Alright, this blog has gotten pretty boring lately, which really means only a handful of things, but I feel like I should update the blog and explain exaclty what it means and what has caused the decline.
1. It means that I am leading and have been leading a busier, perhaps fuller life.
2. My lack of posting is also due to the sick amount of time I have spent either working, prepping for the summer, or with the 301 girls and church activites.
3. Finally, my lack of posting is due to the decrease in the amount of time I am spending in front of my computer. I get ideas for things that I'd love to post from time to time, but I forget them much of the time well before I come back to my computer. Also, when I am back at my computer I don't think of blogging nearly as much as I did in the past two months.
Unfortunately, I will soon be even busier than I have been this month. I plan on leaving Saturday morning to do something that will likely take up nearly every moment of every day of my life for some fifteen weeks.
That is obviously a slight exaggeration, but still predominantly true. So, I will likely be blogging a lot less than I did in the past, and when I do blog, it very well may be about this job. Brace yourself. There are going to be three-four months of this before I return to normal blogging routines.
I realized when I wrote the XBOX post that I hadn't posted about my upcoming summer with the Southwestern Company. I am tempted at times to say that it is a job with them, but it is not. I am working as an independent contractor operating my own business. This is interesting considering that this is also labeled an internship by the company, the University of Florida, and sure... me too.
Here's what is involved in this nebulous thing that I am doing this summer...
I leave Saturday May 1st, 2004 for Nashville, TN at 7AM. When I arrive I am staying in a hotel (probably motel actually, but I am relaying information right now) in Murphreesboro, TN, which is over a half hour from my actual destination. The next morning I wake up and drive to 'Sales School,' which is in Nashville. I register that Sunday and begin learning right away. Sales School lasts a week. When it is finished I drive with my group to our 'Sales Locality.'
Once I get to the Sales Locality I get another hotel (read motel here again) for up to five days. During those first five days I travel about the town, talk to area pastors and ask them if they know of any families in their congreagation that would like to house three guys for the summer. We'd be willing to pay up to $100/month for rent per person. We will find a family that agrees to this and takes us in, and we will do it in a matter of one or two days, but we have five days just in case.
After we establish a temporary residence in our sales locality, we all each go out and try to sell our products. I do this by using the things I learned in sales school and by going door to door with information about families that I have gotten myself by doing 'pre-approach.' I spend 12 hours a day doing this, and in the process I visit well over 30 homes, do 30 or more demonstrations of my lead product, and sell an unknown amount of product to about three families that day.
I do all of this every day for six days a week. On the seventh day I rest. I visit friends that I have made in Sales School, I take care of my personal stuff, etc. I repeat this process for 13 weeks.
The final week I deliver all the product that has been ordered. Then I go back to Nashville, TN and 'check out.' This is where I get the balance of my money. Essentially, this is where I get paid, and this is also where I am lauded with rewards for my great summer. I will have made $11,500 in profit, but spent nearly $3,000 in expenses such as food, laundry services, gas, and rent. Also, at the end of the summer, in Nashville, I am given a letter of recommendation from my district sales manager stressing my newly demonstated skills and strengths such as independence, hard work, work endurance, communication ability, and first-hand experience in sales and marketing. If I did reasonably well, I am invited to be a manager and repeat all of this again next summer.
Finally, I come home and write an essay about my experience. (I feel like I have a decent template going already.) I hand this in to the honors office at the University of Florida. I receive three credits for my internship and I am signed up for commencement. Then I graduate from UF with a Bachelors of Arts in Business Administration specializing in Linguistics with a minor in Linguistics.
They say that after I get that particular diploma my life really begins. I'm not so sure about what they say.
I have an XBOX.
Finally, after patiently waiting for one for so long -- praying for one even -- I have an XBOX. The best part about it was that I didn't have to pay for it.
With a tremendous effort from Joy and the love and cooperation from a number of my friends I won an XBOX and XBOX Music Mixer.
Now, if I only had some money for games, controllers and such...
Today was media day for my IMDL class. My robot wasn't finished to specifications that I proposed at the begining of the semester, but it seemed to be a mild success at the demonstration.
The robot (Ginger -- short for Ginger Bread (wo)Man) was intended to do high-speed obstacle avoidance, ledge avoidance, and turn off when caught or struck. So, it would basically play tag really, really well.
All I got to work was the ledge avoidance and turning off when hit. I guess that means I only failed to get one thing working, but that is still a huge bummer. I really like the way these robots move around and act like they know what's going on around them. It seems so magical.
My robot had a little of that going on with it. I put it on this round table in the rotunda of the New Engineering Building and it darted back and forth around the table. It's wheels were slipping on the slick surface of the table so I could never be sure that it would stay, but it did for several minutes. Finally it found it's one blind spot and toppled over onto it's polycarbonate top... safe and sound.
