It's come back to me. I am exstatic, I have to say that yesterday was a day of hell, but this morning I awoke and decided to try and make my day better by going for a swim. I don't know what changed but the ring was there... in the pocket of my swimsuit. I swear it wasn't there yesterday, I went swimming yesterday too, and I know it wasn't there, the suit was even hung upside down where anything in the pockets would have fallen to the ground, but this morning I put the suit on, and the ring was sitting in the pocket.
After over 24 hours of hell trying to find it, I am completely relieved by the unexpected nature of its return. This morning I put it back on and I have vowed that it will not leave my finger until I am safely back to my apartment. So I am happy, I have my ring back.....
......my precious.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Monday, October 1, 2007
Lord of the Ring
It's gone. That's the only way to put it. I have been in Modesto for 3 days now, I arrived last Saturday, and here it is Monday and now it's gone. What am I referring to you might ask? My college class ring. My ring is gone. After the flight here it was uncomfortable as the pressure (physical pressure from pressurizing and depressurizing the airplane) of flight causes the human body to react strange after a long flight. I had 3 flights on Saturday, I spent damn near 10 hours in the air, and when all was said and done it caused my body to react like I had been eating from a salt lick all day... my fingers swelled making my ring finger uncomfortable. So I took the ring off. Unable to get it back on I put it aside. I have spent all day searching, I have ripped everything apart, retraced my steps a dozen or so times and in the last 36 hours my ring is no longer in my possession. Its strange, I haven't been without that ring for even a full day in just about 8 years and now its gone.
I don't know what to think, my mother has the receipt for it, and she has all the info so I can reorder it from Jostens, but the cost is going to be great. I can't believe that it is gone.
I don't know what to do.... what a way to start the trip....
I don't know what to think, my mother has the receipt for it, and she has all the info so I can reorder it from Jostens, but the cost is going to be great. I can't believe that it is gone.
I don't know what to do.... what a way to start the trip....
Thursday, September 13, 2007
The First Week of October
It looks as though my little animated film is gaining some ground, I have been accepted into 2 films festivals that I was unsure that I would get into. The California International Animated Film Fest, and the Los Angeles International Children's Film Fest. To be honest I was hoping to get into the LA Children's Fest for a long time. I even skipped out on going to SIGGRAPH this year just in case I had a chance to get into the LA fest. Well I am on my way! September 28th I am headed out to Modesto California, and I will be staying there until the 4th of October while I attend the California Intl Animation Fest, and then I am driving from Modesto to Los Angeles where I plan to do some couch surfing while I attend the LA Children's Fest, before heading back to Fort Lauderdale on the 7th.
I have also been really excited to find out where my standing in the Digifest.net festival is, it appears that my campaign to get people to watch the film has been working. I have been hearing back from many people checking out the film and telling me what they think about it, I wasn't exactly expecting my film campaign to go viral but I am hearing from more people than I ever expected. It has also given me great inspiration to push even harder to get my next film rolling. So now I am in the process of setting up the scripts for the two that I have in mind, the biggest thing that will help me determine which one will get my total focus first is going to be where things stand financially. If I talk with a couple select people about my live action idea, and they show the interest that I hope they will have and are willing to help back me on it, then I will be doing everything I can to push that forward, if I am going to be put in a spot where I have very little financial support on the film then I will resort to going back to working on just my next animated film. This is because I already have a couple computers that I can use to model and render with, I won't need to acquire any fancy equipment like I would with a live action film, at the most I will simply have to upgrade one of my computers a bit to handle some of the render times, but it should be considerably easier than it was to work with all the fur that I used in the first film.
Well this Friday is the last day to check out "The Hard Life of A Dog" at the online film fest at Digifestival.net The more people I have check it out the better my chances are to move on to the next round. I hope people keep spreading the word for these last couple days and that the number of votes continues to go up, unfortunately they don't give anyone the opportunity to view the voting, and I think that is a good idea and a bad idea, its good in the respect that it keeps people from just going to see who is voting for one film and just going to watch that one. But it is bad in the respect that it doesn't give an accurate depiction of where people stand, so I never know how accurate the audience vote is, especially if someone that checks the votes and knows that one film was better made than the others because of a major budget and a lot of people working on it, they might just put them up as being the winner of the audience vote even if someone else did get more votes overall. Who knows, I'm keeping my fingers crossed, and hoping that the sheer number of people that have been contacting me will tell me that I have been doing as well as I think this one is going.
Well two weeks from Saturday and I am going to Cali. Wish me luck!
Monday, September 10, 2007
Its like seeing a train wreck...
Pudge Spears
First let me tell you, no I did not watch the MTV Video Music Awards. I gave up on MTV years ago. The channel has been absolute crap since the mid to late 90's, and it will never improve again. As soon as it was announced that Britney Spears would be trying to use that venue to stage her comeback I knew that this was going to be a massive implosion.
If you haven't heard yet, it was considered to be one of the worst performances ever seen, and many of the celebrities that showed up to the awards sat there with blank expressions and a deer caught in headlights look as she showed no enthusiasm, and completely bombed on her performance.
Now here is where hilarity comes in... she knows she did a horrible job. She knows she stunk up the stage worse than anyone would have imagined. She is still a mental case and she broke down crying backstage after the performance ended. Does she think that it is something she did that caused this horrible performance?.... Nope! She blames the whole thing on Sarah Silverman!
Silverman was the host of the Video Music Awards this year, and she did her usual out of control, over the top, and unmercifully politically incorrect style of humor, and her target became Britney. Apparently Britney over heard Silverman practicing her material and became so offended that she told MTV that Silverman was not allowed to talk about her kids. MTV said that they would make sure that she didn't, and well MTV learned a hard lesson today, don't make promises you can't keep. So before Silverman even got on stage, Britney did her "performance" and bombed in the worst way possible. She knew she was sucking so much that half way through the song she stopped lip-syncing to the song and started changing which part she was singing.
Well after Spear's bombed Silverman did to Britney the same thing that she did to Paris Hilton at the MTV Video Movie Awards.*
Well apparently Britney's kids became open season as Silverman (who had been told by MTV execs that, "You are not allowed to talk about Britney's kids") decided to go into her full routine and tear Spears and her kids apart. I have always had respect for Silverman because she is an obscure comic, yeah her jokes are very hit and miss, and her style is extremely selective, but she doesn't seem to care what anyone thinks. The greatest thing about it all is that if you want to see both the god awfulness that was an out of shape Spears check your stomach at the door, and get your eye bleach ready and just click here. Then keep watching to see Sarah Silverman ruin her... or if you just want to skip Sloppy Spears and just go straight to Silverman calling her kids "two of the cutest mistakes you will ever see" click here.
Well I think after this performance, we will soon be hearing about how Spears is back in rehab after a massive relapse into the drug world. She wasn't even off the stage from her "comeback" a days before she had another picture of her cooter appearing on the Internet as she flashed everyone while getting out of the car she was in yet again.... I swear a few more performances like this and she is going to be moving up on my celebrity death list. Soon enough if she doesn't end up back in rehab, she will end up on suicide watch.
*At the movie awards she ripped hardcore on Paris Hilton starting by getting major applause by saying "In a couple days Paris Hilton will be going to jail." and everyone went nuts... except Paris who was in the audience and she was trying to remain composed. She then made another crack about how the guards were going to paint the jail cell bars to look like cock's and Silverman feared that Paris would chip her teeth on them.
First let me tell you, no I did not watch the MTV Video Music Awards. I gave up on MTV years ago. The channel has been absolute crap since the mid to late 90's, and it will never improve again. As soon as it was announced that Britney Spears would be trying to use that venue to stage her comeback I knew that this was going to be a massive implosion.
If you haven't heard yet, it was considered to be one of the worst performances ever seen, and many of the celebrities that showed up to the awards sat there with blank expressions and a deer caught in headlights look as she showed no enthusiasm, and completely bombed on her performance.
Now here is where hilarity comes in... she knows she did a horrible job. She knows she stunk up the stage worse than anyone would have imagined. She is still a mental case and she broke down crying backstage after the performance ended. Does she think that it is something she did that caused this horrible performance?.... Nope! She blames the whole thing on Sarah Silverman!
Silverman was the host of the Video Music Awards this year, and she did her usual out of control, over the top, and unmercifully politically incorrect style of humor, and her target became Britney. Apparently Britney over heard Silverman practicing her material and became so offended that she told MTV that Silverman was not allowed to talk about her kids. MTV said that they would make sure that she didn't, and well MTV learned a hard lesson today, don't make promises you can't keep. So before Silverman even got on stage, Britney did her "performance" and bombed in the worst way possible. She knew she was sucking so much that half way through the song she stopped lip-syncing to the song and started changing which part she was singing.
Well after Spear's bombed Silverman did to Britney the same thing that she did to Paris Hilton at the MTV Video Movie Awards.*
Well apparently Britney's kids became open season as Silverman (who had been told by MTV execs that, "You are not allowed to talk about Britney's kids") decided to go into her full routine and tear Spears and her kids apart. I have always had respect for Silverman because she is an obscure comic, yeah her jokes are very hit and miss, and her style is extremely selective, but she doesn't seem to care what anyone thinks. The greatest thing about it all is that if you want to see both the god awfulness that was an out of shape Spears check your stomach at the door, and get your eye bleach ready and just click here. Then keep watching to see Sarah Silverman ruin her... or if you just want to skip Sloppy Spears and just go straight to Silverman calling her kids "two of the cutest mistakes you will ever see" click here.
Well I think after this performance, we will soon be hearing about how Spears is back in rehab after a massive relapse into the drug world. She wasn't even off the stage from her "comeback" a days before she had another picture of her cooter appearing on the Internet as she flashed everyone while getting out of the car she was in yet again.... I swear a few more performances like this and she is going to be moving up on my celebrity death list. Soon enough if she doesn't end up back in rehab, she will end up on suicide watch.
