Tomorrow

I’m sick of thinking about tomorrow, I’m tired of grinding about what my next move is, where I will be, who will be around, what mistakes I need to avoid so I can be successful. What a waste of time, especially this time of year.  Christmas break is a great break because you’re not home for an extended weekend (Thanksgiving break) and there are TWO holidays.  Let’s be honest, when you were little everything was building up to Christmas, the shopping, presents arriving in the mail, baking cookies, and decorating the tree.  Then Christmas begins and ends before you get to wrap your head around the amount of toys you got that morning.  The next two days are scheduled for toy playing and video game domination, I was always allowed unlimited hours on the Nintendo the two days after Christmas.  Much better than the two hours given to me on a regular day, that’s barely enough time to load the game and get a good session in. My N64 is, to date, the best Christmas present I have received over my 20 year career.  I actually opened Mario Kart 64 before I opened the console; boy that whole day was A.W.E.S.O.M.E.  So after those two days we all got depressed because the Christmas buzz wore off, but then we realized New Years Eve was a couple of days away and it was the holiday spirit all over again. 

My family leaves for New York tomorrow, a trip we always make for Christmas to spend time with my mom’s side of the family.  I have this tendency to think about what we are doing next, we could be opening presents and I’m thinking about what we are going to do for lunch.  Before I know it the trip is over and I feel somewhat unsatisfied, like I didn’t get everything out of the trip.  Not this year, I’m going to enjoy every present opening, cookie eating, meal eating, drink drinking, church…churching, and family talking opportunity that comes my way.  Living in the now, the present, so I can enjoy my Christmas. 

Merry Christmas to everybody (all 40 of you)

Rambling

To be honest I don’t have any idea why I have a blog, I’m not a writer, I don’t want to be a writer, in fact, my major doesn’t even require me to take College Writing II.  Don’t ask me why, it’s not like we engineers are writing three page papers every week, citing sources, and putting together bibliographies so we don’t get accused of plagiarizing.  The only source citing I do is “Table A-17” (the table for ideal-gas properties of air), like you care….and when I say “you” I’m probably talking to three people.  However my last blog got 30 hits, couple more and I’ll be selling Google advertisements and making enough money to put my future kids through college, all 8 of them.  I exaggerated there for humor, I really only want 3.  I’ve been listening to a lot of rap lately mostly Eminem and Na Palm with a pinch of Lil Wayne and Kanye West.  For some reason I think I can rap along with Eminem and if somebody were to watch me I would be making a fool of myself.  Never been a big rap fan and I’m still not but listening to the lyrics you begin to realize how brilliant these guys are, especially when they rap at a blazing lyrical rate.  I want a Mad Men wardrobe for Christmas, maybe a little more updated:

3 tailored suits, 2 coats/jackets, 10 tailored dress shirts (2 white, the rest different colors), 5 tailored pants/slacks, 4 pairs of dress shoes, a slew of ties, a handful of cuff links, good selection of belts, more socks than I know what to do with (but no navy blue socks, do you know how hard it is to distinguish black from navy blue?).

If I were to have this wardrobe I would want a full time laundry lady who washes everything after one use and irons it all too.  I despise laundry, it takes a lot of time and you have to be extra careful with the delicate stuff because nothing is worse than ruining a freshly updated wardrobe via washer and dryer.  When I think of Heaven I see an endless amount of socks (preferably no-show black socks), the feeling you get when you put on a new pair is equivalent to walking on a cloud.  Heaven will also have wood floors too (along with the gold streets) so we can slide around in our new socks.  I don’t know how to segway into the next sentence so I’m jumping in head first…comments on the internet are ridiculous, stupid, a waste of time to read, reek of arrogance, self centered, fact-less, heartless, pointless, irrelevant, and spam-filled.  Nothing is good enough, something is always better, somebody posted first, second, third ect.  What are we coming to? There’s no way to monitor it all, we will end up teaching it in school instead of home ec, but then mothers (and fathers (didn’t want to be sexist)) don’t know how to cook, so families go to McDonalds for dinner five times a week leading to obesity being the number one killer in America.  All thanks to those “wise” people posting comments on the internet.   

Understand that this post is nothing but me writing off the top of my head, so if it’s choppy, doesn’t make sense, contains a lot of commas…don’t hate.

You're in Control

The world is your oyster… you control the reigns of your life…you can be whatever you want to be in life.

