Saturday, March 29, 2008

Anyone care to be smited?

I don't know about the rest of you but I hate belly button lint... and being smited. Apparently I was not supposed to reveal the location of God. Sorry big guy! HE IS DEFINITELY NOT ON PLUTO! The plagues will only continue.... I hear women have started to have to shave under their arms!! Shocking!

Anyway... I have not done any homework today. I am hanging out with my dad this weekend. We have been having a good time so far. We went to Outback and had a steak and Cascade for a cigar and a beer. We both had to shower to wash the stench of smoke from ourselves. That is the drawback to cigars I guess.

Well I hope your weekend is going well...

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Where God lives!

It seems to me if you know how to look, most people have something to teach you. I keep reminding myself that at work as my time gets closer to an end. I tend to get exasperated waiting for things and I tend to get careless. I think this was my careless week. I desperately need to never have another careless week again. At least not this careless.... ha! Oh well it is nearly over and almost behind me. C'mon and hurry up June 27th!

Anyway as I am trying not to explode in a big ball of apathy at work I am also trying not to implode with a sudden feeling of overwhelming irritation at the current class's textbook. I do not like it.... it is completely boring and devoid of interest. I am sure that this material is not only good to know but could be quite engaging in the hands of someone else. The author should be publically flogged! She says things that are promising like "I do not want to wax too rhapsodic about....." and then follows it with a paragraph so boring I nodded off. Rhapsodic it was not. Who uses the freaking term rhapsodic?? Really! You know what I have learned about what we know about child development.... NOTHING! But hey we have some ideas about what might be going on... Fantastic! If I used this approach in my writing I could probably come up with a couple books about where God lives. I have no actual idea or any way of proving it but I think he is on Pluto and he is pissed that Pluto is no longer considered a planet! Fear his rath you stupid stupid sheep! Belly button lint will plague all the men of this world! Women will have to shave their legs to prevent hair from growing! Children will have to first learn to read before reading! It is of utter catastrophic proportions! Please scientists call Pluto a planet again! For the love of the holy one who resides on the majestic ice ball say it is a freaking planet!

Pray for the weekend ye of the gentle faith!

This entry inspired a sequel... The story of the inaccurate demotion of Pluto

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Paper is done!

I am done with the paper that begins my third class. Yay! My prior two classes were A's and I am hoping to keep that streak going. We shall see. I am not terribly confident about this last paper but I did my best.

Anyway the first beer festival is this weekend and I am hoping to make it after school but I may not. That makes me sad. This is not only the first but in my humble opinion the best one they have up here. They have a lot of them up here though. Anyway if I get a chance to go tonight I will let you know the happenings. Due to the Easter holiday I can not just go tomorrow. Why would they have it Easter weekend? Speaking of Easter why is it so freaking early this year? I think next year it will be the same week as Valentine's day at the rate it is climbing. Well happy Easter to everyone! I hope you eat lots of candy!

Well I have to drive across town for class so I should probably eat something!

Friday, March 21, 2008

The Latest (not the greatest)

It was a long weird week. I am glad it is over. Unfortunately I am doing homework tonigh instead of playing. I have a paper due tomorrow which is half written. I was trying to do it last night but I could not access the information at the University of Phoenix. Apparently at the last minute the class was split and I have a new teacher so the links were not working right. Anyway the week was filled with stupid reading about various ideas people have come up with on how to show people learn. I guess as an aspiring teacher I should care but I don't. I guess they are laying the ground wok here or something but it seems so edious and uninteresting. I am working on developing an interest though. Since I am taking a stand in a paper. Yeah I agree with both theories in question because they both make sense. So combine them... NEXT!

Anyway.... Work was lame, tedious, pointless and nearly never ending. Except the week finally managed to end and I am glad of that. No stupid people whining about not knowing they had to pay the bill to keep the service going for 2 freaking days. Yay! I have been trying to work like my job is not ending in June. I helps the day go by if I just ignore the situation. We are at 98 days and counting until the farce ends. So in a way I am glad and in a way I am nervous. In case you are wondering I am not currently looking for a job. I am getting tuition reimbursement so I am not jumping ship just yet. They can play for my school.... I am ok with that. When the time is up I will hit the pavement hard.

In other news I have been trying to enlist my friend Kevin to help with shirt ideas. I think between the 2 of us we can flush out some decent ideas. So keep an eye out for that. It should be revolutionary or at the very least sarcastic.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Saturdays + work + school = : (

I am at work on a Saturday Morning.... and writing this on my morning break. I hate being at work on a Saturday. Especially when I have to go from here to class... I will not be home again until 5:30. Shouldn't I still be curled up in my bed in a niice warm blanket? Well I think I should! Stupid working on Saturday!!

Speaking of work, they are giving us goal sharing and a raise.... Yeah a raise! I was astonished when I found this out. I do not try to understand the darker depths of the corporate psyche. I am just pocketing the extra ten bucks a paycheck or whatever it breaks down to be. I could figure the exact amount out but I find that I am not all that interested. I may find it interesting one day in the future if I need something to think about besides the copious amounts of school related reading. The other shocker was the awarding of goal share. They spelled it out for us in a meeting last year that we had two goals to hit in order to get goal sharing. As far as I can tell we were way off on the growth portion of the goals. Once again I am just taking the money and not inquiring further. Some call it blood money since they axed a whole bunch of people but I feel no guilt considering the side of the axe I was on. To tell you the truth I would not have felt guilty either way.

Even with these positives I would rather still be asleep on a Saturday morning...

