When I'm Bored...

New Website Idea

2006-04-28T11:36:00.000-05:00

Money is starting to get a little tight around our house these days. The wife is still staying at home with the baby, and we're living off my income. With mortgage, bills, and doctor bills, money is running thin. The wife is going back to work next month, but only on a part-time basis. We said from the beginning that we didn't want daycare or family members raising our children while we worked.

I've always been intrigued by the idea of making money on the side in a work-from-home business. I've been doing a lot reading and research on the different ways to start a profitable website. I quickly became overwhelmed at the amount of information I found. But I've been digging through a lot of it, and I'm starting to get some idea on what I want to do.

The whole idea, obviously, is to come up with a very specific topic, one that would apply to a niche market. I've been brainstorming for several days trying to come up with an idea that hasn't already been established on the web, or maybe one that has been established but one that I could compete with. Once I have the foundation for an informative website, the next step would be to set up an affiliate relationship with a business that sells products related to my website. For example, if my website was all about vaccuum cleaners, I could have links to businesses that sold vaccuums. If somebody bought a vaccuum by clicking in from my site, I would get commission for that sale. Simple enough, right? It would be if only I could come up with "the next big idea". I'm tossing around some good ideas though, so hopefully I can get something established over the next few months.

Have any of you ever heard of "Site Build It!"? It's a website building company that has all of these tools bundled in together that help you build your site. They have a tool that will calculate keyword supply/demand to help you come up with the most profitable website idea.

If any of this interests you at all, I encourage you to check out the Site Build It! website. They present a very convincing case for using them to build a website. If you have a SBI website, please let me know how your experience has been with it. I'm anxious to hear some reviews about this site.

Random iPod song questionaire

2006-04-20T14:42:00.000-05:00

My friend Karyn discovered a cool questionaire, where you answer each question with the next song title that plays with your iPod on shuffle. I hardly ever fill answer these things, but since this one involved my iPod, here goes. Feel free to post answers to your own quiz in the comments, or in your own blog.

How does the world see you?
"Clarity", John Mayer (I hope the world sees me as clear.)

Will I have a happy life?
"Grey Street", DMB

What do my friends really think of me?
"Sorry, So Sorry", Howie Day (Hahahaha!)

Do people secretly lust after me?
"Beneath the Balcony", Iron & Wine (That's right. I'm sexy up here on this balcony. Lust all that you want to!)

How can I make myself happy?
"Holy Manna", Union Trio (How appropriate. Holy Manna is the only way to make yourself truly happy.)

What should I do with my life?
"He Woke Me Up Again", Sufjan Stevens (Sometimes I do feel asleep.)

Will I ever have children?
"Hold You In My Arms", Ray LaMontagne (I hold my baby in my arms every day.)

What is some good advice for me?
"Talk", Coldplay (Very appropriate, as I'm so bashful at times!)

How will I be remembered?
"Situations", Jack Johnson

What is my signature dancing song?
"New Slang", The Shins

What do I think my current theme song is?
"Ants Marching", DMB (Aren't we all ants, marching back and forth?)

What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
"Sitting Waiting Wishing", Jack Johnson (Waiting and wishing for what?)

What song will play at my funeral?
"Such Great Heights", Iron & Wine

What type of women do you like?
"Delicate", Damien Rice (I promise this is what came up)

What is my day going to be like?
"So Long, So Wrong", Alison Krauss & Union Station

I can't believe how true some of these came out! This is amazing.

The Muckrakers Contest - Win A FREE CD and T-Shirt!

2006-04-12T16:41:00.000-05:00

Some friends of mine are having a contest where you can win a copy of The Muckrakers new CD, Front of the Parade. You can also win a cool Muckrakers T-Shirt. If you haven't heard the Muckrakers yet, you need to now! Their music reminds me of a cross between Barenaked Ladies, Matchbox 20, and Guster. Their on-stage and lyrical humor create an awesome concert experience. Read an excellent in-depth review of Front of the Parade here.

Sign up for the contest here.

Stupid TV

2006-03-24T10:49:00.000-05:00

I guess I can kiss my TV goodbye. I had picked both Duke and Gonzaga
to be in the Final 4, and they both lost last night. I practically
have no chance at winning now.

Are You Bored With the Treadmill of Life?

2006-03-23T14:45:00.000-05:00

By Gary Simpson

Every week for years and years you get up in the morning, go to work, come home, pay the bills, get up again, go to work, come home, pay the bills. Sound familiar? You're on what I call "the treadmill of life."

Unless you are happy with this existence you had better start doing something to change it. Because, if you don't, in ten years time, and with a few more wrinkles and some more gray hair, you will still be getting up, going to work, coming home and paying the bills.

You see, most of us get into this routine. Pretty much we fall into it, obliviously. Everybody else is doing it. It's just the done thing. Or is it?

Well, who wrote the script?

If this is "normal" for you then I can almost guarantee that after years and years of doing it you will one day wake up and wonder why you keep doing it.

Maybe it will be next year, maybe in a few years, maybe it will take another ten or twenty or thirty years. Hey, maybe you are wondering about it right now! Are you?

What are you going to do about it? What is the defining event that will allow you to jump off the treadmill? To answer that, you need to know why you are on the treadmill in the first place. I can categorically state that 100% of people who are on the treadmill do it to pay those darn bills that seem to appear almost magically every day in our letter boxes.

Let me put you to the test. If you had no bills to pay and could exist comfortably without money would you still you get up every morning and tootle off to work? Well, would you? Do you have something else that you would rather do with your time? Do you enjoy battling the highways and the subways with hundreds of thousands of other commuters?

What are you going to do about it? To replace your income will open up your life to a whole new spectrum of options. Think about it.

But how can you achieve such a thing? How can you replace your income? How can you get off the treadmill that will command your life until you retire?

Just think - when you "retire" with that nice little super-annuation and retirement benefit - then you can REALLY enjoy yourself. Heck, maybe you can even take that ski trip that you have spent all your youth waiting for.

Have I got you thinking? I hope so! Don't wait until all your youth and health has been spent in the system before you realize that there could have been so much more to life.

This article comes with reprint rights providing no changes are made and the resource box below accompanies it.

To learn how you can get off the treadmill click here.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gary_Simpson

I can taste the victory

2006-03-23T10:22:00.000-05:00

March Madness is upon us. It's the perfect time of year for me. If I were not hindered by work, I could sit down and watch every single NCAA basketball game from Day 1 til the championship game. People all across the country paid their $5 and filled out a bracket in a winner-take-all office pool. This is the first year that I haven't participated in a money pool. The one I'm playing in is much much better.

The local ESPN radio station, 1340AM, is having a free bracket contest, where the winner will receive a 42 inch flat screen LCD TV from Best Buy. I emailed the station after the first two rounds were completed, to see where I stood. I had been keeping up with my score on a copied version of the bracket I turned in. I could tell that I was doing quite well. The station manager replied and said that I was tied with 3 other people for SECOND PLACE. He also said that the guy in first place had no chance whatsoever of winning, because the team he picked to win it all, had already lost. All 4 of my Final 4 teams are still in it. So I have a chance!

General Update - Baby

2006-03-22T13:04:00.000-05:00

Life has been grand over the last few months. Being a father is the
best experience I've ever had. Our little guy is almost 5 months old
now, and it amazes me how much he is growing and changing every day.
Everybody says that he looks just like me, except for his bright blue
eyes, which either come from my mom, or my wife's dad. I've started
introducing him to people as Mini Me.