These cliché phrases expressing your never ending freedom to shape your life become meaningless, in one ear, out the other sentences because it’s been chanted by elementary students for years.  When I was little I wanted to be many things, firefighter, garbage man (to ride on the back of the truck WITHOUT a seatbelt), doctor, professional soccer play…the list goes on.  However there were two significant “careers” I focused on, a wide receiver and CIA special agent.  Being the only boy within a two mile radius I had to play football by myself, simple really I was all time quarterback/running back/wide receiver playing against the imaginary defense that stood between me and the other side of the lawn.  I also took on the roll of color commentator and coach when I saw needed.  This was fun for me and on Sundays my dad and I watched “huck it John boy” (a reference to John Elway throwing the ball which quickly substituted for the word football in the family vocabulary).  The following memory I remember vividly, we were eating dinner, I had peas on my plate, and I stated boldly I wanted to be a wide receiver when I grew up.  I explained by eagerness to play in the NFL and catch passes from the top quarterbacks at the time.  Later that night when I was getting tucked in on my bunk bed one of my parents told me wide receivers get hurt ALL the time, that it’s nearly impossible to get into the NFL because I have to play in college and be better than all of the other players…I was told to pick something else…big dream blown into small pieces before I had any opportunity to find out for myself.

Now the inspiration to be a CIA special agent came from watching the first Jason Bourne and the Recruit.  It was sound so cool to be a part of these select few guys who got to be all stealthy, shooting up stuff, having multiple passports and unlimited cash.  The thrill of doing something that’s against the law and running away from the cops (and succeeding), no consequences as long as you got the job done and America was safe. I was doing pull ups and pushups (just like Jason Bourne), I would climb on top of our buildings and jump from one roof to the other, at night I would try to sneak into my own house without my mom or sister knowing, I could climb from one side of the kitchen to other without touching the ground (creating the scenario of lasers and pressure sensitive floors).  Eventually I found out being a Jason Bourne is not a real job and it’s not really for me anyways…although it’s still a fantasy of mine. 

When asked “what do you want to be when you grow up?” a first grader will respond with a job that sounds interesting and fun to them, not something based on their yearly salary or how prestigious the position is.  Why would they want to do something that wasn’t be fun? So innocent we were, money did not mean a thing to us, until we got a little older and we wanted new clothes, the newest Tony Hawk Proskater, get hot lunch, and have the newest Nike basketball shoes.  Then money becomes powerful and starts to show how valuable it is.  Some kids were privileged enough to have parents who were well off so they got to wear the Quicksilver and Billabong shirts, while other kids, who weren’t necessarily poor, made due with plain old clothes.  Kids grow a lot, what’s the point of buying new shirts every time we have a growth spurt?  Kids become teenagers who are too cool to hang out at home and want to go to the mall, eat out, and go to the movies, money becomes an even bigger deal.  Do these teenagers still want to be the firefighters and garbage men they set out to be in kindergarten? Doubt it, they want to have a career where the bacon is being brought home day and night.  College rolls around and the time to pick a major weighs on the shoulders of these young adults.  Money is an even bigger deal during college, whatever pays the bills is a good job at that point.  Majors are then picked on how easy it is to get a job out of school, it doesn't even matter if they hate going to those type of classes...as long as they get paid in the future…

Now that was an over-generalization, big time, but there is some truth behind it.  Are you doing what you want to do? Are you studying what you want to study?  Say you wanted to be a journalist but somebody told you early on it was impossible to make a living doing writing for a living.  So you change your course to be something else, you go to school, get a job where you sit at a desk where you wonder why you come to work every day, drink the stale coffee in the break room and talk to employees about the job you cannot stand.  Meanwhile there is this gift, love and desire for writing waiting to be ignited.  Maybe that person was right who said you can’t make a lot of money being a journalist, but who are they to tell you what you can and cannot do?  So what, at least you will be doing something you love and enjoy, you’ll be happier overall because you wake up in the morning knowing you’re doing what YOU want to do.  It’s not about paying the bills, it’s not about how prestigious the position is, IT IS about doing something you have a strong desire to do.  Those dreams we had when we were little may change, as we grow we see all of the opportunities we have, we see our strengths and weaknesses within ourselves and are able to pinpoint areas where we can excel.  The only thing holding back those big ambitions inside of you is yourself. Any dream or goal is attainable as long as the mind is made up, great achievements happen because they are caused to happen.  Every outstanding accomplishment is the EFFECT of an equally outstanding inner accomplishment.  There are absolutely no great victories created in the outer world that were not first fought and won in the mind.

Questions

I don’t know where O.J. Simpson is today but how can the man go to sleep at night?  (Assuming the man really was guilty)  Has “not guilty” been engrained into his head where he now thinks it’s true?  Is there a sense of accomplishment because he got away with it or is he too ashamed to look himself in the mirror?  Does Tiger Woods feel the pain of his actions every night when he goes to bed, alone? Is he alone or continuing down the road he was on? How about Bill Gates, is money ever considered before he buys something? Is he buying the Wal-Mart brand of ice cream because Breyers isn’t on sale this week? Does he even go to the grocery store? Do “great ideas” come to people out of the blue or after long sessions of brain storming? What’s their motivation behind the idea? Money? Fame? Helping others? Helping themselves? What emotion of yours is looking to be satisfied today? What’s your goal for the day?

