David's Blog

Addidas Antiperspirant

None of the deodorants/antiperspirants that I have been using over the past few work well when I am at UPS, so I decided to try the new Addidas antiperspirant this week. I figured that it is supposed to be sporty and would thus work better when I am in a hot feeder moving boxes for four to five hours a night.

So, far so good. If only the smell was appealing.

UPS Diet

Today's dietary intake...
Breakfast = 2 Klondike Bars and a glass of water. (Does toothpaste count?)
Snack at School = 1 can of Diet Dr. Pepper
Lunch = X number of cookies from Costco + milk + Leftover Pasta.
Snack at work = Over a Liter of water.
Dinner = X number of cookies from Costco + milk

What's going on here!?!
I don't normally eat like this.
Don't tell Joy if you want me to live! Well, at least give me 'til the end of the week so I can start eating right again.

US Traveler?

I guess I still have a lot of states to visit.

World Traveler?

Only 3% of the world's countries visited? Man, I have a lot of traveling to do!

create your own visited country map

Day 12 at UPS

Well, today was my second day of loading all by myself, and my shift supervisor, Nick, came and talked to me. He told me that I did well on Friday -- no misloads, no missed scans, no mistoggles, and I am getting faster. He also told me that for this first week of working alone he'd allow me to yell for help twice each night. Then during the second week of working alone I'd only be able to call for help once a night.

As it turned out the night wasn't so busy and I managed to hold it down by myself and work clean the entire night without calling for help. I ended up loading a full semi, which was 985 packages. My load typically gets up to 1200 packages a night, so it was a light night for a Monday, but not so terribly light.
This is such a fun job!

Totally Beat

I moved for about 4 hours yesterday with Mike and then I went off to UPS to work on loading boxes into a feeder for another four and a half hours. I am pretty tired and all my muscles are really tight. Even my eyes hurt. To make matters worse there is construction going on right outside of my new apartment. That woke me up with the loud noise of many trucks backing up constantly and the apartment shaking intermittently.

I am beyond tired and frustrated with this new living situation already.

Moving Again

I'm moving again tomorrow. I just reserved a little in-town U-Haul and have Mike scheduled to help me early in the morning. Hopefully I can get everything done and not wear myself out too much for work Tuesday night. Speaking of work... I gotta get going to UPS soon. Today is my first full day of working. Should be exhausting.

What the..?

I was just checking up on some Gators baskettball (12-4 Conf/ 22-7 Ov-A) and I noticed that we beat Kentucky last week. Why doesn't anyone tell me these things!?! Am I really this busy? Man, it is good to be on Spring Break right now... I have time to catch up on important things like the Gator's very good chance to make it into the SEC tournament this year. We might even win it!?! Wow. I wish this could have happened a year or so ago when I was there, but this is still really awesome.

This kind of reminds me of my high school soccer team. My senior year we had an undefeated season and looked like we could finally win the state championship, but we lost early in the tourney. Then, after I leave the school it takes just two years for us to win it for the first time in school history. I don't exactly want this to be the story of my life, but I can't help but hope for the best for our baskettball team this year.

UPDATE: 3/13/2005 @ 2:31PM
OK, so we're in the SEC finals against Kentucky. That scares me, because we had a really bad record against Kentucy while I was at UF, but... we JUST beat them last week! Hopefully that works for us and not against us.

Another Busy Weekend...

Today is just Thursday, but I have this weekend in mind already. There is a lot going on... maybe too much, but that remains to be seen.

Here's what is on my plate for now...

Tonight, one of my groomsmen is probably coming in to town tonight. He wants to spend the night at my place and hang out on Friday for a while. He has a business deal that he needs to work on while he is in town for the end of the week, but he has a little free time for hanging out too, I guess.

Also, I have work at UPS tonight and tomorrow night from five to ten. That isn't so bad, but it will end with a very exhausted me.

I need to pack up my entire apartment again this weekend, because Mike is going to be available to help me move out on Monday, during my Spring Break. So, that will be a time consuming task for me.

Monday is going to be suicide day for David. I am probably going to have to get up and go get a U-Haul. Then move my whole apartment into the U-Haul with Mike, which isn't so bad, excpet for the bed. Then move all that stuff into the new apartment and return the U-Haul. This is easy to type, but I remember doing all of this in May and August and it isn't easy. After all of that I go to UPS to work my first full five hour day of work. This will be rough, because Monday is usually UPS' busiest day in terms of volume. (I guess all those weekend orders are getting shipped out.)

Wow! I have a lot to do. I'd better get to work, eh?

