New Year's, how do I celebrate thee, let me count the ways...

There are none actually.

I've always taken a bit of pride in the fact that I don't ever really celebrate the new year. Maybe it's because more bad than good has happened on New Year's for me. I wouldn't be surprised if something big happens tonight I'll be less than thrilled about, but I've got about two hours or so of my time zone left to find out.

As for why I don't celebrate the holiday; I've just never seen the need.

Ever since I was 11 or 12 I've thought of New Year's as a somewhat pathetic excuse to absolve oneself of whatever mediocrities or inefficiencies they thought made them less of a person than they wanted to be since the last time January 1st came around. Y'know, because this time they're really going to change.

See? This whole cynicism thing isn't new :P

Another thing that bugs me are the parties. Not the fun little family parties where the adults are only staying up past midnight for traditions sake and go home and go to sleep before the first hour of the new year is even past. No, I'm talking about the 'Hey, let's all get drunk off our asses and then because we're drunk, be asses!' parties.

Y'know, the kind that vapid assholes usually throw and go to.

So while I'm apathetic to the whole New Year's thing, I'm always happy when the new year just gets here so everyone (i.e. the media) can shut up about it.

And for those of you considering making any reference to 1992; you will have your comment deleted if you do.

Happy New Year!

Excerpt, snippet, preview; whatever you want to call it

Friggat - by Kelly Sorenson

“Plenty of people would consider being born on Friday the 13th somewhat unlucky. More people than that like to point out to me that it’s considered unlucky. Out of all those people however, very few would believe in all the good luck I had because of my birthday.”

“Right up until my third heart attack.”

Chapter One

Thomas R. Martin set his alarm for 6 A.M., so it was a surprise to him when he woke up to see it flashing 6:34. Normally the alarm clock’s digits would flash in time with the loud beeping meant to wake him, but there it was; technically half-assing it’s job in silent, unaware bliss. Thomas switched off the alarm, and immediately his bedroom reverberated with an intensified version of the beeping he expected to hear about 35 minutes earlier. When he couldn’t unplug it, he began yanking on the power cord frantically.

“Thomas? Why is that so loud?” His wife turned over just in time to be attacked by the power cord of the alarm clock.
“Oh crap! Honey I’m sorry. I couldn’t turn off the alarm so I tried to unplug it and, well you know… I’m sorry.” His wife smiled, giggling ever so audibly.
“Happy Birthday Thomas.”

Thomas believed his alarm clock’s behavior to be the result of a power surge, but when no other appliance seemed defective in any way he started to wonder. Either way, the powerful aroma of freshly ground coffee stayed his wandering mind, removing whatever sleep was left after such an exciting morning. Nothing else exciting would happen today, but exciting things were in development.

Before we get into that, we need to do a little digging into his past. Thomas was indeed born on Friday the 13th, April 1951 and every subsequent birthday on a Friday brought him tremendous luck:

On his fifth birthday an invitation was mistakenly mailed to a little girl that would someday be his wife.

On his 11th birthday while riding his bike he noticed a flash of silver on the ground and stopped to examine it. Seconds later a car screamed past where he would have been had he not stopped.

His 22nd birthday brought him an interview with a major accounting firm. Exhibiting such confidence from knowing what day it was, he aced the interview getting the job no problem.

When he turned 28 a wrong turn during a drive with his wife brought them to their dream house whose price had just dropped for lack of a buyer.

At 33 he was looking to add-on to his house when he won big on a scratch ticket making it possible.

His 39th birthday didn’t yield such results. After a routine day at work, Thomas lied in bed still expecting a burst of good luck to happen upon him. His wife wasn’t even wearing anything special to bed. He felt jilted now that he thought about it. Why should this birthday be any different when others with the same circumstances were amazing? Beyond extraordinary. He felt now was the time to say something.

“Julie?”
“What is it Thomas?”
“You remember the day we met right?”
“Well of course, it was your fifth birthday party.”
“When we found this house?”
“Yes, that was your 28th. Honey why are you-“
“And when I won the lottery I turned 33.”
“I know sweetie, I was there. Is this about your superstitions again?” Thomas smiled and rolled his eyes. He didn’t mind being called superstitious because he knew better. He knew the truth.
“It saved my life and got me the job I love. You can’t just put a stamp of simple coincidence on any of them. We’ve been over this.”
“Thomas I know we have.” Julie loved teasing her husband, but she knew this subject was off limits. “But you can’t expect it to continue. Luck always runs out.”
“This is beyond luck Julie.” Looking at his wife, Thomas saw how beautiful she was and felt reassured that his luck was still fully intact. “Don’t worry though, let’s just get some sleep.”

They smiled at each other as they turned over in bed, reaching to click off their respective bedside lamps. Thomas leaned over the side to set his alarm clock when a blunt force struck him in the chest.

“Thirteen.” His brow furrowed.
“What? Thomas, what is it?”
“6:34 equals thirteen.”
“What does that mean?”
“Never mind, it’s nothing. G’night.” He turned over and soon fell asleep.

As if that wasn't enough

I got a text from my friend yesterday telling me that my History grade was finally turned in and the impact it had on my cumulative GPA. I knew that I would get a good grade in the class based on the strength of the papers I turned in, but I was little worried about how my mid-term and final would affect it.

Like the papers before, I waited too long to finally start on my mid-term and I think the most appropriate word for the quality of it would be rushed. With my final, I started on it the day I got it but it was twice as big as the mid-term and due in half the time. I should also mention these were the only times I ever opened my textbook for that class.

So I believe it's safe to say that I was a little surprised when I was told I'd gotten a 3.8 in that class and it raised my cumulative GPA to 3.53!

Do you know what that means?!

I'M AN 'A' STUDENT!!!

Disclaimers be damned, I'd like to know what I've done with the real me!

With any luck, I might be getting my car back today too. Saturday night before last I hit a patch of ice in the roundabout near my house and ran my car into the curb (I didn't jump it as I wasn't going fast enough. I was barely going 10 MPH). My front right wheel got smushed into the back of the wheel well. It wasn't my fault even though everybody seems to think it was.

But hey, who cares right? I'm getting good grades! I'm going to keep it that way too.

Ahem...

May I have your attention please?

Grades for CBC are given to students on the 18th, but I have an in at CBC so I got my grades earlier. Like five minutes ago earlier :) I'm very happy with what I've got though I still haven't gotten my History grade yet. I'm willing to bet it'll easily clear the 3.0 mark.

Like the 3.7 that I got in my Psychology class! That's an A people! I think the last time I got an A in anything was either Band in 6th grade (honestly, it takes a lot to get anything worse in Band) or any gym class I had.

Not as impressive when compared to my Psych grade, I got a 3.1 in my Political Science class. That's a B right? Somewhere in the vicinity at least? Still, it's something I never thought I would see when it comes to academics.

Like I said though, my History grades have yet to be turned in so I don't know what my average will turn out to be. I'm going to push my luck and venture a guess that my average will turn out to be around 3.5 or maybe even 3.6. After all, my History teacher really liked me and he said that influences the grades he gives. Couple that with the fact that I was already getting a good grade in that class and, well... duh?

Still, it's great, awesome, fantastic, unbelievable, "Why you couldn't have done this in high school I'll never know." to know that I did it, and I did it well.

The funny thing is, the classes I'm taking next quarter are where my strengths lie. Namely English 101 and Literature 275, aka the Lord of the Rings class. So I see no reason my average shouldn't increase :D

I'm also taking Biological Anthropology but I'm really excited for that class and that's a really big factor for me. I can't wait to go back to school!

Disclaimer: The Kelly Michael Sorenson who wrote this blog is, has been, and always will be the same Kelly Michael Sorenson you have always known, seen and/or spoken to. Any reports or rumors involving alien abduction/alteration/replacement, positive effects stemming from head trauma, or general bait and switch tactics are patently untrue and should be regarded as such.

Thank You.

Something we have in common

This isn't so much a post as it is a knee jerk reaction that I think the people who read my blog should see.

So without further ado (aside from that sentence(and that line in parentheses(and that one (and that one

14 HOURS LATER

anyway

President Elect, Barack Obama, owns a Zune!

Take THAT you elitist bastards with your stupid iPod's and iPhones that can't call anybody (iPod Touch), the most powerful man in the free world is smart enough to choose the superior product!

I bet you're sorry you elected him now aren't you! :P

Cats and dogs, living together, MASS HYSTERIA!