Saturday, March 08, 2008

A Rambling Review of The Helio Sequence


Last night I went to my first concert in years of a local Portland band. It was part of a series of cheap concert called "I Saw Them When" which is based on the idea that the featured band is on the rise nationally and this is your last chance to see them in a smaller venue cheaply. The band we went and saw was called The Helio Sequence. I was introduced to the band about January when I first heard their latest album Keep Your Eyes Ahead. They have an interesting sound which is part electronica, rock and pop. Their music is very catchy and I liked qite a few of their songs almost instantly. The venue was held at the Crystal Ballroom which is owned by the McMenamins corporation. The Crystal Ballroom has been around for 90 years and has seen a lot of big names float through apparently it fell on hard times and that was when McMenamins came in nd estored it and reopened it as a venue to once again see live music. McMenamins is a company that seems to dip their hand in everything they have their own beer and own a bunch of historic sites that they have turned into hotels, concert venues, restaurants and movie theaters. One of the interesting thing about the Crystal Ballroom is that it has a 'floating' dance floor. Which is apparently something to do with being a 'mechanical dance floor', when you move it moves with you and if you get hundreds of people rocking out it can be pretty cool.
The band, The Helio Sequence, is composed of two guys and the amount of sound they put out is amazing. One of them plays guitar, operates a floor pedals while singing and the other plays the drums. The drummer sounds like the slacker of the group until you see them live. The drummer was pouring down with sweat within the second song due to his drumming with complete adandon and wild gesticulating movements. He was asolutely fascinating to watch and his facial expressions were pretty amusing. They played a great energetic set and I found myself only not liking 2 of their choices and both of them were pretty slow. The rest was upbeat and a lot of fun. They played two pretty cool encores one was a Beatle sog and I am not sure what the other one was. The band is pretty dang good and you should check them out. Preferably live but the latest album will work too.
Check them out at one of these sites:
http://www.subpop.com/artists/the_helio_sequence
http://www.myspace.com/theheliosequence

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Procrastination and the American Dream

I almost hate to say this due but today was a better day for me. I hate to admit it becase admitting it invites bad luck but I feel incredibly different then I did yesterday. Has some magical solution come down the line? Nope. I just was really irritated that I was so disgruntled and I decided to not be disgruntled. I think a lot of life is simply figuring out what head game is being played and how to counteract it. I was getting pulled into other people's negative feelings and allowing those to bog me down. I can only handle my own negative feelings and when ever I take on other peoples I only hurt myself. I don't relieve them of their negative feelings, all I did was allow them to add weight to mine. I need to focus on what I can control and stop focusing on what I can't. At work that means I focus on taking enough calls to get them off my back but also the smallest possible so I don't pimp slap the entire office. I then focus on letting other people's irritations roll off the minute they stop confiding in me. I can't focus on the negative constantly because there is way too much of it currently. 2008 is turning out to be a real pisser of a year in my not so humble opinion. I try to find what is going right and focus on that instead. Some days I have to look harder then other days but the sun was shining today and that always gets me feeling more positive. It is weird but that grumpiness has started to be normal since I moved here and experienced a few more changes in the weather then Arizona's one and a half seasons (hot and not hot respectively). I have no real issues with Winter and the grey but February and March with sun one day and rain the next is when I have a rough time adjusting.

Another positive thing was my sister called after work and we had a good talk. I love talking to my sister. Even if I started the conversation by saying I find adults annoying and jaded to start and implying that included her. I was being funny though, classic humor from me I guess (total jerk means classic humor duh!). The thing is I do believe that adults are jaded and annoying and when ever both symptoms develop is when you actually become an adult. Some 22 year olds are just annoying but have not become jaded yet so they are kids still and some 12 year olds hit jaded too young and then just being human they are annoying and at age 10 they are adults (hand them their pack of cigarettes and a dead end job). Sometimes a 60 year old regains youth by learning how to drop the jaded part. Everyone can be annoying (and probably are right now)... Admit it my theory and I are annoying you right now.

I am still up a creek as far as observational hours. I am going to 'plan b' and I am going to take an emergency day off and head to my teacher's school. I will figure out when tomorrow. I am still hoping the other jerk calls back so I can do it after regular hours. The other thing I am doing for school is working on my educational philosophy paper. I keep getting stumped and have not really been able to get anything flowing. The ideas are not coming acrossed properly at all! I have scrapped the earlier work and I am going to just write on each aspect and cull from the ideas and develop a paragraph that way. Of course I am supposedly working on that now... hence the title of the post.

I am feeling very introspective today but just about the wrong topics. Well I need to get something done on that paper so this is over for a while...

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Blah...

I am feeling antsy.... there is way too much up in the air and I just feel like I need some resolution in some area of my life. I am not having any luck on the new job search and so that means I am stuck working at my dead end company. That is frustrating and I have absolutely nothing good to say about the place currently so I am just going to stop talking about work and all that is under that heading.

So what do I have to talk about? School I guess. I am on the computer all day long ever since I went back to school. I feel like I need a break but I feel bad if I actually take one. I am trying to find the balance and have not found it yet. I keep reminding myself of the end goal but with all the crap going on this is twice as stressful as it would normally be. To add to the problem I am trying to set up an observation of a classroom and have left several messages toward this endeavor. As luck would have it I get the call back while the phone was off. My call back went unreturned. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! I have to write a freaking paper on this and the lack of even having it set up is making me anxious. If I could go during regular hours this would be easier but I can't. HENCE THE REASON I AM GOING TO THE SCHOOL THAT I AM!

I should probably be working on my next paper or the next reading or something but my focus is scattered. I think I may do the bare minimum paticipation tomorrow and take a night off. For sanity purposes.

By the way if you have called recently and I have blown off the call back I apologize. I am at the apathetic stage of dealing with stress. I will try to get over it soon.

I have nothing funny to add. Sorry.