*At the movie awards she ripped hardcore on Paris Hilton starting by getting major applause by saying "In a couple days Paris Hilton will be going to jail." and everyone went nuts... except Paris who was in the audience and she was trying to remain composed. She then made another crack about how the guards were going to paint the jail cell bars to look like cock's and Silverman feared that Paris would chip her teeth on them.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Red Sox Defense
I just read an article by ESPN's Jim Caple telling Red Sox fans to shut up. (Read it here) He also wrote a blog on his page that reads "The Devil wears Red Sox" which is a take off of his book "The Devil wears Pinstripes". Now after reading what this guy had to say I felt it my responsibility as a fan to give a little return feedback.
I consider myself to be a big fan of the Red Sox, I'm not what you would call an Uber-fan, unfortunately since I have moved to Florida I haven't been to a Sox game as I haven't had time or money to attend even one. I also don't have the finances to pay for the "Ultimate Baseball Package" through my cable provider so I can't watch all the games on TV. I do however go to the website and use the "GameDay" browser to watch the simulation of each pitch and read the play-by-play. I truly, enjoy the game, it is one that I can get into, I have been a fan of baseball my whole life and I have always been a fan of my home team.
So much like everyone else that was cheering for the Sox in 2004, I was glued to my set to see every game, and nothing could tear me away from the play offs or the series. To watch them win was the greatest experience that any fan of the team could ever have. Since that day we hold that win close to our hearts and like any true sports fan we hope to see it happen again.
The problem that I find is that there are people like Caple who are now saying "Shut up" or "This is getting annoying" and they still want to consider themselves true fans. This guy now speaks of the Sox as a team that he is proud to watch, but it is almost as though he wishes that the win would have made the team disappear. Its as though the rivalry of the Red Sox and the Yankees would die after the Red Sox won one series and then we could go back to being a mournful group of fans with our catch phrase of "wait till next year".
He even says that calling ourselves "Red Sox Nation" is getting worn out. How pathetic is that? Every time the Sox play whether it be at home or away the seats are bombed with many Sox fans eager to watch their team play. And then you have this ass clown that is saying "I'm a Sox fan, and I think you should celebrate like the White Sox do, quietly." Unfortunately this guy is the worst kind of Sox fan, he isn't a die hard fan, he isn't a band wagoner, he is a self loather, the kind of fan that doesn't like other fans because he thinks that their actions reflect poorly on him. Well let me be the first to say if our fans want to stand in the crowd waving signs and drawing attention to themselves then so be it! I would prefer to see the fans in the crowd having the time of their lives. Passion is one thing about a game that makes it what it is, the Red Sox fans have always been passionate, and while there are many of them that have bailed out when the team does bad, the true fans are the ones that will remain in the crowd watching until the final pitch is thrown and cheering for their team even if they are losing horribly.
He rips on us for still calling ourselves Red Sox Nation, obviously he has never been to a game outside of Fenway because half the crowd is cheering on the Sox, you can't go anywhere that the team is playing without finding a massive onslaught of Sox fans showing up to cheer them on. That is why we are Red Sox Nation. There are Sox fans everywhere because they care about the team. He may call himself a fan, but if he keeps posting things like this, he should hand in his nations citizenship and go root for a team that will stay nice and quiet the way he likes. People in the public eye that will bash the fans of the same team he roots for should quit whining because by bashing the fans you are effectively betraying the team.
So Jim Caple, Shut up, you're embarrassing yourself.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Box Office Flops
I would have loved to be in the think tank where someone spawned the notion, "Ok theres a guy that is famous, maybe an athlete, or a rap star, and he really wants to become part of this all white country club, and they won't let him in. So he gets bunch of his friends to come over and they all try to get in.... we'll call it..."Who's your Caddy?"" I would have simply stood up, and calmly walked over to the person that made the suggestion and smacked him upside the head.
I honestly don't know what is going through the heads of some of these people when they decide that they want to spent hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars on movies that are obviously so tightly focused on one general market that they couldn't possibly make their money back in the theater sales, and if you are going to focus on one market why would you choose a "minority" market? I don't mean it to sound insulting to anyone in particular but if you are going to make a movie like this, why would anyone put it out in the theater especially in the summer when movies like Transformers, Super Bad, I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry, are obviously showing signs that they will dominate the market.
But no... Who's your caddy was released, and it remained in the market a whole whopping week before it crashed and burned. Now keep in mind I am not saying that because it is a comedy movie focused on the black community that it is a bad movie, there are lots of movies that come out with the same target audience, but if the movie doesn't look like it is going to be an award winning comedy they don't spend the majority of their funds showing off the same trailer over and over again every 20 minutes on tv... they may show it a couple times to get interest, but let it go.
I picked that movie to rip on only because it was the most recent movie that this has happened to... I have seen my fair share of bombs in the theater and I keep hoping that hollywood will learn. But since they won't I figure I will help enlighten those of you that have not noticed how short the lifespan of a failure really can be...
Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo - Cost: $65 Million. Made in the theater: $22 Million. Out of the theater after 3 weeks. Surprisingly they let it sit in the theater for that long. Falling far short from the original comedy, this was just painstakingly awful to watch. I refused to see it in the theater, and saw it when someone at my school decided to play it one night while I was working on one of my projects. Glad I didn't contribute even a penny to the 22 Million it made.
Stealth: Cost: $130 Million. Made in the theater: $30 Million. Jamie Foxx is doing really well for himself after the success of Ray. Now he decides that he doesn't really need as much fame that badly as he sets fire to his career with this stinker. Now he is back to working on television again.
Alone in the Dark: Cost: $20 Million Made in Theater: $2 Million. After having seen only one film from the director of this movie, here is a rule of thumb, if you see the name "Uwe Boll" attached to the director's tag then avoid the movie like the plague! He is a hack that has butchered a lot of the games that I liked playing as a child, and he ruined them by trying to make them "better". Needless to say he has never put out a single good movie. Every one he has touch has failed.
Date Movie: Cost $20 Million. Made in theater: $48 Million. This movie was one that people flocked to because it had a trailer that made it seem like it had potential as one of the better spoof movies. Thank god I was smart enough to know that spoof movies have been a horrendous failure ever since the Wayans brothers bailed on Scary Movie 3. Just because you make money on the movie, doesn't mean it is any good.
Soul Plane: $17 Million. Made in theater: $14 Million. After Nashawn Wade (Kevin Hart) gets stuck in an airline toilet. The plane suffers a minor disaster and has his dog sucked through a jet engine, he then sues the airline. After getting a large settlement of $100,000,000 he decides to start his own airline, called NWA (Nashawn Wade Airlines). The airline specifically caters to African Americans and hip hop culture. The terminal at the airport is called the Malcolm X terminal, the plane is "pimped-out" with low-rider hydraulics, a dance club, and the safety video is a spoof of the Destiny's Child song Survivor. With a description like that don't you just want to run right out and watch it? I didn't think so...
I can keep going with this, but its just too easy to find so many crappy movies, and yet I still can't fathom why they keep pushing this garbage out, why not save some of the money and put it towards better movies? I guess if you don't squander a bunch of money you just don't get the same budget as last year.
I honestly don't know what is going through the heads of some of these people when they decide that they want to spent hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars on movies that are obviously so tightly focused on one general market that they couldn't possibly make their money back in the theater sales, and if you are going to focus on one market why would you choose a "minority" market? I don't mean it to sound insulting to anyone in particular but if you are going to make a movie like this, why would anyone put it out in the theater especially in the summer when movies like Transformers, Super Bad, I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry, are obviously showing signs that they will dominate the market.
But no... Who's your caddy was released, and it remained in the market a whole whopping week before it crashed and burned. Now keep in mind I am not saying that because it is a comedy movie focused on the black community that it is a bad movie, there are lots of movies that come out with the same target audience, but if the movie doesn't look like it is going to be an award winning comedy they don't spend the majority of their funds showing off the same trailer over and over again every 20 minutes on tv... they may show it a couple times to get interest, but let it go.
I picked that movie to rip on only because it was the most recent movie that this has happened to... I have seen my fair share of bombs in the theater and I keep hoping that hollywood will learn. But since they won't I figure I will help enlighten those of you that have not noticed how short the lifespan of a failure really can be...
Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo - Cost: $65 Million. Made in the theater: $22 Million. Out of the theater after 3 weeks. Surprisingly they let it sit in the theater for that long. Falling far short from the original comedy, this was just painstakingly awful to watch. I refused to see it in the theater, and saw it when someone at my school decided to play it one night while I was working on one of my projects. Glad I didn't contribute even a penny to the 22 Million it made.
Stealth: Cost: $130 Million. Made in the theater: $30 Million. Jamie Foxx is doing really well for himself after the success of Ray. Now he decides that he doesn't really need as much fame that badly as he sets fire to his career with this stinker. Now he is back to working on television again.
Alone in the Dark: Cost: $20 Million Made in Theater: $2 Million. After having seen only one film from the director of this movie, here is a rule of thumb, if you see the name "Uwe Boll" attached to the director's tag then avoid the movie like the plague! He is a hack that has butchered a lot of the games that I liked playing as a child, and he ruined them by trying to make them "better". Needless to say he has never put out a single good movie. Every one he has touch has failed.
Date Movie: Cost $20 Million. Made in theater: $48 Million. This movie was one that people flocked to because it had a trailer that made it seem like it had potential as one of the better spoof movies. Thank god I was smart enough to know that spoof movies have been a horrendous failure ever since the Wayans brothers bailed on Scary Movie 3. Just because you make money on the movie, doesn't mean it is any good.
Soul Plane: $17 Million. Made in theater: $14 Million. After Nashawn Wade (Kevin Hart) gets stuck in an airline toilet. The plane suffers a minor disaster and has his dog sucked through a jet engine, he then sues the airline. After getting a large settlement of $100,000,000 he decides to start his own airline, called NWA (Nashawn Wade Airlines). The airline specifically caters to African Americans and hip hop culture. The terminal at the airport is called the Malcolm X terminal, the plane is "pimped-out" with low-rider hydraulics, a dance club, and the safety video is a spoof of the Destiny's Child song Survivor. With a description like that don't you just want to run right out and watch it? I didn't think so...
