. Saturday I hung several pieces of sheetrock that were lacking in the room and hopefully by this coming up weekend I can have the room to the taping and floating phase. The middle of the month is fast approaching and with every successive day I really feel like finishing that project off...
But last night I would have none of it. I got home latter than I wanted to. So I looked at options and then decided I need to get my hair cut. It had been a while, and my niece had discovered that she could get big tuffs of hair in her hands. So I had it cut. Originally it was a #1 buzz cut. I felt that was too long, so the guy cutting my hair told me the only other size he had left was the blending comb. So my hair is short. I like it.
So I might as well go get some lunch.
...just my two cents anyhow....
Okay, so I like the concept of the weekend. The notion that I dont have to do anything till Monday is a great euphoria to have. I have spent the entire week trying to come up with things to do. Well now that wont have to continue on until next Monday, cause today is Friday, and I hardly do any work on Friday's to begin with. It is great.
So last night I spent some time to sort out some of the pics on my computer, only to discover that in the 5 years I have had my camera that I havent taken many pictures of myself. Really the only pics of me that I had were from a trip to Savannah, GA for St. Patrickâs Day in 2004. Two of the 5 or so pictures were of me sleeping in the back seat of my friends car taken somewhere in GA I gather from what is outside the window.
Well my hopes of finding a good picture to add to my profile was once again foiled for another day. Maybe I will come across some thing and get it included before to long.
With August fast upon us, I am anticipating and dreading the return to Provo for school. Spending the summer away from there has been a refreshing experience, but I guess I get to move back down sometime middle of the month. It wont be too bad I dont guess.
I think the one thing that I haven't quite gotten over since coming to school is the lack of freedom that I once had. I missed being able to rent a 1-bedroom apartment for about the same price I am going to be dropping down for a private room in a basement. So I have had to store a bunch of my stuff in a shipping container at my parents place in Colorado, and every now and then I get to a point of wanting one of those items only to realize it is somewhere in this box 6 hours away from where I am. Mostly what I want is my lazy boy chair given to me by a co-worker when I got my first apartment. Yeah it is ragged and the fabric is ripped in several pieces, and it could be reupholstered, but man was it comfortable. There just wasnt any room for it when I came up this way. Trust me I have tried, but living in about 30% of the space my last apartment in Temple, Texas had to offer doesnt help my 'personal' space issues that arise almost continually.
But I am told this is all supposed to help in the end. 'Education is an important thing' was a great phrase all my friends joked about while I was back in Texas visiting. It just is too bad that I decided to get one 5 to 6 years after all my friends did.
Well...maybe this weekend I can get more work done on my profile and find a decent picture of me to post.
Until laters then...
Okay, it is Wednesday. It is the middle of the week, and still i have yet to accomplish anything. Well let me return to the comments from earlier blogs. I have returned this week to work after being out of town for 2 weeks on vacation. It is probably the hardest thing I have done all month, returning to work.
I am a dutiful person and tend to finish off projects before leaving for an extended period of time, so before i went on vacation I made sure that all of the assignments that I had were brought to a point that there was nothing more I could do on them until approval of current set-up was made. Well I have been at work 2 days (Monday was some holiday in Utah) and have struggled with things to do.
Good thing is that I have been able to work on the myspace.com profile, keep up with emails, and search the web. So last night I was playing one of my two newest addictions. I have this thing for RPGs and picked up World of Warcraft (WoW) back in March. Well last night I maxed out my first character at lvl60. Culim the pally is on the Bloodscalp server and has been a time sink in my life as i have worked ever closer and closer towards 60. Well I hit it. And now I dont have such a drive to play the game continuously as I have done what I wanted to.
Well to go on with that, I recently picked up on a game Pardus(see www.pardus.at) while i visited Texas. The only was I can fathom to describe it is a fun quick RPG that allows me to work on my economics skills as well as my desire to be a pirate. So yesterday and today, I have been working on getting to a point where I can think about expanding operations.
So then there is the one consternation in my life that for whatever reason it is I just cant get over it. I have this night job. (During the day I work down at BYU) Well it was a fun job, cause I was paid to play computer games for 3-4 hours a day. Well the owner recently desired to have someone become a manager. I knew I wasnt going to be selected as I am going back down to school in a few weeks. Well the owner picked the biggest goober i have ever met to be manager, and this despite the warnings by various people to the nature of the aforementioned goober. Well, I went in Monday to get my pay and to see what I was working only to discover that goober gloating at his new status.
I dont think he took it too well when I informed him that I just didnt give a damn and that I wouldnt care until the owner, who hired me, informed me of personal changes, and even then I was still not going to care. He took a power trip with me when I asked what I was working that week so I could figure out when I had time in the week.
So I have now had over 48 hours to fume about it, and the flippant response by the goober of 'oh i think you are down for Thursday or Friday' still angers me, but not as much as trying to get a hold of the owner to ask him what he wanted me to work and not getting any response to messages left with him.
So I am trying to figure out what to do next. Because I am aforementioned flawed with the notion that I have some odd form of loyalty or respect for the owner that I should stick with a commitment to work for him, but at the same time I have this feeling of utter disdain for the goober and dont want to have anything to do with him beyond what I have to. So I am undecided if I should even try to work there at all or talk to the owner about it or what...