If you do not recognize that quote... I weep for our children.



Oh yeah. You know I'm getting this the second it comes out. Those are all the real voices too! Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and yes, even Ernie Hudson. It's even written by Aykroyd and Ramis too. I can't wait!

Expect a substantial blog entry soon. All these videos and scatter shot posts haven't been scratching the itch I've got.

Umm, now what do we do?

I'm sitting here in my Political Science class and class started three minutes ago. Now hold on, let me explain why instead of listening to the exciting lecture about Presidential powers, I'm blogging about it. Well, to be precise, I'm blogging about the fact that the lecture is not happening at the moment.

The teacher isn't here.

I remember all through school there was a rumor that in college, if your professor didn't show up for 15 minutes, you could leave! Well, we've got another nine minutes to find out if it's true or not.

I know it's not, but it would be funny to have first hand proof of the validity of this rumor.

It's not going to happen though. Apparently the professor is just trying to get everything rounded up in his office before he comes into class. He'll probably show up any second now so I'm going to...

Okay, new development!

Some lady just popped her head in and said that if he wasn't here by 8:30 (half past?! didn't that lady know about the 15 minute rumor?!?!) we could all leave. After some mild disapproval from the class she concluded by saying she'd check back in if something else came up.

What else could come up? Either he shows up or he doesn't. Unless she has an RSS feed on him I don't see the point.

"He's still not here." she said calmly to the class.
"Yeah. We noticed." replied a smart mouthed upstart student from behind his laptop as he blogged.

No I don't think I'd do that. Then again I might not be the only student blogging about the lack of a professor right now. A quick scan of the room reveals this to be untrue so I might have to step up to the plate in regards to being a wiseass.

Two minutes to go now. Until the 15 minutes, not the half hour. One minute now. No, it didn't take me a minute to type those two quick sentences-

CLASS IS CANCELLED!!! Doesn't help me though because I've got the class after this. I'm just going to find an outlet and plug my computer in and keep surfing the internet.

Thanks for reading :)

A time to be thankful

As I'm sure you know, it's (for the next two hours or so) Thanksgiving Day. It's a time to be with your family and share what it is that you are thankful for. A really great time of year to say the least.

Of course...

Leave it to the Legion of Doom to ignore all of this and only want what they don't have. Here, have a look...



Yeah, I know. Pitiful, right?

Intelligence

We recently started covering Intelligence in my Psychology class. It's been really interesting so far. Intelligence is one of those things that, while we know it exists, there's really no way to directly study or properly test it.

One study in particular was done with orphaned inner city children that have to sell stuff on the streets to make a living. They were given a series of math questions appropriate for their age had they been in school. They failed miserably. But, once they were given math problems tailored to their profession, for example 'If you have X cases of soda and sell through X amount, what would your profit be after cover costs?', they answered them correctly and immediately.

So like I said, really interesting stuff. Somehow we segued into the intelligence tests given to children in elementary school. The instructor related his own story of the faculty trying to put him into the advanced class. Then I remembered back in second grade when I was put into the advanced class.

I'm sure my mom would be able to shed more light on this(and I'd be happy if she did), but all I remember is being told how special I was for being chosen for this class and how incredible it would be for me. LIEEES!!!

For the short time I attended, I hated every moment of it. Every day I'd spend the last hour or so of school in this poorly lit room, talking about a book I didn't read, and having all kinds of homework shoved into my lap. Seriously, is that all advanced class is? To inundate kids with too much work? Yes. Yes it is. I felt like I was being punished for being special.

I don't know how I got out of the class, but I probably either complained enough to be let out of it, or the fact that I wasn't doing any of the work so graciously given to me. My mom will have to answer that one.

Well now, what do we have here?

Remember a couple weeks ago when I made that post about rushing to get a paper done on time? Y'know, I had plenty of lead time but I wasted it all just because I'm lazy at my best under pressure? Well I guess I was right about the pressure thing.

I got my paper back today and I'm very satisfied with the B+ that I got on it. I had a couple mistakes on it that were really small, but as my instructor was a journalist for seven years he's going to catch them. Here are some of the notes he put on there:

Very good - the main points covered and you have an understanding of the message.

Good writing.

I would have liked to have seen your comments on the potential of "fission", but oh well.

29/33 = 88% = B+

Like I said, I'm happy with what I got considering the effort I put into it. Yes, I'm aware that if I had really tried I'd have gotten 100% and blown the instructor's mind but let's be realistic here; after a high school career of D's and sometimes C's, this is pretty damn good.

Besides, maybe the world isn't ready for my best effort :P

You are neurotic and depressed. It doesn't mean that you're sad.

Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Do you think they spent much time deciding which words to use for this? They must have. Because after looking at it for a while, each of the words fit perfectly. Well, you could make the case to change seasonal to solstice but you still have the 'S' in there. So yeah, SAD.

Fitting, right? If you know what it is. I'm sure you do, but for those who might not, here ya go: Seasonal affective disorder is a mood disorder where people who feel just fine throughout the year get all depressed when night time starts at 4PM. Also known as winter depression. So again, fitting.

Being depressed isn't the same as being sad though. At least when you're sad you're feeling something (is there a reason I'm italicizing 's' words?). When you're depressed you don't feel much of anything, save for the occasional surge of extreme emotion. For me at least.

I'm not looking forward to Thanksgiving, I don't want anything for Christmas, I'm having a harder time waking up and doing what I want to do. Kinda sucks.

It's been a few years since I've felt like this, so I doubt that it's SAD. Mostly because SAD is supposed to occur every year for those it affects, and this started before daylight savings was switched off. It doesn't help that there are outside sources screwing with my already altered system, but whatcha gonna do?

I've made it through worse and I've come out better. Just wish the better wasn't on the other side of winter.

I didn't write this for sympathy or kind words so please, no 'Kelly you'll get through this' or 'What's wrong, I'm here to help.' I wrote this to try and alleviate some of the inherent misery that comes with being a depressed person so close to the holidays.

Brownie points to whoever knows where the title of this jolly little post comes from. And a little gold star for whoever guesses how hard I'm going to kick myself for even posting this.

The gist of it

All in a day's rush

For the last few weeks I've barely been able to sleep or eat and I feel like I've been worn down to dust. Even so, there are some times that I amaze myself. No, not because of anything bad (at least not this time), but because I'm one of the few people that seems to work well under pressure. Possibly better. Case in point:

A couple weeks ago we were given an assignment in History 103. Only the second one we've had so far. We were to read the book, Children of the Sun by Alfred Crosby and write a paper on it (one page minimum, single space, no double spaced breaks). Being as poor as I am I put off buying the book until the last minute, which as it turned out was last Thursday at 1:48PM. Great, I thought, I've got a whole week to read the book and write my paper. Of course we both know (judging by my intro to this post), that this wasn't to be the case.

I had to enjoy my days off, I had to enjoy Halloween, and of course I had to work and eventually I had school again. So the days ticked off and I hadn't so much as opened the book I spent too much on (seriously, who really needs to sell books at the MSRP?). Then yesterday came, the day before the assignment was due. I had no choice but to really hunker down and get started on it. Luckily I didn't have to work and I have a decent sized break between my second and third classes. I was gonna do it!

I know, sounds great on paper and I did hunker down to a degree, but I have a hell of a time focusing on anything I consider vitally important. But knowing it was due tomorrow (today) really kept me going at it. I obviously didn't have time to read the entire book so I focused on specific parts of it so at least when I wrote about it, I'd know exactly what I was writing about. Before I knew it, I had my one page and I wasn't even done! A few skims here and there at the end of the book, a few summarizing sentences and that was it. I finished it... I finished it?!

Surely it must be riddled with errors and read like stereo instructions, but no! It was coherent and, dare I say, engaging! I was honestly surprised and amazed at what I had pulled off; I wrote a college level paper on a book I barely read in less than a day!

Who am I and what have I done with myself?

I'm Kelly, and I really don't know. But I'm proud of myself.

I'd have been, like, a mercenary!

Still earlier than expected, but I've always been anxious

Wikipedia has the following to say about friendship:

Friendship is a term used to denote co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more beings.

It says a lot more about it, but any college student worth his salt knows that Wikipedia isn't exactly where you go for any kind of definitive information. While it is true that friendship is, at it's core, two people that support each other, this is an oversimplification.

Friendship is about the commitment to and caring for someone you feel closer to than anyone else. You would do anything for them whether they asked you to or not. You love them unconditionally. You are there for them when they need you. It could be a ride home from work, or a desperate phone call at 3 in the morning. You don't feel burdened, but happy that you are there for them.