Try waking up when you set your alarm and not hitting the snooze button.

Try not eating dessert

Try not complaining for an extended amount of time

Try not going on Facebook for a day

Try reading instead of watching TV

Try not watching TV or playing Xbox

Try sticking to your word, treat every “I’ll call you” or “We should hang out sometime” like a promise.

Try talking to that one person you don’t have the guts to talk to on a normal day

(Random Fact: 13 horizontally stacked DVD’s = 1 DVD standing vertically)

Welcome Back

It's been well over a year since my last post but my friend Kyle posted a couple times this past week and thought what the heck?

Lately I've been so bored with myself that I'm doing homework for entertainment or walking around the library and distracting other people from their work. Although being bored isn't fun I do get a lot of work done so I wouldn't mind staying in this "era" of my college years for a couple of more months. I take naps at awkward hours of the day then stay up till the wee hours of the morning. I slept from 2:30-6:00 this afternoon and now it’s 11:00 and I'm sitting at Denny's drinking my fifth cup of coffee.

People might ask "Why are you so bored? Halo Reach is out" I HATE that game, yet I play it because I feel I have some obligation to my "fans" to play it like it's my job. Who are my fans? Any kid who asks if I play Reach. (At the end of freshman year I calculated how many hours I played Halo 3....my dad is going to be so proud of me....it came out to be about 25 days worth.) My TV broke earlier this semester so I'm playing on a TV dated back to middle school, I'll never take 1080p for granted...let alone 720p. The TV is fixable, Samsung wants to fix it for 150 bucks, and I can do it for $35 plus shipping, just waiting for the part to be in stock.

"would you like more coffee?"
"why stop now?"
*seventh cup of coffee*

Went to the Deadmau5 concert with the best group of guys on Saturday, four of them were techno concert virgins and were blown away. Nothing is better than thousands of kids jumping up down to the best techno music out there.

Tangent…a year ago the girl next to me had long brown hair, looked great but one day she walks into class looking like Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta. Now every time I look at her I have flashbacks to V for Vendetta and Star Wars Episode I & II (Episode III was so bad I erased it from my viewing history).

*eighth cup*

Back to techno, if anybody has the chance to go to a concert of any techno/house/trance DJ, GO. It’s an experience I struggle to describe…it’s what the genre of music was made for…it’s experiencing techno in its correct state, it’s raw, original, fresh, pure…that’s it, PURE. You are listening to techno in the purest form, straight from the DJ in an environment designed for it. It is comparable to eating seafood on the beach, not at Red Lobster in the landlocked state of Colorado.

Campus is in its prime state with the trees changing color and the leaves on the ground.

Tangent…the grounds crew at Olivet picks up leaves every week. They use their side discharge John Deere mower to drive around and blow the leaves into a big pile. He’s not even mowing, the deck is on the highest setting and he drives around in a big circle blowing leaves. The lawn looks “fantastic” once he’s done…THEN this vacuum comes around and sucks up the pile. You should see this thing, it’s massive and it takes three guys to operate. You know what takes one man to operate and does the same thing?

Walker Mowers, the only mower you need.

On my tenth cup of coffee, I’m going to go run around the block.

Life blows
School sucks
All I want is coffee and an xbox controller in my hand

Shampoo

One of the better parts of staying in somebody else’s house is when you hop into the shower and see that there are a bunch of different kinds of shampoo. At my grandma’s house there are at least three different shampoos in the shower, so every time I take a shower I try out a new shampoo, I savor the smell, see how it makes my hair feel afterwords, the usual you know? The smell of shampoo is very powerful to me, certain scents take me back to when I just moved into my dad’s new house. He bought me a two gallon tub of shampoo from Sam’s Club, took me about two and half years to finish that off, but every time I smell anything similar to it I think of my dad’s house. Other shampoo scents (Old Spice™ mostly) remind me of freshman basketball when we showered at school after our morning practices, I know I can speak for the whole basketball team when I say those were some great times in the shower. You know what I should do, just walk up and down the shampoo at Wal-Mart and sniff each one and then record what each smell reminds me of, could come away with some interesting results. *Forrest Gump voice* Well, that’s all I have to say about that *Forrest Gump voice*

(For of those wanting to know what shampoo I’m using now, it’s Suave for Men shampoo AND conditioner 2 in 1 (cleans and conditions all in one step))

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Is this not how it works?