I can keep going with this, but its just too easy to find so many crappy movies, and yet I still can't fathom why they keep pushing this garbage out, why not save some of the money and put it towards better movies? I guess if you don't squander a bunch of money you just don't get the same budget as last year.
Tonight!
Last night at 3:15am the moon turned blood red. I haven't seen a sight like that since a fateful day in 2004 that Red Sox fans around the world know as the day the the curse was reversed.
Ok it was a few years back, and yeah every Sox fan will most likely talk about it as though it was the only world series that has ever mattered...ever. But I thought it was interesting to see that things happened that night under a lunar eclipse... and then today while the eclipse has already happened, it just seems like an odd coincidence that the Sox and the Yankees are playing again on the same day as the next lunar eclipse since the one in 2004.
Speaking of sports, what the hell is it with these people that are always in the spotlight doing such stupid things? I'm sure there were things that happened in the past, yea we all know the story of the "Chicago Black Sox" in 1919. But seriously beyond that there may have only been a hand full of athletes that would go out and do things that would cause them to have a tarnished image in the public. But now-a-days its so commonplace to have someone that is just outright stupid, repeatedly doing dumb things, and then getting a slap on the wrist for it because of their celebrity. In the last 5 years alone we have probably doubled the number of celebrities that should be sterilized just to prevent them from breeding.
I don't know about you but when I was a kid I never heard about Orel Hershiser, Nolan Ryan, Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzski, Bobby Orr, or Cam "Sea Bass" Neely beating the piss out of anyone, or threatening to kill anyone, or getting arrested for drug use. These were people that I thought of as sports heroes.. the ones that kept me interested in the sport. And now on a daily basis we hear about more dumbass "professional" athletes that are getting arrested for being absolute jackasses, and then get get away with it! They are told "you better not do that again, or we might have to suspend you from being able to play." Until they ultimately screw up to the point where someone finally says, "Hey wait, maybe Michael Vick isn't someone I want to be associated with... he could hurt my career" and they fire his ass. But with every person that sees the light there is always some other dumbshit sitting in the darkness that says, "Hey Michael Vick is free for trade! I could use him on the team! Hire that man... and give him a raise!"
Yeah there is no such thing as class in sports any longer. Its time we set some new rules and make some changes. If you are a celebrity and you screw up... the punishment is the exact same as everyone else, no special treatment. And if it means you don't get to "play" because you are in jail, and they fire you for it... welcome to the real world, they do that at regular jobs too.
No more, no more
Well here I am doing what I do best which is completely slacking off on updating this blog. I realized its been damn near a month since I posted anything on this and now I feel obligated to add something.
Let me start first by saying that I have been damn near killing myself lately with work. I came to the realization that when I got transferred into the IT department that I was going to be spending a good portion of time working on trying to get things organized and running smooth at the company. For the longest time there has been problems with IT, the problems don't stem from the guy that does the IT work here, they stem from the fact that this company much like many of the others that I have worked for is completely flawed.
In the last 10 years I've held about 6 different jobs and eventually each one of them moves me into either the IT area of the company or promotes me to become a trainer. The downside which I am finding to be a huge repeated issue is that they all want to move me into these positions without giving me any kind of compensation. Thinking "hey we got this guy that loves to fix computers and can do it damn near blindfolded, why not just give him the work, and see how long he will do it for pretty much nothing." Well I have come to realize that I don't need to be this guy anymore. You see the problem that I am having is that I have more debt hanging over my head than I know what to do with and I really need to pay some of it off.
Last week I had a confrontation with the Director of the facility I work at... now I call him the director but according to him he really has no say in how anything works, everyone turns to him for support and ideas and to make decisions, and while he can spend $200,000 to hire a company to staff the facility with the dumbest people in the US (now don't get me wrong, I've worked for a staffing agency before, not everyone that has come in here is a moron, but there are more idiots than not that come from this agency.)And while he can drop that much, plus give them a fair salary (which I have recently found is the same that I am making now after being here for 3 years), but he can't "authorize" giving me a raise, or give me a position title. Here is a quick example of what has been happening in the last month.
For those of you that know me, you know that on my last trip to NH I had to get a new car. My old one was on it's last legs and it wasn't going to make it back to Florida.
So I get my new car and I make it back to Florida. When I get back I find that they want to keep me in the position of working on computers as I have done miracles with their systems, keeping them running smooth and handling issues as fast as possible. They were thrilled to have me come back and jump right back into working on the machines. Well at this time I also went to full time status, and that was good. Until I got my first pay check and realized that I was not making enough to survive. Now that I had a car payment, my school loan had been called in so I have to pay that, and I have to pay all of my other living expenses on top of it all... and I was coming up about $350 short. So unable to pay my bills is one of my biggest fears because I hate asking for money, I hate not being able to support myself fully. So I began working more hours, I figured out that if I worked a couple more hours everyday the overtime would compensate for what I needed. So I began working extra every week, there is always lots of work to do, and by doing this I found that my stress was reduced because I was able to finish more work everyday and I didn't feel as though I was overwhelmed when I arrived the next day.
Well this worked for 1 month... and last week this is the conversation that I had.
[Boss] I can't have you working overtime any longer. You have to approve all overtime through me first, and right now I don't see you needing to be here later than 5pm.
[Me] I have a lot of work that I am trying to keep under control, by staying a little later I am able to keep things running as they should.
[Boss] I'm trying to pull for you here, but I can't justify the overtime. I have people all over me asking why you need this extra time.
[Me] I need it because I am the only one working at this position here.
[Boss] Well I appreciate the effort you are putting in here, I hear nothing but good things about all the work you are doing, but unless you have an emergency then you can't have overtime.
[Me] I'm going to level with you, I have a lot of work, I need to get it all done, I haven't been given my title yet, and I need the extra time.
[Boss] I can't make any promises, I have been trying to get the title open but I don't have the authority to make that decision. You need to speak with the head of IT at the home office (which is not in Florida), and you need to get him to make a decision as to where he is going to put Chris (the current one with the desktop support title, and is too busy programming which is what the guys in the home office keep assigning him to do, and the reason they asked me to jump in to begin with). If he makes Chris a programmer, then the job of desktop support will be open. Now this is not to say that you will get the title, I know you have been doing the job for 3 months but I have to open the job up to anyone that wants to apply for it, and if there is someone more qualified then we might have to give them the position. But hang in there, the fact that you have done this job for so long may give you an advantage.
[Me] I understand, but I don't make enough right now to survive. I can barely pay my rent, and I have 2 other huge bills that have just started coming in I need the extra time as well because I need to make ends meet.
[Boss] Thats not my problem, I'm not your bank. I'm offended that you would use the overtime as an excuse to try to raise your pay, you should be using it only for emergency work.
.... ok so the rest of this conversation kind of went downhill for a while, until he finally listened to me and said that he will approve OT if I really need it and I ask for it. He also realized that I am underpaid, and that once the title comes in he will help me make sure I make enough to sustain myself.
This was good... until yesterday.
Last night, I had 2 computers that were not working properly. The users have to fax in messages to the companies that they have been taking the messages for, now 2 of the 4 computers refuse to fax. So when they approached me with the issue I sent a message to my boss that said "I have 2 computers that need to be ghosted (a type of reformatting that automatically sets up all the software and programs needed to perform their job, it takes 2 hours to run a ghost, instead of a day to install everything manually) and I need a couple hours to take care of it. He replied "I don't think this qualifies as an emergency. Can't you do it when you come in, in the morning?" And again the problems continue...
Yesterday I realized that he was trying to do what he does best, out right look me in the face and do nothing. He is a nice guy usually and outside of work I can talk with him quite easily. But it was this last thing that broke me... he wants me to wait for a position and then fight for it. He also wants me to talk with the head of IT to get the position open... for someone that is a "director" he really doesn't like making decisions, and he honestly believes that I should push to open a position he has already told me that I may not get if he finds someone else more qualified.
So the resume got revamped yesterday... and fuck them I took the title that I rightfully deserve and put it down as my position here. If they don't get on the ball here and get me a pay raise that meets my needs, then they are going to lose me fast, and I will be sure to hand off my notice to him directly so I can tell him that he doesn't have to worry about opening the position or my overtime, because I won't be coming back.
Let me start first by saying that I have been damn near killing myself lately with work. I came to the realization that when I got transferred into the IT department that I was going to be spending a good portion of time working on trying to get things organized and running smooth at the company. For the longest time there has been problems with IT, the problems don't stem from the guy that does the IT work here, they stem from the fact that this company much like many of the others that I have worked for is completely flawed.
In the last 10 years I've held about 6 different jobs and eventually each one of them moves me into either the IT area of the company or promotes me to become a trainer. The downside which I am finding to be a huge repeated issue is that they all want to move me into these positions without giving me any kind of compensation. Thinking "hey we got this guy that loves to fix computers and can do it damn near blindfolded, why not just give him the work, and see how long he will do it for pretty much nothing." Well I have come to realize that I don't need to be this guy anymore. You see the problem that I am having is that I have more debt hanging over my head than I know what to do with and I really need to pay some of it off.
Last week I had a confrontation with the Director of the facility I work at... now I call him the director but according to him he really has no say in how anything works, everyone turns to him for support and ideas and to make decisions, and while he can spend $200,000 to hire a company to staff the facility with the dumbest people in the US (now don't get me wrong, I've worked for a staffing agency before, not everyone that has come in here is a moron, but there are more idiots than not that come from this agency.)And while he can drop that much, plus give them a fair salary (which I have recently found is the same that I am making now after being here for 3 years), but he can't "authorize" giving me a raise, or give me a position title. Here is a quick example of what has been happening in the last month.
For those of you that know me, you know that on my last trip to NH I had to get a new car. My old one was on it's last legs and it wasn't going to make it back to Florida.