The best part is that your friends feel the same way. They know you better than you know yourself sometimes. They know that you will have your good days, your off days, your bad days and your 'I honestly don't know what the hell I'm even doing anymore!' days. They stick with you no matter what, always calling just one more time to try and help you.

If you ever get a friend like that, you are not to let them go. You are not to push them away. They are there for you.

If you have a friend like mine, then you know exactly what I'm talking about.



I'm sorry that I deleted the post I made about us KaTrina. What I said in it came out so naturally and I feel terrible that I can't get it back up on here.

Now, not to be all secretive, but what's happened is between KaTrina and I. I doubt I'd be able to properly explain all that's happened in such a short period of time without a smidgen of breakdown poking through anyway. So please, if you're going to comment, just comment on how nice of a post this is and that we're lucky to have each other as friends*. You could almost consider our friendship an accident, which makes it even more meaningful. I actually wonder how many people actually know that story besides KaTrina and I.

Oh well, another time I'm sure.



*otherwise I'll have to be a totalitarian ass and delete it. and i'm too worn out to do that

Committee?

Okay, so I got the internet going on my laptop while I'm at school so instead of studying like I'm supposed to be doing, I can waste my time blogging. That sounds bad. I'm actually pretty confident that I know all I'm going to know for my psychology mid term. I also did pretty damn good on my political science mid term and I barely studied at all.

Anyway, as I'm walking from the Library (see? I did a little refreshing on the material) to the HUB (student center or whatever) I saw four guys standing an equal distance apart from each other in a somewhat perfect square. I figured they were just hanging around and talking to each other when I noticed that there, right square in the middle of their square was a soda can.

Now I know most people wouldn't think much of this scene. But as I'm sure anybody that's reading this right now can attest to, I'm not most people.

Mere nanoseconds after my mind processed the soda can, I believe I came up with the reason for why these people were surrounding it so uniformly:

They had formed an impromptu committee to decide whether or not one of them, or perhaps a third party, should pick up the can and after having done that decide whether or not to throw it away.

This ostensibly raised the question of the can's autonomy. Did it want to be picked up? If it did indeed want to be picked up, would it then want to be thrown away? Or would it prefer to be carried around for an indeterminate amount of time?

Would the committee, to determine the fate of the can, then need to form an oversight committee to decide who would care for the can if, once picked up, it let it be known that it did not want to be thrown away? Who would be part of this oversight committee?

These are all very important questions. It didn't help that they all got asked at once and what could potentially be the most important question never even crossed my mind...

What if the can were unopened?

I probably would have walked over and taken it so they wouldn't have to argue over who would get it. Aren't I just the most considerate person?

All without a chair

I have my own computer now! A Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop to be precise. While I got it mainly for school, it's not limited to stuffy busy work. I've already got plenty of games on here and now that the internet is up and running on it, I'll be able to really get everything set up. Only problem is that it's not as fast as the desktop. Well, when it comes to downloading at least. Hopefully there'll be some kind of remedy for that.

Don't know what else to write so I'll just leave it at this and think of what I'm going to post about next. I've got four entries with titles that are waiting to be filled out and posted.

Soon enough.

Here are some pictures I took as I was opening it though. Very exciting.

Maybe it's just the exhaustion typing but...

If I were immortal, I would love to watch a video of the Earth taken from outer space (not too far mind you), from the beginning to end, in super fast forward.

Watch the continents form, merge, break apart, climates change and environments shift. Witness civilizations rise and fall, spread out and take hold. The occasional nuclear explosion, both in space and on the planet, would be particularly cool. Kinda like fireworks.

If you don't think that would be cool, then the existence of your imagination has been called into question.

A change of pace for a change

There's a lot of things we take for granted in our lives. You know the list is long, but is going to the movies ever on it?

I think it should be.

Why didn't I think of that?

This is from xkcd.com

It's a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language.

Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).

Here's another!



And another!



And why not, here's another!



I'm off to Psychology 101 now. I'll be back with another post about human adaptability.

Laaame

teh siiiiigh

I know it's been fall for a few weeks now, but at least it didn't quite seem like fall. We still had mostly clear skies, warm weather, and it wasn't that cold at night... yet.

I just went to check the mail because it's usually just me that does it, and it wasn't there when I checked it when I got home from school today. Stepping outside I was met with the familiar gust of goosebumply wind.

You know how when you're in the shower, the water isn't that hot to begin with and you know it's only going to get worse? That's the feeling I got when that wind hit me. I knew that whatever warm weather we have now isn't going to last much longer, and there's nothing I can do about it.

For the first time in my life I'm not looking forward to fall and/or winter.

Michael Scott

Of all the characters on The Office, I relate to Michael Scott the most. Well, let me clarify: I relate to Michael Scott because he acts how I used to when I was younger. I finally grew out of it when I was around 15 or so, but there are instances when I was 18 and 19 where I acted like Michael. These Michael moments (henceforth known as Scottisms) mostly revolved around situations regarding girls.

I was awkward as all hell around girls when I was younger (still am), and some of the things I would say and do make me cringe now whenever I remember them. So whenever I see Michael do something incredibly stupid in regards to a woman he likes, I get that double cringe going along with a feeling of 'oh man, I've done that too' thrown in for good measure.

Not just with women though! There are so many times I've witnessed Scottisms that unearth some repressed memory of mine that makes me laugh and feel like a complete idiot at the same time. Mostly it's when Michael expresses that he feels left out of something when he had no reason to be included! Like when Kelly got Ryan that traditional Indian outfit and Michael asked where his was. Now while that never happened to me exactly, there's been plenty of times I wanted to know why I didn't get one too (whatever that 'one' happened to be) when I shouldn't have expected it.

I think that if Michael had friends like I did when I was in school, he wouldn't be so awkward now. I mean come on, you've seen how normal he is when it's just him and Jim talking to each other. He's just so worried about being cool and everybody's friend that he can't help but come off as a dumbass with no regard for other's feelings. Which is totally not true. He cares for everybody in the office... he's just really really awkward.

Like me!

I see not everybody has voted on my poll. You should take a few seconds and do that. PS.

oh no i di'n't

I have a poll now!

And I'm tied with somebody for post count as well.

I have to ask that people don't skew the results.

I assure you there will be full sized post when I get home from school today.

Disambiguation

It's a good thing that you're not allowed to use Wikipedia to help write papers for school... because with how easily I get sidetracked, I'd never get around to actually doing the paper.

Do any of you get so lost in Wikipedia that you forget why you went there in the first place until you go back until you see what it was?

Wikipedia or How to lose an hour and not even know it!

Some kind of record...

...at least in procrastination. Anybody here remember that $175 ticket I got back in February for the state patrolman being an unfair prick? It's finally been paid off as of yesterday. What sucked is it cost me $142 to do it despite the fact that I'd already paid $95 into it.

Apparently, while they were able to send all the necessary paper work about my ticket to the correct address, they weren't able to send the letter stating that because I didn't make a payment within 30 days of getting the ticket (despite the court date being outside of those 30 days) I got a late fee of over $50 added onto it. That's not even mentioning that after I did the math, the remainder should have been $132.

The lazy bitch I talked to about it was too busy being a lazy, 'I don't care if we screwed you over, I hate my life because I'm a worthless government/bureaucratic drone, and I'm not about to make any attempt to make yours any better by comparison', BITCH, I decided 'To hell with this, I'll just pay the greedy bastards and hope they have to suffer through severe dust storms, because that seems to be the worst environmental disaster (and believe me, that's a stretch!) eastern Washington is able to come up with.

As a side note, there's an episode of Futurama where Bender unknowingly has a bomb installed in him that will blow up (blow uppity enough to destroy a planet) if he says a certain word: ASS. Problem is, he says it all the time so they have to reset the bomb to detonate to a word he never says, in this case antiquing, which he does say and naturally KABOOMS!!!

That means he blew up.

Now why did I just tell you all that? Because now you know why I write antiquing on any checks I write out due to unfair tickets. With the hope that maybe somebody who processes the checks has seen that episode and either freaks a little, or laughs a little.

It's like a service I provide. But, just like a swift kick in the pants, everybody needs what I'm selling, but nobody wants it!

Yes, I cribbed that from Calvin and Hobbes.