Honestly speaking, I think he's the best baby I've ever seen. It may
sound biased, but I'm telling the truth. He never cries unless he is
hungry, or sleepy. He is happy the rest of the time. He doesn't even
cry when he fills his diapers with stinky poopy. The other night, he
must have pooped at 2 or 3 in the morning. We woke up the next
morning to a nasty surprise, and it was already starting to dry up.
He had a nasty diaper rash for a while after that, but he still didn't
fuss or cry about it.

He also is sleeping wonderfully. He takes 2 naps a day, and sleeps 12
hours a night. It was horrendous for the first 3 months or so, but we
finally got him in a sleep routine that is working very well. There
for a while, I didn't think I'd ever get a full night's sleep again.

Every day I go home for lunch and play with him for a few minutes.
His little face lights up when he sees me, and a big smile spreads
across his face. It's the best feeling ever. I hate having to go
back to work. He is only just now getting to the point where he will
laugh out loud. It's hilarious to watch him try to laugh. There for
a while, he just couldn't figure it out.

I can't believe how fast he is growing, and it seems like yesterday
that we were bringing him home from the hospital. I hope we're doing
everything right.

General Update - House

2006-03-22T13:02:00.000-05:00

Springtime is rapidly approaching. Acutally, Spring is already here.
But you wouldn't know it if you walked outside right now. It snowed a
little last night and it was 28 this morning as I came to work. But
we have had some nice warm days recently. My birthday was the 11th,
and it got up to 80 that day. So Mother Nature had a great birthday
present for me.

Warm weather means that I can finally get out of the house and do some
yardwork. I asked for yard tools for my birthday, since we now
finally own some yard to work in. For presents, I received a shovel,
rake, hedge clippers, water hose, and hose reel. The house's previous
owner was a landscaping freak, and had flower beds all over the place.
So last Saturday, I took my clippers and cleaned out all of the dead
flowers. It is my goal to remove some of his flower beds, and fill
with dirt and sow with grass. He left a huge pile of topsoil in the
back corner of the back yard for me to work with. But I am afraid
that this task will require more than just a shovel and a rake. I
hope to find a neighbor with a small tractor and loader.

We also have no lawn mower. I don't know how I'm going to handle this
situation yet, as mowing the yard is a necessity. The wife is still
staying at home with the baby, so we're still on one income. Money is
tight and we simply can't afford a lawn mower, unless we get a push
mower. And I really don't want to have to push-mow our yard. It
would take ages! Hopefully, we can borrow a mower until we can figure
out what we're going to do.

The inside of the house is looking good. We finally unpacked the last
box a few days ago. Inside the last box, we found a package of
"Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans" that we had bought on a whim at the
grocery store. Like two idiots, we opened the bag and sampled every
single flavor. From Lemon Drops to Booger, to Vomit, we had them all.
It was fun.

Everything else in the house finally has a place, and I have finally
learned to remember where most everything has been put. I say most,
because there is one thing that neither one of us can find that we
really need. We still have a few pictures to hang on the walls, but
the rest of the house is in great shape.

General Update - Job

2006-03-22T12:43:00.000-05:00

My job is fantastic. I couldn't be happier with it. I can't really
say much about it, because I work with confidential data, but I can
say that I am a Data Analyst, and I work with the data in Excel. I
love working with numbers, and that is exactly what I do, all day
long. I'm sure it will eventually get boring and monotonous, but it
hasn't yet. And that's probably the main reason that I haven't been
posting to the blog much. Because I haven't been "bored" at work that
much. And that was the whole reason for me creating the blog in the
first place. So am I bored now? Yes, slightly. But only because I
am caught up with work and am in the middle of some downtime.

Sellout

2006-03-15T18:02:00.000-05:00

I had all but given up on this blog, until I had a look at my
statcounter history. Surprisingly, it seems that there are a few of
you out there that come by every day to see if I've posted anything
new. But even more surprisingly, is the fact that I get 15 to 20 hits
a day from people who type "i'm bored" into either Yahoo! or MSN
searches. Of the millions of results that are returned for the "i'm
bored" phrase, I am somehow the number 2 result.

So in creating my blog, choosing my title was either a stroke of
brilliance, or just dumb luck. Either way, I'm still getting tons of
hits on a daily basis. So, I thought I'd try to make a little money
off of my brilliance (or dumb luck) and add Google's AdSense to my
sidebar. The wifey is a stay-at-home Mom now, and we could use any
extra cash that we can muster up. So, if you are indeed truly bored,
why not help out a single-income family with a 4 month old baby, and
click on some google ads. The little guy has to eat!

I promise to start posting again very soon. We still have no internet
at home, and I still have a hard time of finding time at work to post.
But work is slowing down, and I have lots to catch everybody up on.
Being a new father is quite adventurous!

..keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars..

2005-12-30T10:55:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted anything music related in a very long time, and since
my blog appearance is dominated with music, I suppose I should post
something musical.

To those of you iPod or iTunes users, you know that iTunes keeps track
of your song playcounts. Since I've had my iPod for most of 2005, I
thought it would be a great idea to create my own Top 100 of 2005. I
created a playlist where I ranked my songs by the number of times that
I listened to them throughout the year. I took the top 100 and
flipped the sorting so that I could have a countdown to my favorite
songs.

I'm listening to it today at work, and it's making the day fly by. My
goal is to make it all the way through. I'm on song 88 working
backwards. iTunes said the playlist was 6.5 hours long, so I should
get through it during my 8 hour workday.
I know you're on the edge of your seats now, waiting for the
unveiling. So without further ado, I bring to you Jason's Top 100 of
2005.