So I get my new car and I make it back to Florida. When I get back I find that they want to keep me in the position of working on computers as I have done miracles with their systems, keeping them running smooth and handling issues as fast as possible. They were thrilled to have me come back and jump right back into working on the machines. Well at this time I also went to full time status, and that was good. Until I got my first pay check and realized that I was not making enough to survive. Now that I had a car payment, my school loan had been called in so I have to pay that, and I have to pay all of my other living expenses on top of it all... and I was coming up about $350 short. So unable to pay my bills is one of my biggest fears because I hate asking for money, I hate not being able to support myself fully. So I began working more hours, I figured out that if I worked a couple more hours everyday the overtime would compensate for what I needed. So I began working extra every week, there is always lots of work to do, and by doing this I found that my stress was reduced because I was able to finish more work everyday and I didn't feel as though I was overwhelmed when I arrived the next day.
Well this worked for 1 month... and last week this is the conversation that I had.
[Boss] I can't have you working overtime any longer. You have to approve all overtime through me first, and right now I don't see you needing to be here later than 5pm.
[Me] I have a lot of work that I am trying to keep under control, by staying a little later I am able to keep things running as they should.
[Boss] I'm trying to pull for you here, but I can't justify the overtime. I have people all over me asking why you need this extra time.
[Me] I need it because I am the only one working at this position here.
[Boss] Well I appreciate the effort you are putting in here, I hear nothing but good things about all the work you are doing, but unless you have an emergency then you can't have overtime.
[Me] I'm going to level with you, I have a lot of work, I need to get it all done, I haven't been given my title yet, and I need the extra time.
[Boss] I can't make any promises, I have been trying to get the title open but I don't have the authority to make that decision. You need to speak with the head of IT at the home office (which is not in Florida), and you need to get him to make a decision as to where he is going to put Chris (the current one with the desktop support title, and is too busy programming which is what the guys in the home office keep assigning him to do, and the reason they asked me to jump in to begin with). If he makes Chris a programmer, then the job of desktop support will be open. Now this is not to say that you will get the title, I know you have been doing the job for 3 months but I have to open the job up to anyone that wants to apply for it, and if there is someone more qualified then we might have to give them the position. But hang in there, the fact that you have done this job for so long may give you an advantage.
[Me] I understand, but I don't make enough right now to survive. I can barely pay my rent, and I have 2 other huge bills that have just started coming in I need the extra time as well because I need to make ends meet.
[Boss] Thats not my problem, I'm not your bank. I'm offended that you would use the overtime as an excuse to try to raise your pay, you should be using it only for emergency work.
.... ok so the rest of this conversation kind of went downhill for a while, until he finally listened to me and said that he will approve OT if I really need it and I ask for it. He also realized that I am underpaid, and that once the title comes in he will help me make sure I make enough to sustain myself.
This was good... until yesterday.
Last night, I had 2 computers that were not working properly. The users have to fax in messages to the companies that they have been taking the messages for, now 2 of the 4 computers refuse to fax. So when they approached me with the issue I sent a message to my boss that said "I have 2 computers that need to be ghosted (a type of reformatting that automatically sets up all the software and programs needed to perform their job, it takes 2 hours to run a ghost, instead of a day to install everything manually) and I need a couple hours to take care of it. He replied "I don't think this qualifies as an emergency. Can't you do it when you come in, in the morning?" And again the problems continue...
Yesterday I realized that he was trying to do what he does best, out right look me in the face and do nothing. He is a nice guy usually and outside of work I can talk with him quite easily. But it was this last thing that broke me... he wants me to wait for a position and then fight for it. He also wants me to talk with the head of IT to get the position open... for someone that is a "director" he really doesn't like making decisions, and he honestly believes that I should push to open a position he has already told me that I may not get if he finds someone else more qualified.
So the resume got revamped yesterday... and fuck them I took the title that I rightfully deserve and put it down as my position here. If they don't get on the ball here and get me a pay raise that meets my needs, then they are going to lose me fast, and I will be sure to hand off my notice to him directly so I can tell him that he doesn't have to worry about opening the position or my overtime, because I won't be coming back.
Monday, August 6, 2007
To conform or not...
In my last blog I was talking about how I went to Brewzzi for my 16+14 Birthday (thanks to Keith for the correction, as I still get carded for R rated movies, I couldn't possibly be older than 18, and since I still do stupid things from time to time, I must be around 16).
Now this blog is going to seem kind of stupid, but it is one that I have to read and question the idea of whether or not conformity is a good thing or not. As I mentioned in the previous blog, Alex had ordered chicken parmesan at the restaurant. Now as most of you know chicken parmesan is one of my favorite dishes.. hell it became the second most popular thing to make at good ol' NHC just after chicken sate. So when you think chicken parmesan what do you think of? Here is my idea of what consists of a good recipe for chicken parmesan:
1) chicken (preferably breaded)
2) Linguini or angel hair pasta
3) parmesan cheese
4) marinara sauce
This being the most basic recipe (as I tend to add a lot of different spices, and sometimes add some other types of cheese variants with the parmesan) is a pretty standard design. There are other minor additive that can be added to enhance the flavor but to make a good parmesan this is the basic formula.
Well let me tell you that night at Brewzzi things weren't exactly as Alex and I expected. She ordered parmesan (as she has in the past from there) and the waitress asked her "Would you like the sandwich, or the entre?" A pretty straight forward question that she quickly answered "The entre". Knowing that we would be going some place nice, and also knowing that she has never finished an entire meal at any of the restaurants we have gone to in the past, she didn't eat that day and spent the entire day working on her demo reel.
With that said it should be abundantly clear that she was starving, as it was now 8pm by the time we were seated and 8:30 by the time we got to order. So when the food arrived around 9:00 or so we were completely surprised to see that her "chicken parmesan" arrived the following way:
1)Breaded chicken, that was over cooked and dry
2)Penne pasta
3)Bolognese Sauce
4)A melted swiss cheddar cheese combination on the pasta.
Ok, for those of you unfamiliar with the problems let me give you a quick break down...
1) While the chicken was breaded and cooked, it should be moist and tender, if it is tough to cut, and dry straight through the thickest part of the center, this is a problem. It means that it was cooked too long, and possibly left under a heat lamp for a long period of time, it also means that the chicken may have been frozen at one time as when you freeze chicken the moisture inside freezes and when it is thawed the moisture leaves, this is especially bad when working with actual chicken, chicken patties can withstand the freezer as they are made to be moist when they go in the freezer to ensure that not all the liquid will leave when they thaw.
2)Penne Pasta... well there isn't anything exceptionally wrong with this, except when you are expecting angel hair or linguine, or any other kind of pasta that you can twirl with a fork, then penne is not going to cut it. Its like ordering mac and cheese and getting ravoli instead, it just doesn't compare when you have your heart set on something.
3)Bolognese sauce, The basics of bolognese is that it is a meat based sauce with very little tomato in it, in fact the little that is used is usually a tomato paste not a tomato sauce. Bolognese sauce is not a bad sauce, in fact it is very tasty with penne pasta, but being that we didn't expect penne it was just another unexpected additive. Also when ordering chicken parmesan I generally think of the chicken as the meat, why would you order chicken parmesan with a meat sauce? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose? I mean its like ordering a hamburger and putting a piece of chicken on top of it, the two flavors while tasty on their own just aren't great together because if you expect to taste chicken, you don't want to be tasting hamburger, and vice versa. The combination may be good on pizza, but thats a whole different animal, and we are talking about traditional Italian chicken parm.
4)As I mentioned mixing different types of cheeses in can be good, but you don't go over kill. While it can be traditional to add a lot of different types of cheese with penne pasta, even adding enough to the point so that the pasta is sticky with the cheese is normal, that is not the way to make chicken parm!
So when the waitress returns we ask her about the penne, and ask her about the bolognese sauce. She said "Oh! I'm sorry, I should have asked if you wanted linguine and marinara sauce or not. I forgot to ask and this is how we serve it if no one mentions that they want it changed." She was at least nice enough to run to the back and get a small bowl of linguine and some marinara, but that doesn't fix the fact that the chicken was over cooked and dry. Personally I think that someone else ordered the chicken parm and then decided they didn't want it, and instead of throwing it away they let it sit under a heat lamp and handed it off to us. But this was the first time out of 7 or 8 times that we have been to Brewzzi that we had a bad meal.
So the real question is, should they go around calling what they were serving chicken parm? Or should they conform and give the people what they would expect? Honestly I think if they labeled that one Brewzzi parm, and made a separate dish called Chicken parm it would clear up the problem and they could offer another meal on the menu that people who enjoy their obscure version could order.
Either way, I know that if we ever order it from there again we will make sure to drill the wait staff on everything to ensure that there isn't a twist up like this one again.
Now this blog is going to seem kind of stupid, but it is one that I have to read and question the idea of whether or not conformity is a good thing or not. As I mentioned in the previous blog, Alex had ordered chicken parmesan at the restaurant. Now as most of you know chicken parmesan is one of my favorite dishes.. hell it became the second most popular thing to make at good ol' NHC just after chicken sate. So when you think chicken parmesan what do you think of? Here is my idea of what consists of a good recipe for chicken parmesan:
1) chicken (preferably breaded)
2) Linguini or angel hair pasta
3) parmesan cheese
4) marinara sauce
This being the most basic recipe (as I tend to add a lot of different spices, and sometimes add some other types of cheese variants with the parmesan) is a pretty standard design. There are other minor additive that can be added to enhance the flavor but to make a good parmesan this is the basic formula.
Well let me tell you that night at Brewzzi things weren't exactly as Alex and I expected. She ordered parmesan (as she has in the past from there) and the waitress asked her "Would you like the sandwich, or the entre?" A pretty straight forward question that she quickly answered "The entre". Knowing that we would be going some place nice, and also knowing that she has never finished an entire meal at any of the restaurants we have gone to in the past, she didn't eat that day and spent the entire day working on her demo reel.
With that said it should be abundantly clear that she was starving, as it was now 8pm by the time we were seated and 8:30 by the time we got to order. So when the food arrived around 9:00 or so we were completely surprised to see that her "chicken parmesan" arrived the following way:
1)Breaded chicken, that was over cooked and dry
2)Penne pasta
3)Bolognese Sauce
4)A melted swiss cheddar cheese combination on the pasta.
Ok, for those of you unfamiliar with the problems let me give you a quick break down...