In poor taste and probably untrue

Give a homeless man a box of fish sticks and he'll eat for a day
Point the homeless man in the general direction of a Wal-Mart in front of which he can beg for money for fish sticks, and he'll eat for a lifetime... at least until people realize he won't actually be buying fish sticks with the money he'll be getting and he moves on to the Wal-Mart one town over.

Different Perspective

Years ago, when I was still in middle school, I would always be woken up by whatever music Donald was playing as he got ready for school. Most of the time he wasn't even in the room! But that's not what this post is about.

One of the albums that I remember being played the most was The Bends by Radiohead. I didn't really know this for the first month or so because I was too busy trying to sleep as it was playing. So while I did enjoy what singles Radiohead had released until then, I didn't exactly get off on the right foot with this album.

A couple months ago I bought the MP3 album from Amazon.com and only recently have I started listening to it and now I can't get enough. The weird/cool part is that when I first began to listen to it on purpose, I remembered nearly all of the songs on it. Not the lyrics though; Thom Yorke doesn't really like to enunciate all that much, and as I can't stress enough apparently, I wasn't fully awake the first time around.

I really really like this album though. I'm positive that the more I listen to it I'll end up loving it as much as some of my other favorite albums. As an added bonus, some of the songs on there are pretty easy to play and I've already learned a couple of them. What's funny, is I've been listening to it in my car as I drive to school in the morning and yes, while I'm tired.

Play with water and you'll get burned... wait a second

The dish washing machine I use at work is one of those automated kinds that pulls the racks of dishes through to the other side, and out of the dishwasher. Since it's longer, dishes can fall out of the racks and cause all sorts of problems. This is why there is a door/hatch/whatever that slides open in the middle so you can easily get to whatever obstruction there may be.

There is a downside to this hatch however: the dishwasher will still start whether it's closed or not. Well that's not so bad. You have to flip a switch to turn it on so why on earth would you turn it on if the hatch is open?

Because its always closed when you turn it on. Except for tonight.

Forgetting that I opened the hatch to remove a plastic cup a couple minutes prior, I turned the machine on while walking past the open hatch. There's a split second between the machine starting up and near-boiling water shooting out of the high powered jets, so luckily I was mostly out of the way when said near-boiling water erupted from the open hatch. I say mostly because I spun around realizing the hatch was still open and tried to hit the switch to turn it off.

It was already too late and I instinctively threw up my arms to shield my face from the scorching torrent, blasting forth from the machine with little regard for how big of mess it was making. It got my right arm pretty good and, thankfully, not much else. I tried to find something long enough to reach the switch but there was nothing I could think of. Carlos, the cook I was closing with, came to the rescue and climbed over the glass rack to the side with the power switch and turned off the machine.

It sucked because for all intents and purposes, it was going to be a really easy night. Hardly any dishes, and no freaking banquets to worry about. Unfortunately there was now a big mess to clean up (it was only water, but there was a lot of it), and my right arm was killing me. Again, Carlos helped me out and gave me some cooking oil to slather on my arm which helped to lessen the pain.

For the rest of the night I kept double checking to make sure the hatch really was closed this time before I turned the machine on. The more I thought about what happened the more scared I became of what could have happened. What if I wasn't already walking as I turned it on? What if I was crouched over, my head right next to the hatch like I always am when I turn it on? I could have really gotten hurt.

What's weird is right now I can't even see where the burns are because of the lighting at my house. At work they were clear as day but it's probably because of the fluorescent lighting there. I don't need to see them to know they're there but it's weird to have a buzzing/tingling sensation
when there's no sign of why. I just hope it feels better before I go to work tomorrow.

Last thing I need is all the steam and errant water sprays pissing off an already irritated dermis. I had enough of that tonight.

Thiiiis close...

This is about the season premiere of The Office, so if you haven't seen it yet it's probably best if you don't read as there will be spoilers.

Or, y'know, you could go and watch the premiere right now and then there won't be any spoilers for you to worry about.

Alright, so now that that's out of the way:

As I'm sure we all know, the season four finale threw a (few) wrench(es) into the plan of Jim proposing to Pam. She might be moving to New York for three months and Jim didn't get to propose to her when he wanted to. Knowing how NBC likes to keep their shows running as long as possible, I knew that they would take any opportunity to wreck what Jim and Pam finally had.

So the fifth season premiere begins and Pam is indeed going to New York for art school, and Jim, while very supportive, isn't exactly happy that she's going to be 'gone' for three months (I put the " ' "s there because at least he can drive a few hours to go and see her. believe me, it could be worse). But that's not so bad. They love each other and nothing could come between that.

Except for some wise cracking jackass in Pam's art class that's making her laugh and obviously there to screw up what Jim and Pam went through so much for and I swear if this bastard comes between them I will never watch The Office again. I did it with Friends when Joey proposed to Rachel so I'd have no trouble this time.

Late in the episode Jim was talking to Pam on the phone at the office and Dwight kept interrupting. So Jim asked Pam to bring the conversation to IM where he asked her to meet him halfway at a gas station to have lunch with him.

'Well at least he's wanting to spend as much time as possible with her. Wow, it's really raining hard where that gas station is. Why didn't they park and just go ins- holy crap is he really-wow.'

He proposed, and she said yes.

I admit that I got a little misty eyed while I was pumping my fist in the air, happy that I wouldn't need to leave The Office.

Seriously, I was thiiiiiiis close.

Zune Update 3.0!

Okay, so I was pretty excited about the last Zune update mainly because it introduced gap-less play. It's still my favorite feature introduced in that update but 3.0 adds a large variety of awesome new features that make me wonder why they weren't there earlier.

Numero Uno! There's a CLOCK! Yes, yes I know. There are clocks everywhere, all I need do is look around to find one. I've got one on my cell phone, the computer has a clock and there's a nifty little analog one on the wall behind me (y'know, so I won't forget how to tell time that way, which I never will). Anyway, there's a clock on it now. Awesome... provided your on the main screen, but let's not be pickers of nits for the moment :)

第 二! Not only can you connect directly to the Marketplace now(as long as there's an unsecured wireless connection), which honestly doesn't interest me, but if radio stations are set up to display whatever song is currently playing, you can set it so Marketplace puts it in your cart for you to buy later. Like I said, the Marketplace doesn't matter to me. If I'm buying any MP3's they'll be coming from Amazon. What I'd be using this feature for (if more than a couple stations did the cool 'this is what's playing' trick for my Zune) is bookmarking songs I'd download through projectplaylist.com later.

Number THREE! And the most important to me... GAMES!!! There are games on the Zune now! Well, two at the moment. Unfortunately one of them is Texas Hold 'Em and I'm about as likely to play that as I am to... well, play anything I'd rather not. That doesn't matter though, because you also get HEXIC!!! Now I'm not talking a demo, I mean the whole game! You've got your different play modes and you can still listen to music while you play and control what songs are playing and everything! The ONLY downside is how much this can drain the battery. Today, between classes and after over an hour of doing homework, I played Hexic in the common room or whatever it's called at CBC. I'm most happy about this because I was supposed to get a free copy of the game with my 360, but as I bought it used from Hastings, and Hastings completely wipes whatever hard drive comes with a system (for obvious reasons), it was gone.

I've been happy with my Zune since a week or so after I bought it (the songs wouldn't stay on there!) and these updates keep giving me more reasons to love it. Now if only they'd give us a customizable equalizer then I'd be utterly and completely satisfied that I paid over $120 for a little hunk of plastic.

This conversation may or may not have taken place...at any time...ever

"What does this styrofoam cup look like?"
"What?"
"What restaurant you from?"
"What?"
"What ain't no restaurant I ever heard of! They have glasses at What?"
"What?"
"Glasses, table-jockey! Do they have them?!"
"Yes."
"Then you know what I'm talking about."
"Yes."
"Describe what this styrofoam cup looks like!"
"What?"
"Say 'What' again. Say 'What' again! I dare you, I double dare you table-jockey! Say 'What' one more damn time!"
"It's white."
"Go on."
"It's small."
"Does it look like a dish?"
"What?"
"Does. It. Look. Like. A DISH!"
"No!"
"Then why'd you try to wash it like a dish Scott?"
"I didn't!"
"Yes you did. Yes you did Scott! You tried to wash it. But styrofoam cups ain't supposed to be washed, they're supposed to be thrown away."
"Did you read the manual Scott?"
"Yes."
"Well there's this... 'warning' I've got memorized that sort of fits this occasion. E-Z-Kleen Dishwasher Maintenance, page 4, paragraph 2: 'The filters of the dishwasher must be set, against the back side-"
"Dude, Kelly, are you going to let me get back to work or not?"
"...yeah okay, fine."