100: Nickel Creek - Jealous Of The Moon
99: Ray LaMontagne - Hold You in My Arms
98: Sufjan Stevens - For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless
in Ypsilanti
97: Iron & Wine - Fever Dream
96: Nada Surf - Inside of Love
95: Iron & Wine - In My Lady's House
94: Union Trio - Holy Manna
93: Ray LaMontagne - Hannah
92: Dave Matthews Band - Grey Street
91: The Shins - Girl on the Wing
90: Iron & Wine - Each Coming Night
89: Sufjan Stevens - Dress Looks Nice On You
88: Iron & Wine - Communion Cups And Someone's Coat
87: Ryan Adams - Dreaming's Free (I'm Alright Today)
86: Damien Rice - Delicate
85: Jack Johnson - Cupid
84: Iron & Wine - Cinder and Smoke
83: Sufjan Stevens - Chicago
82: Gavin DeGraw - Chariot
81: Howie Day - Brace Yourself
80: Amos Lee - Arms of a Woman
79: Dave Matthews Band - Ants Marching
78: Nickel Creek - Why Should The Fire Die?
77: the muckrakers - When the Morning Comes
76: Dave Matthews Band - What Would You Say
75: Iron & Wine - Upward Over the Mountain
74: Ray LaMontagne - Trouble
73: the muckrakers - through my door
72: The Shins - Those to Come
71: Iron & Wine - The Sea and the Rhythm
70: The Shins - The Celibate Life
69: Iron & Wine - Teeth in the Grass
68: Howie Day - Sorry, So Sorry
67: Ray LaMontagne - Shelter
66: Iron & Wine - On Your Wings
65: Jack Johnson - No Other Way
64: Iron & Wine - Lion's Mane
63: Amos Lee - Keep It Loose, Keep It Tight
62: Iron & Wine - Jesus the Mexican Boy
61: Gavin DeGraw - I Don't Want To Be
60: Guster - Homecoming King
59: Jack Johnson - Holes to Heaven
58: Sufjan Stevens - Good Man Is Hard To Find
57: The Shins - Girl Inform Me
56: Iron & Wine - Free Until They Cut Me Down
55: Dave Matthews Band - Dreamgirl
54: John Mayer - Clarity
53: Blues Traveler - Carolina Blues
52: Iron & Wine - Beneath the Balcony
51: Jack Johnson - Belle
50: Dave Matthews Band - Bartender
49: John Mayer - 3x5
48: Jack Johnson - Situations
47: The Soggy Bottom Boys - I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow (radio version)
46: The Shins - Gone for Good
45: Iron & Wine - Her Tea Leaves
44: Jack Johnson - Crying Shame
43: Sufjan Stevens - He Woke Me Up Again
42: The Shins - Pink Bullets
41: Howie Day - Collide
40: Iron & Wine - Muddy Hymnal
39: Sufjan Stevens - Holland
38: Jack Johnson - Posters
37: John Mayer - Neon
36: Jack Johnson - Breakdown
35: Iron & Wine - Love and Some Verses
34: Elvis Presley - Love Me Tender
33: Ben Harper - Steal My Kisses
32: Maroon 5 - Sunday Morning
31: Jack Johnson - Flake
30: Beck - Girl
29: Iron & Wine - Jezebel
28: Jack Johnson - Banana Pancakes
27: Jack Johnson - Constellations
26: Joe Purdy - Wash Away
25: Jack Johnson - Do You Remember
24: Iron & Wine - Sunset Soon Forgotten
23: Jack Johnson - If I Could
22: The Shins - Fighting in a Sack
21: Jack Johnson - Sitting, Waiting, Wishing
20: Iron & Wine - Woman King
19: the muckrakers - Working My Way
18: Iron & Wine - Such Great Heights
17: Jack Johnson - Never Know
16: Iron & Wine - Naked as We Came
15: The Shins - Turn A Square
14: John Mayer - Bigger Than My Body
13: The Shins - Know Your Onion!
12: The Shins - The Past and Pending
11: Damien Rice - Cannonball
10: Iron & Wine - Evening on the Ground (Lilith's Song)
9: Jack Johnson - Staple It Together
8: Iron & Wine - dearest forsaken
7: Jack Johnson - Good People
6: Iron & Wine - Passing Afternoon
5: The Shins - Young Pilgrims
4: The Shins - So Says I
3: Jack Johnson - Better Together
2: The Shins - Caring Is Creepy
1: The Shins - New Slang

And if you're wondering, I listened to New Slang 31 times in 2005, and
I listened to Nickel Creek's "Jealous of the Moon" only 6 times.

After doing this list, I realize that I need more variety in my music.
This list is DOMINATED by The Shins, Jack Johnson, Iron and Wine, and
Sufjan Stevens. Heck, my top 10 are all Shins, JJ and I&W. So my New
Year's Resolutions are to try new music, and start drinking water
instead of Mountain Dew.

Happy New Year's to you all. I hope you have a happy and prosperous one.

I'm Still Here

2005-12-21T15:28:00.000-05:00

Does anybody still come here? If so, I sincerely apologize for not posting since our son's birth over a month ago. We've been extremely busy, as you might guess, and the blog has taken a back seat to many other things. Since his birth, the baby has been in the hospital for 3 nights (more on that in a minute), we have completely moved to Bowling Green, and I am still adjusting to my new job.

Our son is 6 weeks old now and is the cutest thing ever. He is starting to smile, laugh, and he responds with cooing when you talk to him. I mentioned that he was in the hospital earlier. He has acid reflux really bad, and the reflux has damaged his airway. Doctors say he has a "floppy airway". It causes him to have sleep apnea, where his airway will shut off for a few seconds while he is sleeping, and then he gets choked and gasps for air. He was in the childrens' hospital for three nights over Thanksgiving. It was really scary to us before we took him to the doctor. We all had to take shifts and stay up with him during the night. We were afraid that he would not start breathing again once his airway closed. They gave us an apnea monitor to hook him up to at night. It will alarm if he has a bad apnea episode. So this has allowed us to sleep much better. I'm crossing my fingers, but I think that he is starting to get into a good sleeping routine, finally. It was rough for the first few weeks. Now, he eats around 9 or 10 pm, and will go to sleep soon after. He wakes up around 4 or 5 to eat again, and then he goes right back to sleep. Then he sleeps til 8 or 9, waking up to eat again. His eating was very sporadic there for a while, eating from every 2 to 4 hours, and when he wasn't eating, he was crying. It made for some rough nights. But bless my wife though, because she lets me sleep through the week since I have to get up early for work. I then sacrifice my sleep on weekends to help her out so that she can catch up on sleep then.

We have finally moved! It is so awesome to finally be back in Bowling Green full time. We've been moved into the house for three weeks now. Boxes are still stacked here and there, and we aren't even close to having everything put away yet. It's been a slow process. My wife is staying at home with the baby, but she hasn't been able to do as much as she wanted to, because he needs so much attention. She has gotten other family members to come and babysit once or twice a week, which has given her time to put a few things away. I am off for a few days over Christmas, so hopefully the two of us being at home will allow us to get the house in order.

My new job has definitely gotten better than when I first started. I would sit here for days at a time, twiddling my thumbs without anything to do. The office here is divided up into several different departments, and the different departments are busy at different times of the month. My department is busy during the first 2 weeks of each month, while other departments that we share data with, are busy during the rest of the month. I started my job in the third week of a month, therefore leaving me with nothing to do for two weeks. Then when it finally came time for me to train and learn my job, the baby was born and I was out for that. So, I had to wait another month before finally learning each of my duties. I have performed my duties on my own for one full month now, and I love it.

Again, I apologize for not posting in so long. My priorities have definitely changed since the baby has been born. To give you an example, our computer is still sitting in a box. Before he was born, I was on the computer every single day. I guess if we had internet at the house, the computer would be unboxed and running, but we don't have internet. And won't for a while.

I'm sitting here trying to think of a funny story to tell about the learning experiences that come from a new baby, but am having a hard time coming up with something good. There have been lots of funny times, and lots of times where I was ready to rip my hair out and stand on my head. But the funny and cute times makes me forget about those nasty times (almost forget about them anyways).