1) While the chicken was breaded and cooked, it should be moist and tender, if it is tough to cut, and dry straight through the thickest part of the center, this is a problem. It means that it was cooked too long, and possibly left under a heat lamp for a long period of time, it also means that the chicken may have been frozen at one time as when you freeze chicken the moisture inside freezes and when it is thawed the moisture leaves, this is especially bad when working with actual chicken, chicken patties can withstand the freezer as they are made to be moist when they go in the freezer to ensure that not all the liquid will leave when they thaw.
2)Penne Pasta... well there isn't anything exceptionally wrong with this, except when you are expecting angel hair or linguine, or any other kind of pasta that you can twirl with a fork, then penne is not going to cut it. Its like ordering mac and cheese and getting ravoli instead, it just doesn't compare when you have your heart set on something.
3)Bolognese sauce, The basics of bolognese is that it is a meat based sauce with very little tomato in it, in fact the little that is used is usually a tomato paste not a tomato sauce. Bolognese sauce is not a bad sauce, in fact it is very tasty with penne pasta, but being that we didn't expect penne it was just another unexpected additive. Also when ordering chicken parmesan I generally think of the chicken as the meat, why would you order chicken parmesan with a meat sauce? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose? I mean its like ordering a hamburger and putting a piece of chicken on top of it, the two flavors while tasty on their own just aren't great together because if you expect to taste chicken, you don't want to be tasting hamburger, and vice versa. The combination may be good on pizza, but thats a whole different animal, and we are talking about traditional Italian chicken parm.
4)As I mentioned mixing different types of cheeses in can be good, but you don't go over kill. While it can be traditional to add a lot of different types of cheese with penne pasta, even adding enough to the point so that the pasta is sticky with the cheese is normal, that is not the way to make chicken parm!
So when the waitress returns we ask her about the penne, and ask her about the bolognese sauce. She said "Oh! I'm sorry, I should have asked if you wanted linguine and marinara sauce or not. I forgot to ask and this is how we serve it if no one mentions that they want it changed." She was at least nice enough to run to the back and get a small bowl of linguine and some marinara, but that doesn't fix the fact that the chicken was over cooked and dry. Personally I think that someone else ordered the chicken parm and then decided they didn't want it, and instead of throwing it away they let it sit under a heat lamp and handed it off to us. But this was the first time out of 7 or 8 times that we have been to Brewzzi that we had a bad meal.
So the real question is, should they go around calling what they were serving chicken parm? Or should they conform and give the people what they would expect? Honestly I think if they labeled that one Brewzzi parm, and made a separate dish called Chicken parm it would clear up the problem and they could offer another meal on the menu that people who enjoy their obscure version could order.
Either way, I know that if we ever order it from there again we will make sure to drill the wait staff on everything to ensure that there isn't a twist up like this one again.
Friday, August 3, 2007
The other side of the generation gap...
Its happened... its over... I am still in shock. I will never see the 20's again, as a few days ago I crossed over into my 30's. The idea behind it is just twisted, that a number can make you feel different about your life and perspective.
While the majority of the day was uneventful, meaning that I spent most of my day at work, and I got out on time (rushing to get out at 5pm for the first time in a couple weeks). I spent a couple hours hanging out with my friend Marc, and after that I spent time with Alex, we went out to dinner at a place called Brewzzi.
Now I really like Brewzzi the food is generally very good, but tonight while my meal was good, they really screwed up Alex's. Which I will probably discuss in the next blog.
After dinner Alex had to get back home, she wasn't feeling well, and she has been very nervous lately about not having her demo reel completed yet for SIGGRAPH which she is leaving for this Sunday.
Well I guess there isn't a whole lot more to put in this blog, as time passes, it only makes you wonder what lies in store for you down the road. Here's to the start of the 30's and to hoping that the 40's don't come around as fast.
While the majority of the day was uneventful, meaning that I spent most of my day at work, and I got out on time (rushing to get out at 5pm for the first time in a couple weeks). I spent a couple hours hanging out with my friend Marc, and after that I spent time with Alex, we went out to dinner at a place called Brewzzi.
Now I really like Brewzzi the food is generally very good, but tonight while my meal was good, they really screwed up Alex's. Which I will probably discuss in the next blog.
After dinner Alex had to get back home, she wasn't feeling well, and she has been very nervous lately about not having her demo reel completed yet for SIGGRAPH which she is leaving for this Sunday.
Well I guess there isn't a whole lot more to put in this blog, as time passes, it only makes you wonder what lies in store for you down the road. Here's to the start of the 30's and to hoping that the 40's don't come around as fast.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Floridiots
January 2005 was the month that I moved away from good ol' New Hampshire and moved to what I now refer to as "Gods Waiting Room" also known as Florida. Yeah this is not exactly the most sane decision I have made, but it was essential to move on with my life. Here I am 2 and a half years later and I can tell you that I can see why Fark has a headline tag specifically dedicated to Florida.
For a few years I would read the website Fark and get a good laugh from it because the headlines are all based upon how mass media is trying to pass junk off as News. The site added a headline tag specifically for Florida because of how many stupid things happen in this state.
Seriously there are so many dumb things that go on here that it makes you wonder what it is that causes all of the problems that are happening here. So, in the last 2 years I have begun to amass a list of what causes all the moronic activity. Even with the observations that I have made, I can tell you that I think I am only scratching the idiotic surface of the stupidity vein that runs clear through Florida.
10)General Stupidity - This is coming in at number 10 because I am an optimist and I would like to be one of those the believe that there aren't that many people that are born to be stupid. So, yeah there are some that are going to be dumb, it happens in every town / city / suburb, there will always be a group of people that were just born without the ability to learn from their mistakes or from the errors of those around them.
9) Cultural Differences - Talk about melting pot. Florida attracts people from all walks of life, not just because of the amusement attractions like you find in Orlando, but because of its location. Lots of water, warm weather, and the fact that is one of the easiest ways to get into the USA. While I get emails from friends and family that say "Things were simpler in the 60's and people that wanted to become American's would learn to speak English", Florida is the land of disagreement. There are people that actually get annoyed at the fact that I don't speak Spanish. It's amusing to me because I have made a number of friends that all speak Spanish, and so I have made an effort to try and learn a little bit. While I am not very good at it, hell I can't even string simple sentences together yet, I can understand some of the basics. But as a society in general we cater to the minority and instead of requiring change, we are trying to force the environment to change... I believe this was the Angus Bethume theory, and while it worked in the movie Angus, it doesn't quite work so well in reality.
8) Lifestyle Differences - In Boca Raton, an area called "Millionaires Row" is located on a waterway near the ocean. Everything around it is very ritzy, but less than 2 miles away is when you start to get into the "lower class" areas. Another 2 miles from that you have a damn good chance that you will be mugged if you look like you don't belong. The ghetto area here are not racially different they are based upon country. You have Brazillian ghetto, Dominican ghetto, Mexican ghetto, Puerto Rican ghetto, and each of them act as though they are in their home countries. Their flags are everywhere, and they don't like it if you don't speak their language. My first apartment was in the Brazillian ghetto area, it seemed nice at first, and after a little while I was accepted as someone that wasn't going to cause problems, but I can tell you that trust was something that is not easy to earn in that area, especially considering there is no way I could ever pass off as being anything other than Irish/Scottish. There were days when I would go out to my car and see kids sitting on it waiting to go to school. I use to use my auto start to get rid of them because telling them to move would have put me higher on the list of cars getting keyed or broken into.
7) Family Surroundings - Lots of people have very family oriented lives here. That can be good and bad at the same time. There are lots of people here that are on welfare, they work for a couple months get fired and then jump on welfare. They are doing the same thing that their parents did. Why work when you can get free money. Why spend the money on things that are necessary when you can use it to buy 28" rims and a truck suspension for your 1982 Chevy Impala. I have to say that while I am all for family life and instilling moral values in children, there should be a government program that says that if you are on welfare, or if you are not actively trying to work, then you are not allowed to have children. If we are going to impose societal laws that tell people how they should act, what they should wear, and what they should do, then they should be told that if they are going to leach off of those that work they cannot have children and train them to do more of the same. There is a lot of this going on around this country, but it still adds to the outcome of stupidity here.
6) Education - Boca Raton has over 20 middle schools, and more than 15 high schools. I have never been to their middle schools or high schools but they are obviously not teaching the kids properly. When you drive past these schools and see the bars on the windows on all the schools it only makes you wonder what kind of education these kids are getting. Boca isn't Boston or New York or Newark it shouldn't have to bar up the windows on almost all of their grade schools.
5) Weather - Weather is erratic in Florida, between Hurricanes, intense heat, and flash flooding, the weather makes everyone crazy. There are no season changes and there for it is the same all year long. Hurricanes cause rioting (Hurricane Wilma forced a curfew into effect, and the cops were swarming everywhere), the slightest hint of rain causes people to fear a flash flood so their driving gets worse, a couple drops of rain, and people will hit there emergency lights and jam their brakes. I also think that the heat has a tendency to boil the brains of the people down here. Lots of people that bitch about air conditioning when the temp is 105 outside with 80% humidity, means that there is something wrong with them.
4) Age - Ok this is a big reason for stupidity. It would seem that most people get smarter as they get older, but the problem is that you have people that are sick of the winters and they decide that they should move on. So imagine my surprise when I was trying to find a decent place to live and the places that were all within my price range were 50+ communities. HA! So in a time when we are so concerned by discrimination, there are dozens of communities that anyone younger than 50 years old is told "you are not allowed to live here because you are too young". Ok so the least expensive places to live are the ones that are only renting to those that have made their money and have decided to retire. The other thing is every day I see teenagers being ticketed or standing outside of a wrecked car because mommy and daddy bought their precious little dumbass either an SUV, a Mercedes, or a juiced up rice rocket that they sup up with NOS, and promptly crash it. Yeah they have this everywhere, but keep in mind there are new kids that have seen "The Fast and the Furious" all the time and they spend all of their money making their cars faster, and you have to keep in mind these are the kids that think that they know everything. Hey I remember being 18, I remember thinking that I was far more intelligent than my parents and everyone around me. Well do some really stupid things and get caught, it might be the only way to give you the intelligence to realize that you are not as smart as you think. Wisdom usually comes with age, but then so does Alzheimer's. So you have a state loaded with the elderly that always drive under the speed limit, and kids that always drive over the speed limit... yah this is a combination that is going to fly really well.