First Day of School

They taught us to share and be nice to each other. Then we all took a nap and had apple snacks.

Wow. That was over 20 years ago.

Today was much different. It was exciting! You wouldn't normally expect Politics, History and Psychology to get somebody ramped up, let alone myself, but I really can't wait to get into this stuff.

Also, as usual, my expectations were kind of off. I was expecting to get a huge assignment right off the bat, and bigger assignments every day until the end of the quarter. Going by the syllabi I was given, it's just going to be a matter of starting early and staying on top of everything. I can do that! Primarily because it's exciting to me and unlike myself in high school, I'm motivated to get everything done and do it well.

I'm going to bed now to get enough sleep for the long day I've got tomorrow. I'm going to work right after my last class and I'm closing. And with a 190 person banquet to clean up after, I really have no idea how long I'll be there for. Thankfully I have Wednesday off! Not to mention that my classes are only Monday - Thursday. And I've got Friday off!

I've been extremely busy since last Friday but I don't feel worn down (well, I kinda do, I've had a migraine all day and I feel like I'm going to throw up and die), I feel alive.

Again, weird huh?

Injuries of the bored and stupid

Donald recently posted a blog about the time he shot a BB into his hand. Well I have a story of my own that I believe rivals his.

Back in '03 I was working at Quizno's in Kennewick. It was the second job I had (Round Table Pizza being the first) and for the most part I really did like my job. The place only seemed to operate at two speeds though: absolutely slammed or dead as a doornail. I'm sure you could imagine how this would start to wear on a person.

Now, when it was dead there was still some work to do, but the work was normally a one person job. So while one person was busy, the rest of us had to wait around for a customer to come in. Normally that wouldn't be so bad but there was so little space to be bored in. I'm serious, it was really cramped at the Kennewick store (the Pasco one however, was quite roomy).

Okay, we've got a little bit of expository so now we can get on with the real story:

It was during one of those really dead periods when I heard weird noises coming from the back. Kind of a 'schtunk-schiff-schtunk-shiff' with intermittent laughter. All the prep was finished and having tired of the waiting game, I went to the back to see what the noise was. It was one of my friends stabbing an empty cardboard box with a knife.

I told you the constant stop-and-go could wear on a person!

Naturally I asked what the hell he was doing, because when you see something so obvious you absolutely have to ask! He told me he was stabbing empty boxes. At that moment, I think my logic went on vacation knowing it was outmatched by my boredom and stupidity:

"That looks like fun. Be right back."

I went back to the make area (y'know, where we make the subs) and grabbed a long serrated knife. I came back and found my own empty box, not just to stab, but to slash! My friend wisely (HAHAHA) stood aside and watched as I hacked this poor box to pieces. I slashed, I hacked, I sliced, I went to grab the rest of the one-handed handle with my left hand to really cut through the box, when suddenly the knife bounced off of something it hit.

Time slowed to a crawl, and I felt my left hand become both cold and hot as my friend ran back into the make area. I saw something red spurt out of the side of my hand and splatter on the floor. I looked at what had just happened, and with logic back from it's break it all made perfect sense. Now, I didn't scream or cry out in pain. I just looked at the gaping wound in my hand and calmly said:

"Aw shit."

I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my hand tightly to slow the bleeding. I took the wheelie chair from the office to sit down on, a piece of bread to munch on and eventually the phone to call home for a ride.

Aside: I know my mom loves me. I know that she would do anything for me. So long as there isn't a TV show on that she likes to watch. Thanks Mom, I love you too :)

I had to wait about 20-25 minutes for my mom to show up to take me to the ER so I could get stitched up. I spent the time telling my co-workers exactly what happened, agreeing with how stupid I was and how pale I'd become. I'd never lost blood like that or had my pressure drop so much so it was an interesting feeling whenever I tried to stand up. I just kept munching away on bread scraps trying not to throw up.

After being dropped off at the ER by dear old mumsy (she did offer to stay, but I declined), I realized that I couldn't just tell them how it happened. Since it happened at work while I was on the clock, Quizno's might get involved. So I told them it happened at home while I was doing dishes. I think I told them that I tried to catch a falling knife or something. Either way they bought it and stitched me up. My first stitches too by the way.

(I find this next part funny, even though it's not relevant to the story) When I was discharged, I was still woozy and a little sick to my stomach. I called home to ask my Mom for a ride. She told me that since the house was only a few blocks away, and the exercise might do me some good, I should walk home. After pressing her further, she told me another of her shows was on and she refused to miss any of it. So I walked home, and, thankfully, without incident.

Stream of consciousness

I have to leave for work in about 8 minutes and while I really want to get a blog posted, I don't really have anything to write about. By the time I actually came up with something I'd be half way to work. However I've found that just writing usually gets the gears into motion and something eventually pops into my head. Well, either that or I ramble on for a few paragraphs and wonder how I was able to write so much when I had nothing to say in the first place...

Well, last night I watched No Country For Old Men on On Demand. I can definitely see why the film won Best Picture at the Oscars. It's a very well done, bleak and unforgiving movie. We all know how the Academy loves movies that are depressing and 'true to life'.

It probably didn't help that I watched the movie in the middle of the night and I didn't have anything to contrast the subject matter with. I couldn't look out at a beautiful day and realize that the world isn't that bad of a place, or talk to somebody and feel good about everything. It also really didn't help that once I went to bed, I'd be waking up and be worried about going to work.

See, every Sunday there's a breakfast buffet that draws quite a lot of people to it. Mostly families and old couples coming in after church or just there because it's something to do on a Sunday. As I've said before though I'm a dishwasher. Since I'm the only full-time dishwasher, I have to work every Sunday to clean up the dishes from this buffet. I've had to work every Sunday since late May/early June. I'm beginning to grow weary of every Sunday having to go in and work my butt off so I can get out of there before the sun starts to set. I go in at 12 by the way, and I leave when everything is finished.

I should really get going, but one more thing. Yesterday while driving to Casa Mia to meet up with Donald, Lisa and the girls, my mom and dad got into a little bit of an argument. I don't know why, but I couldn't help but smile and think of a certain someone that I get into arguments with sometimes too. Usually over some pretty minor things like dome lights or pronunciation. What made me smile is thinking about doing that same arguing some 32 years from now...

Weird huh?

This'll be quick.

I went out and bought this...
This is one
of the many
manga volumes
that I buy.

Believe it or not,
this post is
not about
manga.

I guess you
could consider
yourself lucky
that I'm not
going to go
into detail
about this
particular
series.

I guess...





What this post is really about, is this...


















See that? Well duh, of course the Canadian price is higher and the UK price is lower. But...























Well that's not the same now is it?

Oh but it gets better. Well, not really...















Yeah...

Dear Canada,

We never liked you, and this isn't helping.

Sincerely,
The Economy

The Journal Of An Angry Dishwasher

It's been a while since I've been my old cynical self on here, and what better way to be cynical than to talk about some of the really annoying aspects of my job as a dishwasher?

So, without any further ado, here's some of the annoying crap I have to deal with at work!

Oh, and I'm sorry I ripped off your blog title KaTrina :P

Creative Dish Stacking!

4PM is when I'm just about always scheduled to come in. Since I'm the only dishwasher, whatever has piled up since the restaurant opened (or from any banquets) is always waiting there for me. Normally it's nothing that bad and just doing a bit of organizing helps a lot. But lately I've noticed a disturbing trend. There will be a tall stack of mismatched plates just begging to topple over.

I practically have to dismantle it as if it were a nuclear warhead. Not fun. I don't even understand how this happens. Well, I do understand, but I don't like to think about how lazy and stupid people can be. Just as I don't like giving myself an aneurysm. Creative dish stacking isn't limited to plates though. But to go through all the different configurations I've come across could take all day.

They just keep comin'...

Whenever there's a banquet of moderate size, 50 people or more, there's always a very noticeable increase in dishes. If the banquet takes place while I'm working however, it takes a few hours for the increase to happen! It's usually not until after I've already knocked out most all of the dishes that they bring back some of the dishes. It's a little depressing to have somebody carelessly dumping more dirty dishes when you were so close to being done. But you always need to keep in mind, that it was only SOME of the dishes from the banquet.