I guess I could talk about baby poop. Pooping is always a funny conversation topic. Especially when you're talking about babies. Right now, his poop looks just like creamy caramel with sesame seeds scattered all throughout it. I hear that this is perfectly normal, even though he doesn't eat caramel, and he definitely doesn't eat anything with sesame seeds on it. And he is the gasiest baby I've ever seen. When he farts, you hear it. And when he poops, you almost have to cover your ears it is so loud. He grunts and gets all red in the face and everything. It's quite comical. Until it's time to clean it up. I almost got pooped on for the first time last night. I try to change as many diapers as I can when I'm home with him, to give my wife a break. I was holding him last night when he almost blew his diaper off from the force of some poop. We've learned to wait a few minutes before changing a diaper, because it takes him a while to complete the process. I waited several minutes last night before changing him. I had his diaper off and had his bottom all cleaned up and was reaching for a new diaper. Just then I heard a small puff of air come out of his butt. I had just enough time to grab a new wipe and hold it in place to catch a little more poo. It was gross, but all I could do was laugh. I caught it all and he didn't make a mess, and it was only a little. And you'll notice that I said "We've learned to wait..." earlier. My wife has gotten pooped on more than once. If I didn't have the warning fart, he would have surely pooped on me. I won't even get started on how many times he's peed on us. I think baby boys have fire hoses in their penises. At least ours does. It shoots halfway across the room.

I'll go ahead and apologize now, but I can't promise a new post anytime soon. Christmas time is here and we'll be driving all over the place to show the baby off to family. I do promise to start posting more once we get internet at home. But that might not be until January or February. To those of you who keep coming back every day, you're probably starting to expect nothing new. So I hope I've surprised you with something new today. And thanks for the dedicated readership.

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas, and please remember the true and only reason why we celebrate this season.

He's here!

2005-11-10T11:49:00.000-05:00

Disclaimer: I apologize for keeping you all in suspense for so many days. Everything has been extremely hectic, as you can probably imagine. Plus, I try my best to keep this blog anonymous, and I hadn't decided how I was going to post this yet.

He's here! Our son was born Sunday Nov 6th, at 4:39 PM. He was 7 pounds, 15 ounces, and was 21.5 inches long. Since all babies look alike when they're so young, I see nothing wrong with posting the hospital's picture of him.

Picture

We've all been on a roller coaster ride since Sunday morning. My wife's water broke on the toilet at 7:30 Sunday morning, and we were at the hospital around 10. She had contractions all night Saturday night. The contractions lightened up when we got to the hospital, but since her water had broken, he had to go ahead and come. The doctor sent orders to give her patosin to make her contractions strengthen. And it worked. She had an epidural around 1 pm, and the labor progressed quite quickly from then on.

At 4 pm, it was time to push. My wife's doctor is a great guy, and he's very funny. He was cracking jokes while she was pushing. The epidural was working so well, she was laughing and cutting up during the whole thing. One of the nurses finally said "It's time to get serious! We gotta get this baby out!" We all had another laugh at this, before actually getting serious. Just a few short minutes later, he popped out and said hello.

We went home Tuesday afternoon. It's been a whole new experience being at home, as opposed to being at the hospital. When we wanted to sleep, we just called the nursery and they came and got him for a few hours. There's no nursery at home. Last night and Tuesday night were pretty rough. He cried all night both nights. I'm back at work this morning, and am quite exhausted. But other than the lack of sleep my wife and I are both experiencing, everything is perfect. It's hard to believe that I'm actually a father now. My life has been changed forever.

IT'S TIME!

2005-11-06T07:49:00.000-05:00

WIFE'S WATER JUST BROKE. GOING TO HOSPITAL NOW.
STAY TUNED FOR MORE.

HOLY COW!!!

Gellin' Like a Fellon

2005-10-27T13:20:00.000-05:00

I have this certain pair of black dress shoes that I absolutely love. They're cool and stylish, and I got them really cheap from a discount shoe store here in town. They would have been over $100 full price at a department store, but I got them for under $30. I hardly ever get to wear them though, because most of my pants are khaki, and therefore the wife suggests (or demands) that I wear brown shoes with the tan khakis. .

Now that I get to play dressup for work every day of the week, I get to break out my navy pants, and therefore my stylish Kenneth Cole black shoes. Last week when I wore them, they really hurt my feet. I tried them again today, and by lunch time my feet were throbbing. So on my lunchbreak, I went to the corner CVS store and grabbed some Dr. Scholl's massaging gel insoles. So ladies and gentlemen, it's official... I'm Gellin' like Magellan. Or a like felon. I'm in Heaven, cause I'm soooooo gellin'.

And they really are comfy.

Work Perks

2005-10-26T14:38:00.000-05:00

My golf swing is starting to look pretty darn good for the upcoming spring and summer golfing season. You can hardly imagine the surprise on my face when I found out that my workplace has a gym, and that this gym has a golf swing net. And to top it off, gym membership is free.

I've been grabbing fast food a lot over the last two weeks, since my parents' house is 30 min away and since we aren't living in the new house yet. Today I grabbed a quick lunch from Chick-fil-a and had an extra 30 minutes to waste during my lunch break. I thought that it was the perfect time to try out the golf net. I grabbed my golf glove out of the car and went straight to the gym.

They have a bag full of clubs and a big basket of range balls. I ended up having about 20 minutes to hit balls, and I hit roughly 40 shots. It was fantastic. This is going to do wonders for my golf game. My glove is now going to be a permanent resident inside my cube until spring arrives. Velcro sticks to my walls, so I just have it hanging up on the wall. I've already gotten an "ew, what's that?!" from a coworker.

BTW, this is my first entry of submitting a post by email. Let's hope it works ok.

First Week

2005-10-22T20:09:00.000-05:00

I know lots of you were probably expecting a "First day at work" post, or maybe a "Second day at work" post. Sorry to disappoint you. You'll have to settle for a "First Week" post instead. I had some free time on Tuesday morning and I had perfect intentions of doing my "First day at work" post, only to go to blogger.com and get an "Access Denied" screen. CRAP. Then I tried to go directly to my blog, only to be denied again. On the Access Denied screen, it also said that all message boards and online clubs were blocked. DOUBLE CRAP.

I then went to check out my fantasy sports page and see how my fantasy football teams fared over the weekend. Once again, Access Denied. TRIPLE CRAP. This time, it said that games and fantasy sports were blocked. In just a few short minutes, I realized that I wasn't in Kansas anymore. If blog browsing, message board browsing, and fantasy sports were all blocked, then I guess that meant that I would be working a little bit harder than I had at my previous job.

Besides the blocked internet content, the new job is awesome. The people are great, and the atmosphere is wonderful. I am in the research and analysis department, and my job title is Forecast Analyst. And no, I'm not forecasting the weather. I'll be analyzing sales forecasts for my company and will help determine how much of our products will be shipped to the stores that sell our products.

Once again, I am in a cube. I was hoping for a step-up at the new job, and thought I might get my own office with a door and everything. But I'm in a cube again. It is a much nicer cube though, so I guess that will have to do. My department is located right on the edge of the main entrance and lobby. There is a stream that runs through the lobby, with water trickling down the rocks and everything. I had to pee several times throughout the week. They say you get used to it after a couple of weeks though. The ceiling is full of skylights, and the sun shines directly into my eyes for about an hour every day. This is good though. I like seeing blue sky above me. The roof is shaped like a funnel in a couple of places. When it rains, water gushes down the funnel and through a hole and into the stream below. I haven't seen this yet, but I'm looking forward to the first big rain.

I also get free milk anytime I want. It's a very weird perq, but one that I enjoy. They have 2%, skim, and chocolate, and it is served fountain style in the canteens. After the first week, I'm averaging one glass of 2% and two glasses of chocolate a day.