3) Religion - There is a road in Boca called Yamato. There are buildings that are tied to every major religion you can think of. I swear that it is out of control to see that every 50 yards there is another sign for a different religious organization. Also Boca is known to be a place that the New York Jewish snowbirds love to travel to. So it comes to no surprise to me that my current apartment is located within 3 miles of 6 different Temples, a Jewish cemetery, and 2 Jewish schools. Religion can drive anyone crazy because they follow it so intently. I have to say that I am absolutely sick of seeing the Jesus fish on the back of peoples cars. I am tired of people pushing their religion on everyone else. It was only 2 months ago I had someone knock on my door and ring my doorbell repeatedly at 6:30 in the morning. It was a couple of Mormons. I have to admit the intelligence of the guy knocking on my door was definitely up there, and I can only say this because he was banging on my door and when I finally answered and he told me why he was knocking made sure that I knew he wasn't alone.... he had a little girl with him. She couldn't have been more than 7 years old. By putting her there, it put me in the position that I would rely on my better nature, and not swear up a storm at him in front of her for waking me up. It also put him in a better position to keep me from slamming the door in his face, but it didn't stop me from leaning in close to him and telling him that I worked late the night before, I have no interest in his religion, and if he didn't leave immediately I would call the cops to report a creepy old man dragging a little girl around with him. Needless to say he never showed up at my place again. I really have no remorse for those that waste their time trying to convince other people to change their minds about which deity they choose to worship in the privacy of their minds.
2) Beliefs - Very different from religion. People have some crazy ass beliefs, and they can cause all kinds of problems. Some people believe that just because they spend all their time in one area with a bunch of their friends they "own" that area, and everyone else should stay away. Some people believe that if you wear a specific color its because you support or believe in something else, gangs usually cause these problems. There are a lot of people that spend their time bitching about the state of the country. They believe that their candidate would be a better person to have in power... yeah like anyone that is in power isn't going to abuse it for their own personal interests. Seeing people cruise around with "Kerry/Edwards" stickers still on their car or "Is it 2008 yet?" on their car just goes to show you how people's beliefs can cause more problems. These are the same idiots that couldn't figure out how to vote for their candidate in the first place! The same idiots that said "Now that we have a democratic congress we are going to turn things around" and can't seem to get out of their own way fast enough, or make a decision that is going to make a difference. So beliefs are a good thing to have, but there are just too many people that waste their time trying to force these beliefs on others, and then get pissed when someone doesn't agree with them.
1) Adaptation (or lack thereof) - There are many people that have no idea how to adapt to a different climate. I can tell you that when I moved from NH I knew things would be different. I knew that should not expect snow, and that the summers would be loaded with rain, and that hurricanes are inevitable. So whenever they said "Hurricane watch in effect" I reacted the same way they said "Blizzard watch in effect" in NH, I filled my gas tank, got a couple bottles of water and made sure I had some canned food. So when hurricane Wilma hit and the power went out I didn't freak out like just about everyone else. There were people that were bitching about how they didn't get enough warning about a hurricane (as if the 7 that hit the area the year before weren't enough warning) and the flooding that had already occurred in Louisiana from the one only 2 weeks earlier couldn't have told them that hurricanes are dangerous and a pain in the ass. So people move here, and they expect everything to be perfect. Then you have people that move here from other countries. As I said there is such a mix of Latin American people, and they treat the area like their treat their home country. My old apartment had trash everywhere. Cockroaches, Palmetto bugs (big cockroaches), and a large mix of bugs because the people that lived there threw their trash everywhere. I asked a couple about it to find out why they were doing it, and after giving me a dirty look for not speaking Spanish they told me, "Who cares, everyone does this where we come from, its not illegal, let someone else take care of it." So instead of staying where they were from and trashing their home country they decide to move here and trash ours. So when I moved to my current apartment and I saw that it was clean, and that everyone around me were from areas similar to where I grew up it was not that much of a shock to see that there are no cockroaches or palmetto bugs in any of our apartments.
So yeah, every year I get asked the same question, "Why do you drive so far to register your car in New Hampshire?" and the answer is obvious... I don't want anyone to think I'm from Florida. I am not now and I never will be a Floridiot. I can only hope that the rest of the country doesn't become as bad as this has become, but I am not ignorant enough not to notice when things start changing for the worse in areas that were at one time nice.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Back on Track
Today marks the official day that the Solara has outlasted the Concorde. You may remember from my last post that the Concorde was the ill fated car that I owned for a week. I have a feeling that for the rest of my life all cars that I will own from here on out will be compared to the Concorde in the following ways.. and yes even the Camry was a direct comparison:
1) Comfort - The Concorde was the first car that I had with leather seats, and it was one of the most comfortable rides that I have ever owned. I must admit that it impressed me right from the start with how a car of its sheer size could react as graceful as it handled on the road.
2) Size - If the car can't hold at least a basic repair kit, a set of golf clubs, at least 2 suitcases and a duffle bag, then chances are I will not be buying it. While I am not a man that is attracted to a sedan style car (I love the look of sports cars, but I am just too damn tall for the ones in my price range) I know how I travel, and I don't travel light.
3) Speed - Yeah I've mentioned in some of my previous blogs that when I started driving I was a lead foot. Far worse than I am now. While I hate most speed limits I hate slow drivers even worse, and if my car can't get up to speed fast enough to pass them when I have been sitting behind them for what I feel is far too long (depending on the day it could be 10 minutes, it could be 20 seconds) then I won't be driving that car either.
4) Sound - The car has to be quiet when it drives, but has to have a decent sound system. This is what I loved about the Concorde, it was so quiet but damn I didn't need to make any mods to the sound in order to enjoy it.
5) Finally Length of Ownership - While I can compare everything else before buying a car this is my final comparison. If I own it longer than the Concorde that is a good start... now its just keeping it as long as the Camry and thats even better. My dad is the only one I know that has a worse story about a car than I do... his Oldsmobile. He owned it for less time than I owned the Concorde, in fact he just signed the papers and was pulling out of the lot when some idiot swerved into him and totaled the car.
Well my Solara has lived up to all the specs that I could hope it does. I am happy for that. Now I just need to keep working my ass off until I make a higher pay grade. I'm sure the 10 hour days that I just started doing (because I am hourly and not salary) will begin to help, but they will also take their toll after a while. Now I just need to find out which days the company considers to be standard Holidays, and then give them a reason to put me on a salary pay. (I honestly hate salary, but I know that where I am right now I won't be able to survive on my hourly rate unless I sink in as many overtime hours as I can.
Now that I am getting back on track with work, I am also starting to consider my options for my next film. I have 2 ideas, and both of them can be done if I really work hard to put my effort into their completion. I think that this coming weekend I will be doing a lot of script writing so I can get everything down. On paper, then the story boarding will begin.
More to write later!
1) Comfort - The Concorde was the first car that I had with leather seats, and it was one of the most comfortable rides that I have ever owned. I must admit that it impressed me right from the start with how a car of its sheer size could react as graceful as it handled on the road.
2) Size - If the car can't hold at least a basic repair kit, a set of golf clubs, at least 2 suitcases and a duffle bag, then chances are I will not be buying it. While I am not a man that is attracted to a sedan style car (I love the look of sports cars, but I am just too damn tall for the ones in my price range) I know how I travel, and I don't travel light.
3) Speed - Yeah I've mentioned in some of my previous blogs that when I started driving I was a lead foot. Far worse than I am now. While I hate most speed limits I hate slow drivers even worse, and if my car can't get up to speed fast enough to pass them when I have been sitting behind them for what I feel is far too long (depending on the day it could be 10 minutes, it could be 20 seconds) then I won't be driving that car either.
4) Sound - The car has to be quiet when it drives, but has to have a decent sound system. This is what I loved about the Concorde, it was so quiet but damn I didn't need to make any mods to the sound in order to enjoy it.
5) Finally Length of Ownership - While I can compare everything else before buying a car this is my final comparison. If I own it longer than the Concorde that is a good start... now its just keeping it as long as the Camry and thats even better. My dad is the only one I know that has a worse story about a car than I do... his Oldsmobile. He owned it for less time than I owned the Concorde, in fact he just signed the papers and was pulling out of the lot when some idiot swerved into him and totaled the car.
Well my Solara has lived up to all the specs that I could hope it does. I am happy for that. Now I just need to keep working my ass off until I make a higher pay grade. I'm sure the 10 hour days that I just started doing (because I am hourly and not salary) will begin to help, but they will also take their toll after a while. Now I just need to find out which days the company considers to be standard Holidays, and then give them a reason to put me on a salary pay. (I honestly hate salary, but I know that where I am right now I won't be able to survive on my hourly rate unless I sink in as many overtime hours as I can.
Now that I am getting back on track with work, I am also starting to consider my options for my next film. I have 2 ideas, and both of them can be done if I really work hard to put my effort into their completion. I think that this coming weekend I will be doing a lot of script writing so I can get everything down. On paper, then the story boarding will begin.
More to write later!
Monday, July 9, 2007
"The Wolf" Camry 1996 - 2007
1500 miles. Sounds like a long ways, and I can tell you first hand that it is. To put it into perspective think about how often you change the oil in your car. Most people do it after 3000 miles. When they make the change it usually happens lets say around every 4 months or so. So 2 months worth of average driving is the equivalent of 1500 miles. Well that is what I have done twice in the last week. Yes, I have traveled over the equivalent of what most people drive in 4 months in roughly 1 week.