No, you're not done yet. Once you finish those they come back with even more! Usually smaller plates and the crusty silverware. After that you've got whatever was left that they didn't bring the first couple times, and eventually the glasses. Now it might just be my old paranoid self rearing it's suspicious head, but ever since I started working at Red Lion I've felt that the banquet staff doesn't like me. I feel like they take forever to bring the dishes back just to spite me. And when they do bring them back, they're obnoxious about it. But like I said, I might just be paranoid.

It's called a glass rack for a reason!

What the hell is so damn hard about putting a glass in it's corresponding rack? The glass racks are at eye level! This problem is mostly with housekeeping, but the front desk has also been known to do this as well. It's even lazier than not putting a plate on it's correct pile and it can be more dangerous as well. If I don't know the glass is there, and I need to do some rearranging there's a good chance it could be knocked off and smash to the floor. Then obviously I have to clean up after somebody else's laziness and stupidity.

I say stupidity because while not as often as a glass being perched precariously on the edge, a glass will be in the wrong rack. Now, the racks are never empty so you can not make the mistake of putting the wrong glass in the wrong rack. So I can choose between lazy and intentionally stupid when it comes to this I guess. Can't we just run a green card check?

I know that was in bad taste but let's face it: either consciously or subconsciously, you laughed and/or agreed with that in some way.

Being a dishwasher...

...and NOT a Hydro Ceramic Technician. Laaame.

Long Live Life

I guess you could say I'm late to the party, but I bought Viva la Vida by Coldplay the other day and I am thoroughly enjoying it. It's one of the few albums I have where even after a few listens, I still haven't heard everything it has to offer.

Before this album I was aware of Coldplay and found what singles had been released to be enjoyable. Never enough to buy an album, but enough to keep my radio dial still if one of their songs came on. What changed that for me was their iTunes commercial featuring Viva la Vida.



The first time I saw this commercial I was completely mesmerized by the vibrant colors, lively music and especially the lyrics. Most especially the lyrics:

I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own

The image that is painted here, at least for me, is so realized that I consider this verse as an entirely separate song. Listening to and merely reading the lyrics, I see a man literally sweeping a deserted street just minutes before the lampposts dim as the sun slowly rises behind him. He is there, and at that time, because not only has he lost the rule he had, he lost it so completely that society refuses him a proper place.

This is his place now. His only concern is to keep the streets clean for the benefit of a people that at one time may have revered him, but have ultimately disowned him. Cleaning the streets makes them happy, but not knowing that the streets could be dirty, they pay it no mind and in turn are even further unaware of their former ruler's existence.

Also, I see a woman that was once at his side but for reasons unknown is no longer there. The one and the only bastion he might have had when he arrives home after a night of cleaning what he once owned, is no longer there. He sleeps alone. I also believe the reason this former ruler's seclusion is so total, is because of how total his rule was. "Seas would rise when I gave the word."

How the former ruler begins his story is the most sad. "I used to rule the world," uttered meekly as if hoping that anyone might possibly overhear him and express curiosity in what he has to say. Years of isolation having eroded his sanity, he believes somebody is listening and he launches into bittersweet reminiscence (the rest of the song in this case). Happy that somebody is finally as interested in himself as he is.

The title of the song (and the album obviously :) translates to Long Live Life. With the content of the song as I see it, I find this to be a perfect title for it. The former ruler as he is now, does not have what he used to. He's likely to never have it again. But he did have it. No one can take that from him. Ever. He knows this, and knowing this makes him happy. Which is why he will be there, every night until morning, sweeping the streets he used to own and making his people happy.

Which brings us to...

I'm listening to The Scientist by Coldplay right now. I believe it sums up my feelings perfectly. I have it set on my playlist right now. The lyrics are right here for those interested.

When KaTrina left I knew that we'd be going back to the phone being our main source of contact. It's not so bad but in the last few months, the house phones began to die after about an hour of usage. They'd start to beep a few seconds before they died letting you know to wrap up the conversation. Not with me.

Once the phone started to beep I'd snap to attention and scramble to get to the other phone before the one I was on died, much to the enjoyment of KaTrina who got to listen to me almost kill myself running down the stairs. Believe me, it was pretty funny when it happened.

But that, along with them being house phones and other people in the house wanting to use them, made it less than fulfilling to depend on them. So, after years of prodding by my family and friends (KaTrina especially, but didn't you kinda see that one coming? hehe), on the 4th of July I went and got a CELL PHONE!

So if you've been following along, I finally got around to buying a cell phone so I'd have an easier time staying in touch with KaTrina. She only has a cell phone so it was taking up a lot of minutes to talk to me as much as she was. KaTrina is with Sprint and since she was who I'd be talking to the most, I went with Sprint as well since it would be free for us to talk.

I've had it almost 2 months now and I'm really enjoying having it. I almost feel like I've kinda caught up with my generation to a degree. Almost. There was one thing bigger than getting an MP3 player, a job, or even a cell phone...

For years my family, Heidi being the most vocal out of ANY of them, and my friends, KaTrina the most vocal out of that category, have talked to me about going to college. It just never seemed right for me. I had a hard enough time graduating from high school. Not to mention the money it would cost and the time it would take for college. It was nice to talk and think about it, but I could never actually do it.

Late one night while KaTrina was here, her and I went to Denny's to hang out and get something to eat. The conversation managed to wend it's way to our futures. Now, I think it's safe to say on here that I'm in love with KaTrina. I can tell by your complete non-reaction that you already knew that so I'll make this quick. I'll do anything to be with her. Wow, that really was quick.

Anyway, we were on the subject of our future when she began to write something on a piece of paper. I sat quietly and waited for her to finish writing, not really sure what she was writing in the first place. About a minute later she ripped off the part she wrote on, folded it in two and passed it over to me. Opening it revealed a 'To-Do List' of sorts. It pretty much said, 'Get financial aid and go to school so you can do what you want.' I gladly took the list and put it in my wallet.

Remember how I said I'll do anything? That very night I went to the FAFSA website and applied for financial aid to go to college. Soon after I received all the information I needed to get ready to apply for, and eventually attend college at CBC. I took the placement test and turned in the paperwork necessary to get financial aid to pay for my schooling. I'd finally be going to college.

Yes, you read that right. Starting September 22nd I will be going to college at CBC. I've got my class schedule and next week I'll be going to FYI (First Year Information) to become acclimated to college life and learn the campus so I won't be lost when I start. My class schedule is as follows:

Monday - Thursday
Political Science 100 Bullert, G 8:00 - 9:00 AM
History 103 Moreno, M 9:10 - 10:10 AM
Psychology 101 Taff, M 12:40 - 1:40 PM

Not quite the schedule I had my sights set on originally, but I'm very excited for what I'm taking. Not to mention that I'm just excited to be going back to school.

So, this year has had it's highs and lows and it's been on the upswing since late April. While I feel that not everything is the way I'd like it to be, I'm at least on the right track.

It's a comin'

Part Three will be up soon. There's a lot going into it so I want it to be perfect.

Thank You For Your Patience
The Management

Happy

A week already? Ho-jeez... okay let's do this. (Does anybody else's spell check ding you on 'okay'?)

So by late April, I finally had a new job as a dishwasher and I was very happy. It required hard work and lacked any kind of contact with the public in general. Oh, getting access to money again was great too.

However, there was one thing I was looking forward to more than anything and I was a little worried that my new job might interfere with it. It almost kinda did, but after a mini emotional break down my old boss Mike gave me the time off I had requested. I felt kinda silly afterwards but with how the year had been going...

Simply put: KaTrina was coming to visit for a week, and nothing could keep me from spending as much time as possible with her! We agreed a while ago that since she'd be flying in, I would be her chauffeur so seeing her a lot wasn't going to be a problem. I wasn't much of a chauffeur though since she drove us nearly everywhere.

We did spend a lot of time together though. Nearly every available moment to us we were together. I was only expecting to see her the last four days she was here but we hung out every day! We went around to a lot of her favorite places around town like Shanghai, Aqua Tropics and Old Navy. Old Navy because she really enjoys picking out new clothes for me. I'm capable when it comes to dressing myself but KaTrina has a real fashion sense (thanks to Stacy and Clinton she says).

If we weren't around town we were at my or her house just hanging out. Now, my family loves KaTrina. My dad likes her too even though it's only until recently that she's accepted it. Me to KaTrina's family? Well, her younger sister Alyssa thinks I'm cool (the coolest Mormon at that) but I'm not exactly a household name over there, haha. So whenever I was over there I had to try and break out of my shy ways when around her father. I think I did an okay job but my dad has nothing on him.