I am glad I took this class. It was incredibly humbling. I wanted to build the awesomest robot that was still somewhat within my grasp, and I came clsoe to doing so. I still don't really know much about building robots, but on the other hand I know a whole semester's worth of learning from experience and interest more than most people.
I also had some fun along the way. My robot doesn't just drive up to ledges and turn around and drive off to the next ledge. It sprints to the ledge. It looks like it is just going to drive straight off, in fact. Then, when it gets to the ledge my high torque motors twist it's body forward briefly as it first starts to back up. This creates the illusion of the robot faking the jump, and it still manages to fake out even my head TA. He calls it "HeartAttack," and laughs hysterically whenever he sees it, and sometimes just from thinking about it.
I should put some pictures of it up on the site. It looks pretty cool, and purposefully so. I knew that as a business major I didn't stand much of a chance in the admittedly subjective grading system of the class. I decided that I would do what I dubbed "thinking blonde." I would make the robot look as cool and entertaining as possible. If things didn't work out -- I'd say -- at least the robot would look awesome just sitting on the table. That's what "thinking blonde" was all about. I'd say that if it wasn't going to do anything that it should at the very least look great while doing it. (...or not doing it?)
With a transparent polycarbonate (nigh-unbreakable but thin plastic) dome, which is actually a food storage container made by Rubbermaid and marketed under the Stain Shied(TM) product line and a transparent polycarbonate frame Ginger bared her electronic soul. Completely transparent is just cool no matter what anyone says, and being really hard to break is fun too. Now everyone can see all of Ginger's parts so that it can be used as a learning tool or at least to spark intrest in robotics.
Actually, in the executive summary of my final report I have this paragraph that discusses my primary reason for choosing polycarbonate. It is pretty funny when taken out of context and given to someone who is bored and has a bit of an imagination.
'Ginger is made from incredibly light and durable materials (mainly aluminum, polycarbonate, and whatever the different boards are) because she is meant for rough play. If she is roughly jostled or struck, falls from a great height, or has something thrown at her she does not suffer damage and continues to perform as programmed.'
Yeah... 'atta girl! That's what we like to see!
The last two weeks I've done a ton of shopping for clothes. I don't normally buy clothes all that often as I tend to procrastinate on that sort of thing. I guess being a pack-rat also contributes to it. I keep my clothes for a long time, so I rarely feel like getting new clothes. When I do though... I get a lot.
The impetus for this two weeks of shopping like crazy is this job that I'll be doing this summer. They told me that I would just wear "normal college clothes" at first, but later on I was told that I needed polo shirts, nice new athletic shoes, and shorts. I typically wear T shirts and pants though, so this presented a bit of a problem for me.
Two weeks later I've managed to drop $630 on essentially getting a second wardrobe (minus the underwear and socks. Though I plan to buy socks this weekend in Fort Myers) and some travel items/accessories.
Here's a list of what I got.
From Old Navy Online I got --
-Three Mesh Chest-stripe Polos (Joy likes the chest-stripe thing)
-Three Jacquard (what does that mean exactly?) Chest-stripe Polos
-Four Chest-stripe Ts. (I have tons of T-shirts and like to wear them, but they are usually just one color. Joy says I need variety, so I got some of these.)
I got other stuff too, but I ended up returning that at the Old Navy store, so I am not adding it to this list.
From Old Navy I got --
-Six pair of regular length, shorts. (two khaki, one navy)
-Two pair of regular length cargo shorts. (Probably would have gotten more, but they were running out and disorganized. I was suprised I found two.)
-Two Linen button-up shirts. (One long sleeve, one short sleeve)
-Three bungee watches. (black, blue, camo. They are cheap. I need to wear a time piece this summer, and I think that they are kidna cool.)
-Two ribbed crew-neck Ts (black and heathered blue. Solid again, but Joy thought that was OK, because these are ribbed.)
From LLBean I got --
-Seven pique polos -- all different colors. I like shirts that are just one color, OK?
-A laptop sleeve. It has taken me a full year of searching rather diligently to find one of these things that would fit my laptop. Finally, the search is over.
-A bathroom supplies bag thingie. It hangs above a shower and holds everything that is in my bathroom. It's jet black, and I really like it. Wait, it says it is a "personal organizer" on the invoice. So now I know what it is really called.
From RoadRunnerSports.com I got a pair of running shoes that are the next generation of the pair that I already have from perhaps two years ago.
That is a lot of stuff.
Today I am trying out this suggestion that Megan gave me over a week ago. I had done a canned food drive several weeks ago and dropped a glass jar full of spaghetti sauce. When it hit the ground it splattered all over the pants that I was wearing. I'm not exactly the stain expert, so I sought counsel from the 301 girls.