Like I said, the job is great. But the best part is being back home. I didn't realize how much I missed it. Every evening after work, I head straight to our new house and get started on my second job. With help from family and friends, I have gotten the wallpaper stripped from both the dining room and kitchen. The baby's room has also been painted, thanks to help from Derick and Jeff. So my first week of working on the house has been productive. I'm staying with my parents through the week, since we haven't moved into the house yet. That's been a bit weird too, but in a good sort of way.

I just found out that blogger has a feature where you can post to your blog by sending an email to an address, which in-turn will publish to your blog. So since I can't browse blogs at work, at least I'll still be able to keep posting to my own.

Am I Immature?

2005-10-13T20:39:00.001-05:00

We've been going to childbirth classes for the past few weeks, every Wednesday night. Whenever we tell people this, they always say "Oh, Lamaze lessons?" but these classes aren't just about Lamaze. They're about everything, from the beginning and end of labor, and beyond. We've had three classes and we've only talked about Lamaze for about 5 minutes. I saw my first up-close-and-personal video of a baby being born at the very first lesson. There was no warning whatsoever! We start watching this very modest video about the stages of labor and, all of a sudden, the camera goes close-up on a woman's vagina and the little sucker slipped right out. I was expecting a video, but not on the first night. Whoa. But the classes have been very helpful and I am very glad that we're going.

These classes only briefly touch on breastfeeding. They have another class for this and they encourage taking this extra class for those that are going to breastfeed. Our breastfeeding class was earlier tonight, and this is where the title of this entry comes into play. My wife works at the hospital where we are having the baby, and all of the classes are at this hospital as well. She worked today, and I met her in the lobby before class. I went into the class with the expectation of seeing lots of boobs. And I was not disappointed. There were boobs in the pamphlets, diagrams of boobs and the milk glands up on the walls, and the teacher even had a stuffed boob that she held up to her own chest while demonstrating the different techniques.

To be a guy with very little baby knowledge, and have even less breastfeeding knowledge, I was a bit embarassed through the whole thing. And I caught myself from chuckling under my breath a few times while the teacher said words like "nipple", "pinch", "squeeze", and "massage". And, much like the other classes we've had, a video was shown. And again, it started out quite modest, and progressed to the point where the boobs started popping out left and right.

After a few chuckles and getting past the immaturedness (word?) in me, the class was very educational. I really did learn a lot about the female breast, and I'm quite amazed at what it is capable of doing.

Unemployment

2005-10-06T13:51:00.000-05:00

We closed on our house last Friday, so we are now homeowners! After signing our names a thousand and one times, the owner gave us the keys. It was a great feeling walking into the house for the first time, knowing that (after 360 payments) it was ours. We went straight to the dining room and started peeling wallpaper from the wall. I think we're going to be pretty lucky with that. The top decorative layer peels right off, and the glue layer will come off with water and scraping. And the walls were primed underneath.

So a week ago today was my last day of working. I've been off for a week. It's been niiiice. It's almost been like a vacation. I've stayed up late and slept late every day. I got the new Tiger Woods 2006 golf game and I've been playing the heck out of it. If you haven't played it, it has a "Game Face" feature, where you can create a golfer and customize the face to make it look like yourself. Mine looks EXACTLY like me. My virtual golfer started out with roughly the same skill level as the real me, but has quickly progressed and he could kick my butt on a real course, no problem.

But for most of the week, I've been pretty bored. There just isn't much to do in this little apartment. I'm longing to be working on the new house, but that would mean I would have to leave my wife up here by herself. She is still working by the way. She's in her 35th week of pregnancy now. She's beginning to wish the little guy would go ahead and come. But he'll be here soon enough.

Last Day

2005-09-29T09:08:00.000-05:00

Today is my last day at my job. All day today I've been thinking to myself, "This is the last time I'll park here in this spot", "This is the last time I'll show my ID badge to the guard", "This is the last time I'll login to my computer", "This is my last no. 2 in this bathroom," etc. It is a sad day for me, but I just have to try and think about all of the happy things that are to come.

My new life will officially start tomorrow. We close on our house tomorrow. I just walked over to the credit union and transferred about 80% of our savings into my checking account. And tomorrow I will write the biggest check that I've ever written in my life, and in exchange we will receive the keys to our new home.

Then in two weeks, on October 17th, I will start my new job in Bowling Green, two hours away from here. And then in six weeks I will be welcoming our new son into the world. I can't believe that things are happening so fast.

But today, I have to say goodbye to many of my friends. These are people that I have spent 9 hours a day with over the last 2 and a half years. I will miss them severely.

Snap, crackle, pop!

2005-09-20T10:45:00.000-05:00

No, not rice krispies. My neck! I've never been to a chiropractor before. Not before Sunday afternoon that is. My wife has been going off and on since she was a little girl. Since being pregnant, she's had a lot of lower back pain. We went to Bowling Green again this last weekend for a baby shower, and we didn't make it there in time for her to go to her normal chiropractor on Saturday.

She has a family friend that is a retired chiro. She went to him until he retired. He put all of his equipment in his basement, and he does part time work in his basement now. She called him on Saturday afternoon and asked if he would have any time on Sunday after church to give her an adjustment. He said he would be glad to, so we drove over to his house after we had lunch on Sunday.

I've never seen a back adjustment, so I went to the basement with them to watch. He popped my wife's back and did everything he was going to do to her and she got off his adjustment table. Then he looked over to me and told me to lay down. I said, "huh?" And he told me again to lay down on his table. I said, "okay." I truly have been having some back and neck pain lately and have been more and more curious as to how it would feel to have an adjustment. My wife has always said it was wonderful.

So I laid down and he rubbed all over my back, trying to get me to relax. Then, out of nowhere, he pushed down hard and "pop, pop, pop!" all the way down my back. Then he made me turn my head to the side and he leaned with all his weight on my neck. Major poppage. It hurt at first, but felt amazing right after. Then I turned my neck the other way and had some more major poppage. My neck hasn't hurt since.

Then he got me on my side and felt of my pelvis. He said my pelvis was higher on one side, by about an inch. So I laid on my side and pulled one leg up. He pressed hard on my knee of that leg, and hard on my shoulder and twisted my back around so hard that I felt my pelvis fall back into place. Again, it hurt a little at first, but felt amazing when it was over.

After he did all the popping, he made me stand up. He took my half-inch thick wallet out of my back pocket and made me stand on it. Then he said to try and imagine this sensation happening to my hip all of the time, because I always sit on it. And it made perfect sense. He told me to never sit on my wallet while driving long distances, and to take it out when I'm at work.

It's been two days now since my adjustment, and my neck and back have felt wonderful. I think I may start going to my wife's chiropractor every once in a while from now on.

How did this happen?

2005-09-16T07:54:00.000-05:00

I haven't really been watching my stat counter as often as I used to. I used to watch it every single day, because I was fascinated that people actually came to my site. Now the fascination is long gone, and I might look at the counter once a week. I just looked at it and noticed that I'm getting TONS of hits from MSN.com's search engine.

If you go to www.msn.com and type in 'i'm bored' with no quotation marks or anything, you get 4,301,914 results. Guess who is the number 1 result.... me! I don't know how in the heck this happened. This makes me feel special. If you've come here looking for something to do when you're bored, I hope I haven't let you down. I feel somewhat obligated to provide some sort of entertainment for all of you bored folks. About the only thing I can do is point you to some sites that I go to when I'm bored at work.