Gemfire

I have been searching for a copy of this game that I used to play when I was a kid. I remember playing it with my friends, but I never owned and still do not have a copy. I found one on Ebay yesterday that was in near mint condition with all the instructions, inserts, etc in the original box. (Yeah, it's sad but that is important to me.)

Anyway, I want to get a SNES version of the game, but I don't want to pay too much for it because it is so old. I could get a copy on Amazon.com for $40, but I am in no hurry. I've waited over a decade after all. Plus, my SNES is in Gainesville in Jenn and Lana's apartment (-style dorm.)

I told them I'd get them a SNES if they helped me win an XBOX. They did, I did, so they have my SNES... (I'm secretly hoping that they give it back at the end of their degree programs, due to the fact that there are more than one of them and only one SNES.)

Chripractic School at FSU?

This article is interesting to me for so many reasons... it touches on many of the topics that interest me -- Florida's government, Education, Chiropractic, money/power issues, "Scientist's" tactics, etc. etc.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6835571/

Angst

I feel angst. I want it to stop seizing me when I'm alone at night. Just make it stop...

Angst as a word in English has gone through a bit of a change over the past century and now is a word closely associated with troubles of the teenager.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition defines angst as "A feeling of anxiety or apprehension often accompanied by depression."

This word came to us from the German word, Angst, and I believe that it was popularized after Martin Heidegger's existentialist theories written at the beginning of the century in Germany, but popularized in American in the early sixties.

All that is really interesting, right? Well, not to most of you. The reason I mention all of that is that I have experiences of Heidegger's notion of angst -- not what American's consider it. According to Heidegger, there is this feeling (yes, angst) that comes upon men when we realize that we are in a state of being, but headed toward non-being or death. This feeling is one of almost utter despair and is sometimes accompanied with terror or depression.

I have this feeling. I have had this feeling since Pre-Kindergarten. I remember that as the time when I first experienced it. I was reflecting on the memories that my older brothers and sisters had of me and times before me. I could remember many of the events about me, but try as I might I could never remember any of their descriptions of time before me. As commonsensical as this seems to all of us, this just didn't make sense to me. I remembered everything when I was at that age (yes, I was strange.) Why shouldn't I remember this other stuff? So what if I wasn't born yet! I understood not remembering things that happened when I wasn't in the room or house, but not recalling events before I was born didn't click.

So, I was in my bed reflecting on my memories while waiting to go to sleep. Then I realized it. I wasn't born yet in the events described. In fact, It's 1986 or 87 and I was just born in 1982! What was I doing in 1980? Where was I in 1979? You mean I just sort of wasn't here?

Man, did I hate that feeling of just not existing. And here I am knowing that I was doing all this not existing for so long. It was (and still is) unsettling for me. I can't imagine not thinking, breathing, dreaming... being. Yet, it should be so easy to picture, because I've been doing that for a longer period of time than I've been being.

So, now we come to reflecting about death. One of my great fears is non-being. I feel the pain of a convict who refuses to go back to "that place." Non-being is a prison -- in my mind. Where I am not allowed to do anything -- not even think... or be. So, when I consider going back to non-being I despair. It changes my strong feelings of an eternal worldview. I feel eternal, yet, there is no guaruntee that I am eternal. People argue endlessly about being beyond human existance. Some say that we simply stop being. Others feel that there is a continuation of being in a different state.

I feel that I am eternal, but I don't know that I am. I just know that I don't know what comes next. To make the angst go away I trust my feelings and try to believe.

Back in the Game

After a four to five month hiatus from being involved with the stock market I have gotten back into it. I went ahead and put money into Starbucks, which was something I was wanting to do at the beginning of February... I just hadn't gotten around to it. Today is looking pretty good so far, it is already up 2%.

One thing that I am having a hard time with is deciding to put a stop order in place at 98% of my purchase price so that I can sell if I lose 2% in my position OR if I should put a limit order in place to sell if the stock price goes above 110% of the purchase price. This month I am going with the stop order... if I make over 10%, but it doesn't last long enough for me to notice and sell then that's just tough luck I guess.

Busy Busy

I have been really busy lately with school work, Joy visiting me, my birthday, and finding an apartment to move into by mid-March. So, I haven't exactly had time to sit down and blog, but I have anyway -- in OneNote. The problem, though, is that I haven't even had time to put my writings onto an easy drive and get them to where the Internet is.

Actually, there is also a second problem. I am torn about whether it is acceptable to bring the entries into MT and post-date them according to the OneNote time stamp or whatever I think that time of writing really is for the entry.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. My apologies to anyone who reads this regularly and was disappointed at not seeing many entries lately. I always hate that feeling of let down when I go to check a blog that is due for new content based on past posting habits.