Megan told me that in her family they use 409 All Purpose Cleaner on their clothes when they have really bad stains. She said it worked every time. So, I went out and bought some last weekend and I am giving it a try today.
Let's hope for the best.
This is an older Friday Five that I saw and really wanted to do, but never had the time to sit down and give it it's due.
So, as you can imagine, it is quite long. Don't start it unless you've got some time to read.
If you...
1. ...owned a restaurant, what kind of food would you serve?
2. ...owned a small store, what kind of merchandise would you sell?
3. ...wrote a book, what genre would it be?
4. ...ran a school, what would you teach?
5. ...recorded an album, what kind of music would be on it?
1. If I owned a restaurant I would serve really healthy, simple foods. That is a kinda vague definition and very open to interpretation, so I guess I should put in some examples so my thoughts are clearer.
I would not use butter, margarine, vegitable oil, shortening, processed wheats, homogenized fats, etc. The portion sizes would be smaller than at normal restuarants without a cost penalty (or const incentive to get the bigger sizes.) I'd serve lots of tasty, fresh vegitables. I'd make plenty of vegitarian, vegan, and non-vegitarian items so that all people could come and enjoy my food. I'd probably try to keep my kitchen kosher too for pretty much the same reason.
I'd have a special requests jar where people could put in menu item ideas that I'd include on my specials list in later weeks. They could also leave their e-mail, and I would sent out e-mails when I ran their specials. (I'd do this if it were a standard, sit-down restaurant)
If I chose this to be a fast food restaurant I'd make foods using many of the same ideals as mentioned before -- only I'd make it more quickly. I'd use only containers that were recyclable in the area, and I'd encourage everyone to recycle them either at the restaurant or wherever else they'd end up. I'd also try to limit waste from the process of making the food whereever possible, and when there is waste I'd want to take the extra effort to make it productive somehow. (example: giving food waste to agricultural industry professionals who can make use of it.)
I don't really think that this restaurant would be profitable right away or if it was it would likely be pretty expensive. I didn't really burden myself with that when writing this though, because this is all fantastic "if" questioning and answering anyway.
2. If I owned a small store... Man, this is tough. I could see myself selling pretty much anything so long as it doesn't reek or make overly loud noises in-store. I also wouldn't want to sell pornography, alcohol, cigarettes or things such as these that I'd find objectionable.
I think that a Christian Sexuality store would be fun and interesting. It would be part book store for sure, and definately have a lot of merchandise dealing with abstinence for people who are not married. It would have items that you could buy newliweds. In fact, I guess part of the store would also have a strong focus on marriage and the times leading up to that. The store would also have a lot of stuff to make being married more fun though too. After all, if you are abstaining from sex until you get married then you might want to learn all the different ways to enjoy sex once you are married.
3. I think that any book I write would either be Christian Living, Inspirational, darker Fiction, or even Fiction that would serve as a parody or a cautionary tale. I could see myself writing a book in the vein of 1984 or Catch-22.
4. If I ran a school I would teach kids a lot more than what they learn now, and I'd also give kids a lot more freedom to choose what they wanted to learn at a younger age. I think that I'd still make mastery of their own language (English in this case,) Physical Education, History, and Government courses required, but I'd have some things like foreign languages and sciences as optional. I'd also throw in more classes that would teach kids about life. Classes like Nutrition, Home Economics, Personal Finance, Career Management, etc. These all sound like things that you'd likely normally learn from parents, but I think that a lot of kids don't get this stuff from their parents, so it would benefit them greatly to finally get it somewhere.
I am thinking that this is sounding a lot like a High School, so that is the type of school I'd run and there'd be a lot more course options than what I had to choose from.
5. If I recorded an album? I don't think I'd ever do that, but I'd likely have whatever type of instrumental music I put on there flow together nicely. I always thought it would be fun to have different songs/tracks 'fit' together so that you could scarcely tell where one song ended and the next began. Then I'd likely have an hour-long song, but that would be fine with me. That is what I would want, actually, so that would be great with me.
I had problems sleeping last night. I was tired enough to go to sleep, but I kept popping in and out of sleep. It seemed like someone was on my mind the whole time, because everytime I woke up the person was in my thoughts. I would usually toss and turn and eventually drift back into unconsciousness, but still this person was on my mind somehow.
I haven't really had this happen to me in a long, long time -- if ever. I don't really like to have someone come into my mind at all hours of the night -- waking me up -- only to have to fight with my thoughts and fight for sleep. It was weird to have to wrestle with this especially now. I'd really like to confront this person and say something like, 'stay out of my dreams and just-woken-up states!' but I don't think that will be appropriate even if it might be effective in some weird way.