Lately, I've been wasting lots of time at eBaum's World. It has a lot of games, funny videos, funny audio clips, optical illusion stuff, etc. It is the ultimate site to go to if you're bored. Then there's also the flash game site that I used to waste time on. But I've masted most every game there, so it's not so much fun to me anymore.

Feel free to leave comments on any other sites you may know of that are great to waste time on if you're bored. I'll have to add a link section of "bored" sites.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Trailer!

2005-09-15T10:15:00.000-05:00

The full length trailer for the new Harry Potter movie was released this morning. Watch it here!

Click here for Larger Version

Stargazing treat

2005-09-08T22:10:00.000-05:00

I've always loved stargazing. I always keep my eye on astronomy websites for upcoming rare stargazing opportunities. Tuesday night presented another awesome viewing. The crescent moon teamed up with Venus and Jupiter to form a straight line across the western horizon. I grabbed my digital camera and tripod and snapped these pictures.

In order to snap a good picture of stars at night, your camera must be able to make long exposures. This allows more light to "soak in" to the camera. My camera is able to take a 5 to 6 second exposure. I zoomed out and was able to capture a passing car and it's streaking head and tail lights.

I've been tagged

2005-09-08T08:26:00.000-05:00

I don't normally agree to do this type of thing, but this time I thought... what the heck? I've been "tagged" by Jeff. Plus, my blog hasn't been top priority lately. This'll give you a chance to get to know me a little more.

10 years ago: (1995) I was 15, wow. I was a sophmore in high school. I had just played my first round of golf ever, and I was on the junior varsity golf team. I was beating kids at golf that had been playing their whole life and everybody thought I would be awesome. I did get better, but it didn't get me anywhere.

5 years ago:(2000) I had just started my junior year at WKU. My wife and I had been dating since January. And I was working evenings for the US Postal Service, at the Remote Encoding Center in Bowling Green.

yesterday: Yesterday was my first workday of the week, after a long weekend. My wife had her regular doctor appointment. I took a long lunch to go with her. The baby is fine. We had dinner at Cracker Barrel, because that is our favorite place to eat, and my wife's birthday was Tuesday (and we couldn't eat there on her actual birthday).

5 snacks I enjoy: Reese's peanut butter cups, Nabs, Ice Cream, chocloate "Snack Pack", bananas

5 songs I know all the words to: Pig (Dave Matthews Band), Best of What's Around (DMB), New Slang (The Shins), Can't Help Falling in Love (Elvis; the song I play my guitar and sing to my wife when I want brownie points :) ), Amazing Grace

5 things i would do with 100 million dollars: Buy a mansion, two new cars, courtside season tickets to Rupp Arena, education for my unborn children, donation to my church

5 places I would run away to: Scotland (birthplace of golf), Hawaii, Yellowstone National Park, Alaska, Grand Cayman Islands

5 things I would never wear: Cowboy hat, female clothing, checkered pants, earring, leisure suit

5 tv shows that I love: Andy Griffith, Friends, Blue Collar Comedy, That 70's Show, Extreme Home Makeover

5 bad habits: Forgeting names, staying up too late, being lazy with house work, wasting time on stupid stuff, chewing my nails

5 biggest joys: God, My family, My friends, Music, Being outside for the last hour before sunset

5 favorite toys: iPod, computer, guitar, golf clubs, recliner

4 people I’m tagging: 4 people??? I doubt if I tagged 4 people they would fill this out for themselves. If you're a regular reader and haven't done something like this, then consider yourself tagged. Let me know if you decide to do this.

New job... check. Baby furniture... check.

2005-09-01T10:07:00.000-05:00

New House...CHECK!

The owner of the house that we were interested in finally gave us a call back. He was on vacation in Montana for 10 days. We let him know that we were interested, and we started negotiating price right over the phone. We verbally agreed on a price. So yesterday we drove down to Bowling Green and met with our lender. He looked over the contract with us and said it all looked good. Then we met the owner at the house and we signed the contract! So in 30 days, the house will be ours! We're so excited. The house is wonderful.

There is a TON of hideous wallpaper in this house and it all must come down. Who's idea was it to put up wallpaper like this?!

Dining Room

Spare bathroom

Kitchen (dining room through the door)

I mean, this stuff is hideous. I guess I have a lot of work to do once we can start moving stuff in. Anybody ever had to remove this much wallpaper before? How hard is it? How long will it take?

Radio.Blog Update 6

2005-08-26T16:26:00.000-05:00

Here's another Radio.Blog update. These are some of my favorite songs at the moment. Hope you enjoy!

Catch My Disease - Ben Lee
Float On - Ben Lee
Just Pretend - The Bens
The Blower's Daughter - Damien Rice
Ain't No Love - David Gray
Sunshine (Feat. Jack Johnson & Zach Gill) - G. Love
One Love - Hootie & The Blowfish
She Says - Howie Day
Each Coming Night - Iron & Wine
Dearest Forsaken - Iron & Wine
Please Me Like you Want to - Jack Johnson & Ben Harper
l Love The Rain The Most - Joe Purdy
Wash Away - Joe Purdy
Inside of Love - Nada Surf
In The Aeroplane Over The Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel
Casimir Pulaski Day - Sufjan Stevens

House Hunting

2005-08-23T15:31:00.000-05:00

We looked at houses again on Thursday and Friday of last week. We've probably looked at over 20 houses now total. But we may have found the one!

We helped ourselves to a fancy lunch on Thursday, courtesy of my new employer :), then headed over to the realtor's office. We looked at a few houses that we hadn't seen yet, then we looked at our favorite houses again that we found from the first house hunting trip. Nothing really jumped out at us. Then Thursday night we went driving around by ourselves looking for houses that were for sale by owner. These obviously, don't show up in the realtor's database search.

Everytime that I had a job interview in my year-long job search, we would always drive through a certain subdivision and we dreamed of living in it. This is the subdivision that would be perfect for us. It's very convenient in that it is nearly halfway between my parents and her parents. It's also not far from our church, and it's only five to 10 minutes outside of town. It's the perfect location.

On Thursday night while driving around by ourselves, we drove through our subdivision. We found a house that was "for sale by owner". Jackpot! We called the number and the owner said he could show it to us immediately. He said he was going on vacation to Montana, leaving on Friday morning, so we could either see it then or wait a week until he made it back home. So we chose to see it then. He is currently living in a new house with his new wife, so we waited in the driveway for them to arrive. He showed us the house, and we fell in love. Three bed, two bath, and just over 1600 sq ft.

So now we're waiting until he gets home before we can make an offer. We really need to be buying a house soon, and all of this waiting has been horrible.

Huge BUG

2005-08-16T21:03:00.000-05:00

Since Mother Nature has decided not to give us any rain over the last several days, I'm having to water our flowers and tomato plant on our porch on a daily basis. We're proud of our little porch and the plants that we've decorated it with. I don't eat tomatoes, but it's been fun watching it grow. The wife says the tomatoes have been excellent though. And for the flowers, I have no idea what kind these are, just that they're white and pink, and are always in constant bloom.

Click for bigger version

One day last week I was watering like normal. I went over to the tomato plant and this praying mantis was staring me down. I swear this is the biggest praying mantis I've ever seen in my life. I thought it was going to pick one of the tomatoes and pack it off to his nest or something. It was literally about 6 inches long.