There are seriously so many happy memories I have from that week that I don't think I could list all of them here. Well, I could, but I think it could possibly bore some of you after a while.

Saturday night I was taking her back to her house when she told me to drive past the road to her house. More than happy to oblige I kept going and after a couple minutes I realized we were going to Finley Elementary School: where we first met. After some reminiscing we were off again and made a few more stops to places that held memories we had together. After running out of those, we just drove around. All night actually.

We went to Walgreens to get something to drink, the mall to see it in the middle of the night, and to Clover Island Inn (where she used to work) to watch the sunrise. Around 4:30 or so, in the Clover Island Inn parking lot, we fell asleep in my car. Every ten minutes or so I'd wake up and be so happy to see that she was right there next to me.

The week she was here seemed to last so much longer than most other weeks seem to. When it was finally time for her to go I wasn't sad like I thought I would be. I wasn't thrilled that she was going so soon, but the time we spent together made me the happiest I'd been in a long time. So it kind of insulated me from feeling sad. Before I went to sleep that night I found a note that she had left me. I started to tear up as I read it over and over again but after about the 20th time, the tears went away and were replaced with a smile. I didn't think I'd ever cherish a piece of paper so much.

What was it? We both know what it says. That's enough.

One thing is certain, whenever I see her, I'm the happiest man in the world.

...hehe, old man.

Part three to come.

Subject to change

2008 has been a pretty big year for me. It started off the same way most of them have lately: I was single, working at a job I really didn't like and with a deepseated sense that I'd let another year slip by without doing all that I could have with it.

I would never have guessed what was coming.

It started in January when I got my Zune. I know I know, not really something you'd consider noteworthy but it mattered. For over eight years I had the same CD player and that was how I listened to my music when not in my car. When I worked at Best Buy back in '04, one of the employees harshly chastised me (he called me a f---ing idiot actually) for not having an MP3 player yet. Thinking back I'm glad that I hadn't made the investment. I think the biggest storage available back then was around 16 GB and it cost like $300-400 for one that size.

Why would I need one anyway. I'd gotten by just fine with my CD player since high school and was it really that much of a hassle to switch out a CD when I needed to? Well, eventually my beloved player started to malfunction. It wouldn't start playing unless on a completely flat surface and even then it wouldn't play certain CD's. The list of those 'certain CD's' began to grow and I knew it was time. So I bought a first generation 30GB Zune for $125 (with the help of a few discounts).

Now I can't imagine having to deal with CD's whenever I want to listen to my music. I accept this ritual when I'm driving simply for the fact that it's tradition more than anything.

I was also fired from my job at Amazon for missing too many days and while it was devastating, I'd become so terrified of going to work that I was actually relieved to some degree. I usually managed to find a new job within a month anyway so I'd be fine.

Now it's become a sort of tradition to spend a couple days at my sister Heidi's house in Spokane for my birthday. Since I would probably have a job by the time my birthday rolled around it was decided that I'd come up early. It was a lot of fun while I was there but the trip back... not so much.

Thinking I'd missed my exit back home I got myself turned around at the nearest overpass. Now it had been snowing a whole hell of a lot up there and the roads weren't in the best condition. The car in front of me was driving erratically so once I got the chance I tried to get around him. After a few seconds of driving I felt my car going to the left. Y'know, where the divide was? The jerk I was trying to pass was keeping pace with me so I couldn't really pull myself out of the slush dragging me off of the road.

Which is exactly what happened all too fast but in such a mind bogglingly slow motion.

There I was, middle of nowhere with my car stuck in at last two and half feet of compacted snow. It was a couple hours until the sun went down so I found my windshield scraper and began to dig myself out. I'd have made it too if it weren't for the meddling state patrolman a caring citizen called. Frustratingly long (and freezingly soggy by that point) story short: I got a $175 ticket for going too fast for conditions. I tried explaining that the only reason I was even going 50 mph was to pass a potentially dangerous driver.

I was so crushed by that point. Alone, unemployed, car potentially wrecked, and now a ticket I couldn't pay. Sitting in the patrol car cold and wet I was so tempted to open the door and walk into traffic.

'She would never forgive you. You know that right?'
"i know..."
'Just keep your hands on the ticket. You don't want to drop it.'
"okay..."
'It'll get better. You'll see.'
"'k..."

I don't think I've told anybody about that or the conversation I had with myself. It all happened, but it's all in the past and I'm glad I listened to myself.

I wasn't out of the woods quite yet. A couple months later, under the pressure of still not having a job and other things, I 'locked' myself in my room. What started out as just wanting to be alone for a few hours turned into almost 2 days of complete isolation. I shouldn't joke about it as I really did scare my family, but can't a guy get some frikkin' privacy?

After that everything began to turn around for the better. I went up to Spokane again to help my sister with some painting around the house and when I got back I found that my current employer had been trying to get a hold of me. I interviewed to be a night janitor at first but passed. Then I was interviewed to be a dishwasher. Happy for a job that didn't include the public, and was something I already did in the first place, I nailed the interview and was happily employed once again.

I'm gonna go ahead and pause here for a while. I wasn't expecting to include all that sad stuff in there but it was all a big part of the year for me. But don't worry, there will be a part two and the part two will be much happier. You'll see.

That's enough of that

Sorry to keep something that could potentially be seen as depressing up for almost a week. It's not that there hasn't been anything to post about (there is! and we'll get to that in a second), it's just that I haven't been able to scrounge up the motivation to get one posted. So, as not to go a week without a new post, let's get down to it.

Last Saturday was really exciting for me. There was an open house to sign up for free classes to become a Radiological Control Technician. The sheer opportunity I would be afforded if I completed those classes and became an RCT was incredible. It seemed like my life could finally start! So I woke up early, printed out the directions and got to the open house to find that I needed to put down $500 right then, and pay another $3,000 for the classes in $1,000 monthly installments.

You raised my hopes and dashed them quite expertly sir. Bravo.

That's pretty much what inspired the poem. So many times I've gotten really excited about something in my life only to have it fall apart at the last second. Like I said in the poem; I always get back up and I just keep going.

So while that door had been slammed in my face, I looked over and saw a window cracked open slightly.

That same day, my boss asked me if I wanted to make some extra cash by taking pictures of homes for his mom's real estate business. Money? Greeny spendy money? Naturally, I agreed and on Monday I went to meet with her to find out more about what I'd be doing.

Basically, I need to take six kinds of pictures of each house I'm sent to; the front, both sides, house number, street sign and a 'street scene' (basically a picture of the street with a smidge of the house included). I receive the addresses of the homes I need to photograph by e-mail and after I've taken the photos I e-mail them back. I get paid per house and I get extra for houses outside the Tri-Cities (Benton City, Burbank, West Richland, etc.) Every so often I'll take interior pictures or even put up signs on the property. I get paid even more for doing those.

So while it isn't exactly up to par with being an RCT, you never know where something like this could lead.

As a funny aside, I managed to hurt myself with a dried out shard of cheese (the kind from a cheese shredder) tonight at work. It was stuck to a plate and even after attacking it with the sprayer, scrubber and even steel wool, it showed no signs of relenting. So I decided to do it the old fashioned way and scrape it off with my thumbnail... hmm, the little piece of cheese seems to have made it's way under my thumbnail... all the way under my thumbnail... ow.

I'm sure that's how my subconscious processed what had happened, but my conscious self was vocal to the point that everybody else in the kitchen thought I'd cut myself deep or something of mine off.

"Kelly, what happened?"
"I cut myself with a piece of cheese!"

I immediately went over to where we kept the steak knives and picked one that had a pointy edge and got to digging out the cheese. To put it in perspective, it was about a quarter of an inch long and it was all the way in there. I got it out after about a minute of semi-painful thumbnail digging and went back to work with a new story to tell. I also ran off a joke/pun a couple minutes afterwards.

"Y'know what would have made this really funny? If it was sharp cheddar and not just medium."

I give thanks to my Mom for keeping a cool and logical head whenever any of her kids got hurt. Because of her I'm able to stay calm whenever I get hurt. Thankfully, I haven't had many opportunities to stay calm.

Well, there ya go. Hopefully I'll get some actual comments now. Honestly, my average has plummeted!

Therapeutic

I've always been resilient.

I tend to take things pretty hard
I've always come out stronger
I can feel the years of it wearing on me
I'm feeling the cracks in my armor...