Anyway, this person does read this. So, I thought I'd write out this vague, unspecific account to give me the feeling of sorta confronting the person, and at the very least 'talk' about the problem. Besides, a little honesty and a little humor are supposed to help things... why not have both at once?
Hopefully, this won't happen again for a long, long time.
Today, outside my back patio a gorgeous hawk came and perched on these low hanging vines that we're hanging above the creek in my back yard. It was really cool looking, and it took a break there for over a half an hour. This gave me plenty of time to try to find my camera, but I couldn't. Frustration! Anyway, it was awesome, and some friends of mine got to see it with me, so I got to share it with someone.
Dream...
Last night I had a pretty amazing dream. I was some kind of soldier or something, because I was running through this huge forest with a sword.
I remember running next to this massive old tree that had fallen. It was seven or eight feet wide, and I was running along it to avoid being seen or killed or whatever. Then I came up to the end of it, and in these vines and the roots of this huge tree was this amazing horse. It was beautiful! It was mainly white and silver with silver and purple in it's mane and tail. It was hurting very badly and was caught in this stuff.
I cut away at the vines and roots of the fallen tree and freed the horse, and then I helped it out. Cleansed and bandaged its wounds and such. Suddenly there was no battle and I was walking this horse back to my home.
Then my home became the neighborhood I grew up in and a car drove past me as I was walking through the wooded areas of my neighborhood. This kinda spooked the horse, so I had to calm it down.
Later I am riding the horse down the road in my neighborhood and my Dad sees me somehow. I know he sees me, but I don't see him. I take off galloping down the road and he sprints after me. I eventaully come to a house that is actually on the lot of a friend's house, but is a different friend's house. I dismount and tie the horse to the side of the house. No one is home, but I know I can go in anyway. I find some food for the horse and feed him. Then I decide to get cleaned up, because I am in these warrior's clothes in the middle of a very modern house with a white, silver and purple horse outside.
So, I am showering in this girl's shower when her mom comes home. That didn't really freak me out or anything because she is really nice, but the mom turned into my friend and things were weird for a while because I am in her shower and she wasn't expecting that. She's kinda wondering why I am so dirty and what the sword, shield and other things are all about.
Somewhere along the line she is showering with me too, and everything seems to be happening naturally as in, we're showering and having a conversation about the battle and where I was and such. Then I come to the part about the horse and we go out to see it. She is in awe of him. She is a better rider than I am, and she wants to get him well and ride and maybe even breed him.
Then I wake up.
That's pretty unusual for me. The most unusual part is how well I remembered it throughout the day. The thing that is not unusual is that things just sort of dramaticall change in my dream... sometimes things are forgotten or just dropped. For instance... I sorta drop the whole battle thing and end up in my neighborhood. Also, the mom ends up not being the mom at all and is my friend, and when we're showering I know we're showering, but the focus changes so dramatically from showering to recounting my story -- even parts I hadn't dreamed yet -- that we're also sitting down and talking, but I guess it was in the shower somehow. I don't know. I am always fascinated with the way my dreams just shift and change while they are happening, and how at times seemingly sexual things go on without anything sexual actually happening.
The last cool thing about this dream was the color aspect to it. Normally I don't 'dream in color' but last night I think I did. While I don't 'see' the colors ever I know that they are there. I sense things and end up knowing things without actually sensing them in the normal sense. So, I guess I dream in color because colors are there. I just don't see color while I dream.
I watched Real Genius again tonight. It has been a long time since I've seen this movie, which used to be one of my favorites. I have to say I got an entirely new set of pleasures and realizations from watching it this time.
Some of the fun of watching it was from the perspective of being so close to graduating from college, some of it was more interesting because of the electrical engineering class I am taking. On the other hand, it was interesting to look at it and reflect on how much I had emulated Val Kilmer's character, Chris, when I was in Middle and High School. I really thought he was cool. lol.
I think it is interesting to look back on something that had a big affect on me like that. It helps to see how far I've come, and since this is a movie... how far society, culture and even visual effects have come.
I bought FFTA the other night because Game Boy Advance games were on sale at Target, and I had recently finished of Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. That game is over two years old, so you can probably imagine that I typically take a long time beating games, but I'm not sure if it will be that way with this new one, because I have been playing it so much.
I've been playing it way too much lately. It keeps a log of how many hours I've played it just like Castlevania did, so that helps me realize that I need to pull the plug on the game play for a while. So, I'll probably be blogging a little more now that I have my life back. I think that I should definately not play more than an hour a day of this game, so I will keep in mind when I got the game and make sure that my hours:days owned average is always below 1.000 from here on out. Unfortunately, that means I won't be playing the game anymore this week. Oh well.
Oh, by the way... if you have FFTA let me know. I'd think it would be cool to play with someone or at least link up to trade some stuff in-game.