Click for extreme closeup

Bowling Green, here we come

2005-08-16T09:27:00.000-05:00

I called yesterday and officially accepted the position! I don't know my start date yet, but it will be sometime in mid-October. They said I could finish out my job here at the Census. They also said I could wait until after the baby was born, but that won't be possible. As much as I hate this, I will be moving down to Bowling Green without my wife. We don't want to switch doctors so close to the due date, so she'll be staying here until the baby is born.

I thought that once I found a job that the stress and pressure would be relieved. But it hasn't at all. It's gotten worse! House hunting has suddenly become very important. I am very lucky, in that I have a relative in the mortgage business. He has been very helpful.

The reason that I have to start before the baby is born, is so that we can be approved for a mortgage. We're house hunting again on Thursday and Friday. Hopefully we'll be able to find one we like. If so, we'll try to close everything so that I can start painting and preparing the house in the weeks before the baby is born. That way I won't be bored out of my mind and it'll give me something to do instead of worry about my pregnant wife. Plus this will give us the chance to bring him straight to our new house after he is born.

After a year of searching...

2005-08-11T15:44:00.000-05:00

...I'VE FINALLY BEEN OFFERED A JOB! Yes folks, I just got the call with a job offer at the company that I interviewed with a few weeks ago. The pay cut will be hard to swallow, but it's either that or the unemployment line. They want me to start as soon as possible. But I explained how my wife doesn't want to switch doctors so close to the due date, and that we want to stay here as long as possible. He understood, saying that he has three sons of his own. So he said I could start after the baby was born. This is fantastic! A new phase of my life is about to begin. I'll keep you all posted as things progress.

And here it is. The thing I've been needing for weeks and weeks...
SIGH!!!!

Heat

2005-08-11T14:12:00.000-05:00

What is up with this heat lately? I think this has been the hottest summer in my lifetime. They said on the radio this morning that this is the 31st day of this summer that it has been 90 or higher. Last year at this point, there had been FIVE.

Look at this!!! From Weather.com.

Right Now at 3:14 pm for
Jeffersonville, IN (47130)

Partly Cloudy

97°F
Feels Like
102°F

I'm golfing today at 5:30. I'm downing some water right now, hoping that I don't have a heat stroke or die of dehydration.

My poor pregnant wife. She just started her 7th month of pregnancy, in what has been the hottest month of the year.

Cool weather, where are you?

Wash Away

2005-08-11T12:59:00.000-05:00

Fans of the television show Lost might recognize the song by Joe Purdy called Wash Away. Several months ago, somebody that knows my musical tastes asked me to listen to Joe Purdy. He said that he fit in with what I like really well. I searched and searched and found an early album of his, StompinGrounds. I've been looking for his latest CD, Julie Blue, ever since then. I finally found it on OiNK, and have been listening like crazy. Julie Blue features Wash Away. If you like Wash Away, check out "Whiskey & Rai n", "I Love the Rain the Most", and "Skinny Dippin Girl".

**Some of these songs cut off at 2 minutes.

Edit: This is my 100th post in this blog by the way!

Radio.Blog Update 5

2005-08-04T15:40:00.000-05:00

I apologize for my laziness. I haven't updated the radio.blog in nearly a month now. Part of the reason, is that I haven't been listening to music at work as much as I used to. This has made it hard for me to discover new music or new artists. I have however, just become a member at OiNK, a bit torrent downloading community. I've gotten tons of good stuff there in the last few days.

On to the update. Newest songs are:
Ben Harper - When It's Good (live solo from KBCO Studio C)
Better than Ezra - Lifetime
Blue Merle - Stay
Damien Rice - Lonelily
Damien Rice - Unplayed Piano
Digby - One Hundred Percent Free
Iron & Wine - Love and Some Verses
Iron & Wine - Trapeze Swinger (Awesome!)
Jason Mraz - Mr. Curosity (from new album Mr. A-Z)
John Butler Trio - What You Want
Mike Doughty - Looking at the World from the bottom of a well
Mike Doughty - Move on
Ryan Adams - Magnolia Mountain
Ryan Adams - Sweet Illusions
Sondre Lerche - Track You Down
Sufjan Stevens - Chicago
Sufjan Stevens - For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti
The Shins - Caring is Creepy
The Shins - New Slang (James Mercer, Solo Acoustic, Live from studio of KBOO)
The Shins - The Past and Pending
Tristan Prettyman & Jason Mraz - Shy That Way (from her new album Twentythree)

If there are any more requests, let me know and I'll throw them in there too. Let me know what you think of the update.

Trapeze Swinger

2005-08-04T07:58:00.000-05:00

Do yourself a favor and listen to this Iron & Wine song from the "In Good Company" soundtrack. Trapeze Swinger. It's a great song.

Radio.blog update is coming soon. I promise.

Laughter

2005-08-03T15:59:00.000-05:00

As you can imagine, the stress levels in my house right now are quite high. And when stress levels are high, laughter levels are quite low. I'm not saying that things are gloom and doom at home, but there just hasn't been that much to laugh at lately. If laughter levels ever dip to historic lows in your own household, I have the perfect solution... babysit a 4 year old for a week.

We put my nephew to bed last night and everything was very quiet as we were watching tv on the couch. We were watching Friends on TBS. It's probably my favorite show, and I always laugh out loud when watching it. During one outburst, my wife looked over at me and said that our apartment had been full of laughter over the past several days, and she was absolutely right. It has. My nephew is a funny little guy.

We have a nice routine going on now with him. When I get home, we have several things that we must do. In no particular order, we have to water the flowers and tomato plant on the porch (he laughs when he spills the water), feed the fish (he laughs when the fish start gobbling up food), help with supper (he laughs when we tell him he's doing a good job), eat supper, take a bath (he LOVES taking a bath and laughs when water splashes), put on pajamas, say prayers, and go to bed. He also has a workbook with numbers and letters and all sorts of other neat stuff. He likes to sit in my lap and go through the book. So I say again, he laughs all the time! And it's the kind of laughter that when you hear it, it makes you want to laugh, too.

Last night he was coloring with an orange marker and he was getting it all over his hands, and he dropped it twice onto my white t-shirt. So when he wasn't looking, I grabbed it from him and hid it. I didn't want a bigger mess. He looked up at me with a confused look on his face wanting to know where his marker went. I said that I hid it. A whole new game had just been created. He had to find the marker. I put it on the floor behind the chair. When he found it, he laughed like crazy. He wanted me to hide it again. And again. And again. I taught him the meaning of "you're getting cold... colder.... you're freezing!" and "you're getting warm... warmer... you're hot!" We played this hide the marker game for probably 30 minutes, and every time he found it he'd cackle with loud laughing.

I can't wait to be a dad.

Daughter(s)

2005-08-01T15:46:00.000-05:00

Listening to my iPod at work like usual. I'm listening to a completely random playlist of 3300 songs. John Mayer's song Daughters just played, only to be followed by Pearl Jam's Daughter. Doesn't take much to impress a guy that's been playing with a 4 year-old for the past several days. Nevertheless, I think this is cool.

Where in the heck have you been?

2005-08-01T08:53:00.000-05:00

Wow. I feel like I've been on a roller-coaster ride since last Wednesday. It's weird to be saying this, but it feels great to be back at work where I can relax! I haven't worked since last Tuesday.