My car, my reliable, comfortable, travel weary Toyota Camry is no more. 07/05/07 was a day of mixed emotions for me last Thursday when I drove my Camry for the last time to the dealership in Epping NH. The car that I had obtained in October of 2000, after having my Chrysler Concorde obliterated by a careless driver after owning for a mere week. The car that saw me leave my folks place for the first time when I ventured out to see if I could survive on my own when I moved to Syracuse NY. The car that survived many snow storms, and kept me safe even when I forgot to check the tread level on her tires one Thanksgiving and ended up in a ditch driving back to Syracuse because the intensity of the snow that day and the treacherousness of the road underneath the snow was unexpected. The car that helped me move back to NH, and then finally to Florida where I expected that she would probably find retirement.
Well this trip I knew she was hurt. When I left from Florida, she was already 1,000 miles overdue for an oil change, and she had a check engine light that had been triggered about 7 months earlier which never wanted to shut off no matter how many times I had her checked out. She had a new catalytic converter put on about 6 months earlier and as it turned out Midas did a slapshod job which turns out to cause more harm than good. Her protective plates covering the gas tank were falling off, and the entire exhaust system needed to be replaced. I can only say that she had seen better days. The only time she sounded or acted like her old self was after I got her back to NH. Maybe it was the familiar environment, maybe it was the cooler weather, or maybe it was that she, like me, knew that Florida was not the place to stay. Whatever the reasons she just seemed to like NH better. I could tell right away when her alarm system started to function again. It was the damnedest thing, for nearly 1 year the alarm system could lock and unlock the door, but refused to make a sound, and would not disable the engine if the alarm was triggered. One day after getting back to NH I heard a sound that I hadn't heard in a long time, the "chirp chirp" that she made when I would push the unlock button. To put it bluntly I was shocked. I brought her to my mechanic and he gave her the once over, unfortunately the prognosis was grim. He said that the Cat-converter under the hood was leaking and that it would have to be replaced, and because of the crap-tacular job Midas did on my other Cat-converter it appeared that it too was damaged due to poor installation, and would have to be replaced along with the rest of the exhaust system. In my head it seemed like he was explaining this to me the same way that a doctor explains to a family that the relative that is in intensive care has little to no hope, and that if I hadn't thought of making arrangements then I should probably do so now.
So I took her back to my place, explained the situation to my folks and they said that I should go car shopping over the next 2 days.
To cut a long story short, the dealer at the Honda Barn in Stratham didn't know what the hell he was doing, I started looking at a Civic with a bunch of options that I wanted, an electric moon roof being the highlighted feature that I was explicit about having on the car. So after test driving one and realizing that I was too big for a Civic... by too big I mean that when sitting in the seat my head was less than 1 inch from grazing the roof. I hit a small bump and realized that had it been a bigger bump my head would have gone through the moon roof. So the Civic was out. I asked the dealer if there was anything else he could show me that had the features that I wanted, and so he took me to the other end of the lot and low and behold, he shows me ... another Civic. Apparently he didn't understand. I mentioned that I didn't think the Civic would work, and that I wanted to see a Sporty car that was a little bigger. Again he must not have heard me because he redirected me to the Civic he wanted to show me. He kept talking it up like it was the greatest thing in the world, he said it would have plenty of room for travel, and it would be a great value being that it was a Honda, and it was a 2005. So as we got to the Civic I noticed a few things.
#1) It was the same size as the last one that I test drove
#2) It had regular hubcaps instead of the Alloy Wheels that I was checking out on the first one.
#3) There was no moon roof or sun roof.
#4) It was the most generic Civic I had ever seen. No features that stood out at all!
So I reiterate to the dealer what I wanted in features, and what I was looking for in a car. He said he would see what he had. After returning he said that he didn't have much in the used options that would meet the specs that I was looking for, and that if I was interested he would give me a quote on the Civics. At this point I just wanted to leave and so I told him to give me the quote so I have a comparison to the other car that I was looking at (a 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse). So he wrote up the quote and said that if I wanted to buy the 05 Civic he would give me nearly 5K for my car in its current condition, and if I wanted to 04 Civic (with all the features that I wanted) he would only be able to give me 1K for my car. Well I was tired of him pushing the no frills Civic and said that I had a few other places to check out before I would decide.
So I finally got to the dealership where I bought my first 2 cars (the ill fated Concorde, and the Camry that I was now almost 2K miles over due for an oil change on, and should have been in intensive care). The only thing is, they were no longer there! They had only been in this dealership for about 7 years and now it was a shell of a building. Needless to say I was not thrilled, but I did manage to find a sign that said "we have moved". So I drive home jump on their website and find that they still have the same address I had just checked. So looked up their number and gave them a call and much to my relief they had kept the same phone number. They gave me the new address and I drove right over. It looks like they had only moved within the last week as everything was laying around everywhere. They had just started paving the parking lot, and all of their cars were in a giant cluster-f$@k in the back. So I went to the back of the building and started looking around. A dealer came out and began asking me about what I was looking for, and when I gave him my specs he said "Oh look, I'm sorry I was helping these other customers, and it appears they need more help, let me get other dealer to help you out." Which I belive translates into "So you don't plan on leasing a new car, or buying one that is going to be more than 15K, I have no interest in wasting my time with you so I'll pass you off on someone unsuspecting sap that could care less about the commission on this sale." So I walked away not seeing anything that I could keep within my price range that could even compare with what I was already driving. As I almost got to the end of the row, I suddenly saw a car that I didn't see in the lot earlier. I walked over expecting to see a 25K price sticker on it and I was surprised when it was much less. So I checked it out a little closer, and it looked like a nice car. So when the dealer came back to me he said, "Did you find something you have a question about?" and I replied, "Yes, I'm going to find someone that is interested in helping me." Feeling put off he said, "Well I guess I can go with you into the store and see if there is someone else willing to help, if you have any questions otherwise let me know maybe I can help you if no one else can." Well as it turns out the lady that sold me the first 2 cars was still working there, and I approached her and said "There is a car in your lot, this is what I can afford, here is what I have to trade, and I don't care how you make it work, I plan to drive away with this car before the end of the week."
I'll skip past the negotiations and the haggling, and to cut this already long story a little shorter, we worked it out. I signed the papers, and on Thursday I drove my Camry for the last time. I had already cleaned most of her out, and the last few things that I had to do was to remove the stereo and the amps. After taking everything out I made the final arrangements, signed the documents, and drove away in my new Solara. Its strange to think that an inanimate object can make you feel bad as you leave it behind, but as I drove off the Camry finally seemed relaxed, sort of at peace, almost as if it were saying, thanks for the good times, and thanks for not leaving me in Florida.
"The Wolf" Camry 1996 -2007 (the original Wolf)
My car, my reliable, comfortable, travel weary Toyota Camry is no more. 07/05/07 was a day of mixed emotions for me last Thursday when I drove my Camry for the last time to the dealership in Epping NH. The car that I had obtained in October of 2000, after having my Chrysler Concorde obliterated by a careless driver after owning for a mere week. The car that saw me leave my folks place for the first time when I ventured out to see if I could survive on my own when I moved to Syracuse NY. The car that survived many snow storms, and kept me safe even when I forgot to check the tread level on her tires one Thanksgiving and ended up in a ditch driving back to Syracuse because the intensity of the snow that day and the treacherousness of the road underneath the snow was unexpected. The car that helped me move back to NH, and then finally to Florida where I expected that she would probably find retirement.
Well this trip I knew she was hurt. When I left from Florida, she was already 1,000 miles overdue for an oil change, and she had a check engine light that had been triggered about 7 months earlier which never wanted to shut off no matter how many times I had her checked out. She had a new catalytic converter put on about 6 months earlier and as it turned out Midas did a slapshod job which turns out to cause more harm than good. Her protective plates covering the gas tank were falling off, and the entire exhaust system needed to be replaced. I can only say that she had seen better days. The only time she sounded or acted like her old self was after I got her back to NH. Maybe it was the familiar environment, maybe it was the cooler weather, or maybe it was that she, like me, knew that Florida was not the place to stay. Whatever the reasons she just seemed to like NH better. I could tell right away when her alarm system started to function again. It was the damnedest thing, for nearly 1 year the alarm system could lock and unlock the door, but refused to make a sound, and would not disable the engine if the alarm was triggered. One day after getting back to NH I heard a sound that I hadn't heard in a long time, the "chirp chirp" that she made when I would push the unlock button. To put it bluntly I was shocked. I brought her to my mechanic and he gave her the once over, unfortunately the prognosis was grim. He said that the Cat-converter under the hood was leaking and that it would have to be replaced, and because of the crap-tacular job Midas did on my other Cat-converter it appeared that it too was damaged due to poor installation, and would have to be replaced along with the rest of the exhaust system. In my head it seemed like he was explaining this to me the same way that a doctor explains to a family that the relative that is in intensive care has little to no hope, and that if I hadn't thought of making arrangements then I should probably do so now.
So I took her back to my place, explained the situation to my folks and they said that I should go car shopping over the next 2 days.
To cut a long story short, the dealer at the Honda Barn in Stratham didn't know what the hell he was doing, I started looking at a Civic with a bunch of options that I wanted, an electric moon roof being the highlighted feature that I was explicit about having on the car. So after test driving one and realizing that I was too big for a Civic... by too big I mean that when sitting in the seat my head was less than 1 inch from grazing the roof. I hit a small bump and realized that had it been a bigger bump my head would have gone through the moon roof. So the Civic was out. I asked the dealer if there was anything else he could show me that had the features that I wanted, and so he took me to the other end of the lot and low and behold, he shows me ... another Civic. Apparently he didn't understand. I mentioned that I didn't think the Civic would work, and that I wanted to see a Sporty car that was a little bigger. Again he must not have heard me because he redirected me to the Civic he wanted to show me. He kept talking it up like it was the greatest thing in the world, he said it would have plenty of room for travel, and it would be a great value being that it was a Honda, and it was a 2005. So as we got to the Civic I noticed a few things.
#1) It was the same size as the last one that I test drove
#2) It had regular hubcaps instead of the Alloy Wheels that I was checking out on the first one.
#3) There was no moon roof or sun roof.
#4) It was the most generic Civic I had ever seen. No features that stood out at all!