The words I have heard
Have strengthened me
Allowed me to go that much farther
But the words from myself
They sabotage me
They want me to crash that much harder

The people I know
They care about me
Propping me up when I've fallen
I look at my feet
They're ignoring me
They prefer to be deaf when I'm calling

I know I should move
I know I can't sit here
I know that the world isn't waiting
I scream at myself
You know what you want
So why do you stand there debating?

You're better than that!
You know that you are!
Get moving! You still have some time...

It's not easy when you are your own harshest critic
To tear yourself down in the space of a minute

To be happy and smile, to pause and then say
"Why are you laughing? What's with you today?"

You don't get to be happy, you deserve to be sad
And here are some reasons you should prob'ly be mad...

Like I said I'm resilient
I always pull through
Though a little bit worse for the wear
I'm so lucky to have you
You're there when I need you
What helps me the most is knowing you care

That means all of you!

Don't worry, I feel better now :)

Why so serious?

The other day at work I got my 90 day performance review for me to sign, showing that I received and read it through. It pretty much said what I knew it was going to say. Hard worker, very punctual, great guy but you really have to work on getting him to even talk to you. Y'know, stuff like that. One thing about this review caught my eye however.

It was my job title.

Now that's obvious. I wash dishes so that makes me a dishwasher, right? No. It makes me a Hydro-Ceramic Technician!

You have no idea how hilarious it was to see something so PC as to make dishwashing sound like a college program. Right after Mike handed the review to me I noticed it and busted out laughing. Turning around with a somewhat concerned look on his face he asked what was wrong.

"My job title. Hydro-ceramic technician? That's freaking awesome!"

Whatever concern Mike had was immediately replaced with a smile of his own. "You like that do ya?"

"Yeah I like it. Now when I don't talk to a hot chick I'll never meet in a bar I'll never go to, I can really impress her with my job title. And hell, eight years of graduate school and I'll be a hydro-ceramic technologist!"

So yeah, my newly found title made me really happy. Then yesterday came around with another performance review. I knew I had signed the other one but then I didn't turn it in. Maybe it got lost somewhere. No. It can never be that simple.

Turns out my real job title is Dish Room Attendant. Lame. Apparently Mike was being Mike and came up with hydro-ceramic technician and slapped that on my review (with much appreciation from me). What happened is there was a staff meeting and my review was brought up. They told Mike that he wasn't allowed to make such a unilateral change in job title and it'd have to be redone with the correct designation. Needless to say, neither of us was happy.

This whole thing smacked of something I would do. Taking something inherently boring and giving it a tweak to make it fun.

When I worked at Hastings we had what are called defective tags. If somebody returned an item that was damaged or missing a piece it would get a defective tag with basic details about why it's defective. Details like date returned/found, store number and a short description of the defect. We would also stick a defective tag on what remained stolen merchandise, i.e. the packaging.

So, when an item is slapped with a defective tag for whatever reason, it's put into a basket at the front counter and at the end of the day the basket is brought to the back room. Then it's the back room's job to sort out the defective items and get them sent back to the supplier or wherever for some reason I never really knew. I just worked there, I didn't know how everything worked.

Now you can imagine how monotonous it would get filling out defective tags for the myriad of CD and DVD cases, porno mag wrappers and whatever is left over after somebody steals a wallet, belt or other novelty items you find everyday. Eventually (and naturally) I got a little creative when it came to filling them out.

Simpsons S.4 missing disc 3? 'Man that sucks. There were some really awesome episodes on that disc and now it's gone!'
A defective DVD player? 'Well there's your problem. This brand sucks.'
A stolen Pink Floyd CD? 'I swear, Syd Barret must be rolling in his grave. You know who he is right? Right?'
A stolen wallet? 'Well, maybe they stole it because they didn't have a place to keep their money. You just watch, they'll come back and pay for it now.'
A stolen DVD? 'Stolen... what? I can't just put the reason, I have to be witty about it too? Go away, I'm tired.'
A stolen video game? 'Sucks to be him, he forgot the manual.'

Doing stuff like that made me smile and the people in the back room were happy to have something funny to read. Sometimes when they'd come up front to sign out for the day, we'd talk about my funnier tags and have a laugh.

It was fun while it lasted. Yeah, 'All good things...' y'know? Somebody from corporate was making their rounds through the stores and just happened to see one of my (decidedly humorous, and completely innocuous) defective tags. Hahaha, they were pissed. This was official Hastings business and to treat it with such disregard was unacceptable on so many levels. The guy wanted me fired immediately.

Now I knew that I was a valued employee. For example, I was the only one who didn't follow the dress code. When new employees would be trained, they'd be told not to wear what I was wearing: a t-shirt and pants. It even got to the point were other employees would complain and say "Well Kelly doesn't follow the dress code, so why do I have to?" I get it from my Grandpa. He's the reason ties aren't required at Boeing :)

Anyway... The manager and assistant manager flat out told him that they wouldn't fire me, but they would make sure it didn't happen again. I still remember the day I found out. Amanda, the assistant manager, came right up to me with a piece of paper I recognized as a 'you're in trouble' paper and asked...

"Defective tags?"
"Oh come on, they're so boring otherwise."
"You can't write stuff like that Kelly. Corporate saw it and wanted you fired immediately."
"Oh... can I go home then?"
"You're not fired. You're only written up and you can't be funny with defective tags anymore."
"Okay. That's fine too I guess."

After that I did what I could to avoid having to fill out a defective tag. It wasn't to avoid the temptation to write something silly, but if I absolutely couldn't be silly I didn't want to waste my time.

Sigh... I really do miss the good times at Hastings. Plenty of blogging material there :)

Kelly's MySpace Blog Grab Bag Vol. III

Date Posted: Monday, April 21, 2008

Title: Kind of an obsession really...

Body:
Ever since the idea of time travel was brought to the forefront of my imagination thanks to Back to the Future, I've always been fascinated by it. Thinking of how it works, why it won't, the advantages, disadvantages until it branches out into how exactly time works. I'm usually at my speculative best when it's around 2AM and I'm half asleep.

Me and an old friend of mine would have conversations involving time travel, paradoxes caused by time travel, alternate realities caused by time travel and all kinds of weird stuff. Once we even got onto the subject of speed and acceleration and how people wouldn't be able to travel at the speed of light; that the acceleration alone would likely tear them apart. In a moment of genius I said "Well then take out the acceleration bit and there you go."

Forgive me though, for I've gone off topic. See what I'm talking about though? It's an obsession Anyway, I've always fantasized about reverting to a much younger age but retaining everything. Y'know, be who I am now but stuck in a 5 year old's body back in 1987. I would breeze through school and do all sorts of things differently. One thing in particular...

I was in the second grade when I performed in front of the whole school for the end of year talent show. I had a flimsy cardboard guitar I made for my music class project and I sang a song that I wrote. I was so nervous and horrified when I was playing that I couldn't hear anything but my feeble attempts to sing. Now that I know how to play the guitar and I've got a bunch of kick ass songs memorized, including my own, I would love to do that whole thing over. I'm told that everybody really enjoyed my 'performance' in the first place but I don't remember anything remotely like enjoyment from the crowd.

I'd get my parents to rent me an electric guitar and amplifier and I'd blow the lid off the joint! Hell yeah! The only hard part would be choosing which song to play. It'd probably be a Green Day song but I might bust out some Metallica or Led Zeppelin. Just imagine how badass that would be (for me) if that happened. Some random six year old rocking out in an elementary school gym, in front of the entire school, and kicking ass playing Master of Puppets, Basketcase or Stairway to Heaven. I know it'd impress Jordan Niles

Commentary: This is another recent blog entry. Again I was going to post a much older one but this caught my eye. You'll remember that my Mom posted a blog about me (that's a link. CLICK THE LINK!) and it touched on my first foray into music entertainment. You have no idea how long I've wished I could go back and do what I talked about up there.

I've had dreams where I was suddenly my younger self. Every time I would get right to work making my family's and my own life better. The time that elapses in these dreams varies from hours to days and it always sucks to wake up and find that it really was a dream. They're just so realistic.

ALSO: I posted a blog the same day, but a few minutes after midnight. It's nothing much. Just an awesomely hilarious quote from a show called Squidbillies on [adult swim]:

One of these things...
Current mood: ha ha

"So let's see. War, famine, death and... grasshoppers. One of those seems out of place now doesn't it?"

Dizzamn! Pestilence just got pwned!