So I reiterate to the dealer what I wanted in features, and what I was looking for in a car. He said he would see what he had. After returning he said that he didn't have much in the used options that would meet the specs that I was looking for, and that if I was interested he would give me a quote on the Civics. At this point I just wanted to leave and so I told him to give me the quote so I have a comparison to the other car that I was looking at (a 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse). So he wrote up the quote and said that if I wanted to buy the 05 Civic he would give me nearly 5K for my car in its current condition, and if I wanted to 04 Civic (with all the features that I wanted) he would only be able to give me 1K for my car. Well I was tired of him pushing the no frills Civic and said that I had a few other places to check out before I would decide.
So I finally got to the dealership where I bought my first 2 cars (the ill fated Concorde, and the Camry that I was now almost 2K miles over due for an oil change on, and should have been in intensive care). The only thing is, they were no longer there! They had only been in this dealership for about 7 years and now it was a shell of a building. Needless to say I was not thrilled, but I did manage to find a sign that said "we have moved". So I drive home jump on their website and find that they still have the same address I had just checked. So looked up their number and gave them a call and much to my relief they had kept the same phone number. They gave me the new address and I drove right over. It looks like they had only moved within the last week as everything was laying around everywhere. They had just started paving the parking lot, and all of their cars were in a giant cluster-f$@k in the back. So I went to the back of the building and started looking around. A dealer came out and began asking me about what I was looking for, and when I gave him my specs he said "Oh look, I'm sorry I was helping these other customers, and it appears they need more help, let me get other dealer to help you out." Which I belive translates into "So you don't plan on leasing a new car, or buying one that is going to be more than 15K, I have no interest in wasting my time with you so I'll pass you off on someone unsuspecting sap that could care less about the commission on this sale." So I walked away not seeing anything that I could keep within my price range that could even compare with what I was already driving. As I almost got to the end of the row, I suddenly saw a car that I didn't see in the lot earlier. I walked over expecting to see a 25K price sticker on it and I was surprised when it was much less. So I checked it out a little closer, and it looked like a nice car. So when the dealer came back to me he said, "Did you find something you have a question about?" and I replied, "Yes, I'm going to find someone that is interested in helping me." Feeling put off he said, "Well I guess I can go with you into the store and see if there is someone else willing to help, if you have any questions otherwise let me know maybe I can help you if no one else can." Well as it turns out the lady that sold me the first 2 cars was still working there, and I approached her and said "There is a car in your lot, this is what I can afford, here is what I have to trade, and I don't care how you make it work, I plan to drive away with this car before the end of the week."
I'll skip past the negotiations and the haggling, and to cut this already long story a little shorter, we worked it out. I signed the papers, and on Thursday I drove my Camry for the last time. I had already cleaned most of her out, and the last few things that I had to do was to remove the stereo and the amps. After taking everything out I made the final arrangements, signed the documents, and drove away in my new Solara. Its strange to think that an inanimate object can make you feel bad as you leave it behind, but as I drove off the Camry finally seemed relaxed, sort of at peace, almost as if it were saying, thanks for the good times, and thanks for not leaving me in Florida.
"The Wolf" Camry 1996 -2007 (the original Wolf)
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Preparing for the worst
...drive ever. Ok so here is the deal, I'm not from Florida originally. I've been living here for 3 years now and every year I make the same long trip back home. 1500 miles roughly, actually I think its slightly over that, but thats about the average. In '05 I made the trip, in June, by myself. I managed to get from Boca Raton Florida, to Baltimore Maryland in 1 day. I then drove the rest of the way on day number 2 arriving about 2pm. Needless to say it was a long journey but for the most part I didn't mind doing it because I was excited about taking such a long drive alone, sort of earning my wings if you will.
2006 came along and I had managed to convince my friend Alex and her mother to come with me on the trip. It meant that I didn't get to spend time with my friends because we had to cut the trip short, but in an effort to gain a little time I decided that I was going to upgrade my rank and pull off the entire trip in 1 day. I waited until Alex got out of work at 5pm, picked her up and drove her to her apartment. We then packed her and her mothers belongings into my car, and by about 7pm we were on the road. 26hours and only 3 stops later we were in NH. The beauty behind the idea of making the trip that way was that we would start late, I would be rested, and as we drove through the night they could sleep and I could drive without having to stop except when the car needed gas. So by the time they woke up around 8:30 we were already in North Carolina and approaching Virginia. Then because I had already proved that I could do the trip without stopping I decided the ride home would be a little more relaxed and we took the 2 day route going back.
Here I am 2007.... and I can't get anyone to take the trip with me. So I'm back to where I was 2 years ago and I am planning to drive it alone again. To be honest I am not as excited about it as I was when I did it in 05 because I have already done it a number of times, and when I head back to Florida, I'm gonna be still by myself.
So any of you people that are crazy, if you have nothing to do and would like to see the entire Eastern side of the United states and can get the weekend of the 30th / 1st off... let me know if you would like to take the drive. All ya gotta do is get to florida, everything else will be covered by me! The rest of the trip I will pay for even if we decide not to do the 26 hour drive straight through (I am planning on taking 2 days right now) and take our time the experience is paid for.
Well unless someone writes me back and says "I wanna go", then I'll be doing this one by myself. I'm sure it will leave me with plenty to talk about later.
2006 came along and I had managed to convince my friend Alex and her mother to come with me on the trip. It meant that I didn't get to spend time with my friends because we had to cut the trip short, but in an effort to gain a little time I decided that I was going to upgrade my rank and pull off the entire trip in 1 day. I waited until Alex got out of work at 5pm, picked her up and drove her to her apartment. We then packed her and her mothers belongings into my car, and by about 7pm we were on the road. 26hours and only 3 stops later we were in NH. The beauty behind the idea of making the trip that way was that we would start late, I would be rested, and as we drove through the night they could sleep and I could drive without having to stop except when the car needed gas. So by the time they woke up around 8:30 we were already in North Carolina and approaching Virginia. Then because I had already proved that I could do the trip without stopping I decided the ride home would be a little more relaxed and we took the 2 day route going back.
Here I am 2007.... and I can't get anyone to take the trip with me. So I'm back to where I was 2 years ago and I am planning to drive it alone again. To be honest I am not as excited about it as I was when I did it in 05 because I have already done it a number of times, and when I head back to Florida, I'm gonna be still by myself.
So any of you people that are crazy, if you have nothing to do and would like to see the entire Eastern side of the United states and can get the weekend of the 30th / 1st off... let me know if you would like to take the drive. All ya gotta do is get to florida, everything else will be covered by me! The rest of the trip I will pay for even if we decide not to do the 26 hour drive straight through (I am planning on taking 2 days right now) and take our time the experience is paid for.
Well unless someone writes me back and says "I wanna go", then I'll be doing this one by myself. I'm sure it will leave me with plenty to talk about later.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Vandalizing another part of the web
Ok, here I am on what is now officially my 3rd blog site... I haven't updated my first one in a couple years, and I've pretty much forgotten about it. My second site is my myspace site, and since I have nothing better to do with my time I am checking it constantly.
So here I am with my 3rd blogging site... wonderful. Functionless art is simply tolerated vandalism...I am a vandal.
Anyway, I wanted to get this started because I figure there would be a few people to check it out once in a while, that don't check out myspace. I started thinkin about things and how life has changed from when I began school 2 years ago, and then I started thinking about how everything has changed from when I started college in 1996.
I was naive, and I thought I knew a lot more than I did. I was a Star Wars nut (and at the time the movies hadn't been re-released, so it wasn't cool to be into Star Wars) and I had a roommate that loved basketball and smokin up. Well to make a long story short, the kid I was rooming with decided to smoke all of the tea leaves that the asian girls that I was hanging with gave me, and he would come in at 3am dribbling a basketball when I was asleep, so I decided that he had to go. He roomed with me for 2 weeks before I finally drove him out, and then I was on my own again. I met a few people on my floor and the next thing ya know the nightcrawlers were formed. 6 guys + No Cars = Late nights and create your own entertainment.
So in my infinite wisdom I decided that I would also do my best to drive some teachers slightly crazy. Professor Phil Funk, and Professor Karen Stone got the worst of my stupidity when they said "If you have another name that you prefer to be called, please let me know so I can make note of it." And just to get a reaction from my friends when they called "Ryan" I raised my hand and in the more serious way I could without hesitation I said "They call me Yoda". So for the next 4 years I was known as Yoda by both teachers.
Well the next 4 years were interesting... I think I will cut the writing of this blog short, and include a video that is sure to make Keith (blogger of the reverse-peephole) hit the floor laughing because we both watched this on tv one night before passing out, and damn near killed ourselves laughing.
So here I am with my 3rd blogging site... wonderful. Functionless art is simply tolerated vandalism...I am a vandal.
Anyway, I wanted to get this started because I figure there would be a few people to check it out once in a while, that don't check out myspace. I started thinkin about things and how life has changed from when I began school 2 years ago, and then I started thinking about how everything has changed from when I started college in 1996.
I was naive, and I thought I knew a lot more than I did. I was a Star Wars nut (and at the time the movies hadn't been re-released, so it wasn't cool to be into Star Wars) and I had a roommate that loved basketball and smokin up. Well to make a long story short, the kid I was rooming with decided to smoke all of the tea leaves that the asian girls that I was hanging with gave me, and he would come in at 3am dribbling a basketball when I was asleep, so I decided that he had to go. He roomed with me for 2 weeks before I finally drove him out, and then I was on my own again. I met a few people on my floor and the next thing ya know the nightcrawlers were formed. 6 guys + No Cars = Late nights and create your own entertainment.
So in my infinite wisdom I decided that I would also do my best to drive some teachers slightly crazy. Professor Phil Funk, and Professor Karen Stone got the worst of my stupidity when they said "If you have another name that you prefer to be called, please let me know so I can make note of it." And just to get a reaction from my friends when they called "Ryan" I raised my hand and in the more serious way I could without hesitation I said "They call me Yoda". So for the next 4 years I was known as Yoda by both teachers.
Well the next 4 years were interesting... I think I will cut the writing of this blog short, and include a video that is sure to make Keith (blogger of the reverse-peephole) hit the floor laughing because we both watched this on tv one night before passing out, and damn near killed ourselves laughing.
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