My cousin and his wife and their two sons from Accomac, Virginia, came to visit my family last week. The wife and I took off work so that we could go down and see them. They wanted to go to Mammoth Cave, so we met them there on Wednesday afternoon. It is always fun to go to Mammoth Cave. We went on the 2-mile 2-hour "Historic Tour". They were fascinated. It's really funny, because when we go visit them in Virginia, we always take buckets so that we can pick up shells at the barrier islands. They came here to pick up rocks. There aren't any rocks in their sandy soil out there, so when they came here they wanted to pick up rocks. We took them to the creek to pick up creek gravel and they had a blast. We had dinner with them on Wednesday and Thursday, and enjoyed catching up with them.

On Thursday, the wife and I set up a meeting with a Remax realtor. He took us around and showed us 12 houses that are going to be in our price range. We found three that we really loved. We're really hoping that I get offered the job that I interviewed for two weeks ago.

My sister is really having a hard time with everything that she is going through right now. I won't go into any specifics, but stress and health problems are about to drive her crazy. So we volunteered to help her out by keeping my 4 year-old nephew for a few days. We got him on Wednesday, and we have had him since. As of right now, we'll be taking him back home on Saturday. He'll be away from Mommy for over a week. So far everything is going great. We drove back to Jeffersonville on Friday afternoon. My wife had to work on Saturday, so I had him all by myself. It was fun. I am definitely getting glimpses of fatherhood over the last few days, but it has been great. He really is a good little boy.

The thing that we were most afraid of was having to take him to a babysitter for a couple of days. We were afraid that he would not like this at all. My wife called her boss and asked if she could recommend a babysitter in the area, and she recommended her own babysitter. We took him to meet the babysitter last night and we had to practically drag him away. She has a 7 year-old son and a really cool dog, and their next door neighbor has a pool that he can swim in. So going to the babysitters will be like a vacation for him. Today is his first day there, as my wife and I are both working today. This morning I had to get him up early, put him in some clothes, and take him. It all happened flawlessly, like we had been doing it all summer. I've called to check on him once, and he was having so much fun he didn't want to talk.

So now you all know why I haven't been around lately. I spent the first hour of work this morning catching up with my blog reading. And don't expect to see me logged onto instant messenger anytime this week either. The computer is in his room, so I can't be in there on the computer while he is in bed.

iScrobbler

2005-07-26T21:16:00.000-05:00

I don't know if any of you are taking advantage of the greatness that is Audioscrobbler, but if you are, you might find this new program to be a wonderful addition. For those of you who may not be using Audioscrobbler, it is a website that tracks what music you listen to. Check out my Audioscrobbler stats. In order to use it, you must register and download a plugin that corresponds to the software that you use for listening to music. In my case, that software is iTunes. After you install the plugin and play a song, the song is submitted to your stats at Audioscrobbler's website. This is great and all, but most of my music listening is done with my iPod. Up until now, the iPod couldn't submit the music that you've listened to to Audioscrobbler. So a lot of my music wasn't being sent to my account. Now that I have this little gem, my song counts should start rising rapidly.

So now you ask, "What is so great about Audioscrobbler keeping track of the music I listen to?" Great question! If you view my profile, you'll see a link called "Recommendations". This will pull up a page of artists that I haven't listened to, that are very similar to the artists that I currently enjoy. So it's a great way to discover new music. You can also click on an artist's name, and it will allow you to see other artists that are similar to this artist. Genius.

If you have an iPod, I highly recommend that you download this small program. You can get it at this thread at the Audioscrobbler forums.

When I'm Bored...

2005-07-26T12:48:00.000-05:00

... I play games.

I'm starting to realize that my blog title has nothing to do with anything that I have posted. So in an effort to form some continuity between my posts and my blog title, I will periodically post something that I do when I'm bored.

Today's installment is Sticky. It is one heck of an addicting game, that can be played in any internet browser window. Here are some brief instructions. Catch the paperwad that is thrown by the man at the desk by clicking the mouse. Hold the mouse button down after catching the wad. Move your mouse to the right and release button in order to toss the paperwad into the trashcan. Extra points are awarded for consecutive makes, for making a flashing paperwad, and for hitting the paper airplane. My highest score so far is 9080.

Interview update

2005-07-25T13:44:00.000-05:00

The interview went well. It was probably my best interview that I've had. I was surprisingly relaxed and calm. My potential boss and two potential co-workers interviewed me. They were very laid-back and this relaxed setting really helped calm me. They mainly wanted to know what my current responsibilites are, and then they asked the generic interview questions that I've been asked many times before. I'm at the point now where I have good answers for several of these generic questions, so I nailed all of these pretty well.

They're interviewing two more candidates this week, and will make a decision probably next week. My wife and I drove around BG looking at houses on Saturday and it really boosted our spirits to know that we're almost there. Let's just hope that they offer me the job.

Interview!

2005-07-21T14:10:00.000-05:00

My phone interview last week has turned into an in-person interview! Tomorrow at 3:30 central time. Tomorrow is my Friday off, so I'll be heading down to Bowling Green for the interview tomorrow afternoon. I'm extremely excited about this opportunity. I hope it goes well.

Show me the money!

2005-07-18T10:25:00.000-05:00

I just discovered that next month, I'll be receiving three paychecks! I get paid every two weeks on Mondays. Next month is one of those magical months that happen twice a year, where I'll get paid on the 1st, 15th, and 29th. To me, this is almost like free money. So this entire extra check will get tucked away into savings and will be used to buy baby furniture in a few weeks. The wife is now 24 weeks pregnant, and we'll need to be buying a crib and carseat and stroller soon. This extra money will be perfect for this.

The baby is growing just fine, and mommy/wife is doing great too. Last night, we were laying in bed reading our respective copies of the new Harry Potter book (yes, we each have our own copy so that we don't have to share one) and the baby started kicking like crazy. I put my hand on her belly and felt him kick 5 times within a minute or two. It was very neat.

This extra money, along with knowing that I'll be able to draw unemployment after I get laid off, has greatly reduced my stress levels. This doesn't mean that I am slowing down on the job search though. I've recently had a phone interview with a company I would love to work for, and I have applied for the "perfect job" with a different company in Bowling Green. So hopefully, more luck will be coming my way very soon. But time is running out. In a desperate plea here, does anybody have any friends, family, or colleagues in or around Bowling Green that might be in a position to hire me? Right now, I am a Statistical Analyst. You can click here for my resume. As always, I'll keep you all posted on how things pan out.

Tonight is the night

2005-07-15T08:02:00.000-05:00

At 12:01 AM tonight, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince will be released. I can't wait to read it. Yes, I'm a Harry Potter freak. Within the past few months, I've been re-reading books 4 and 5 in preparation for the 6th book in series of 7.

Yesterday, two of my spineless co-workers helped me to remove my own spine. The book has apparently leaked in small quantities, and my co-worker found a website that contained some spoilers. I couldn't wait two whole days to get the book. I HAD to know what these spoilers were. But I know for sure, the things I found out has caused me to want to read the book a hundred times more.

So somewhere around 11:00 tonight, grab your wands, put on your Gryffindor capes, scarves, and wire rimmed glasses and head off to your local Wal-Mart, Walgreens, or whatever else will be open at midnight, and grab your copy of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

The Open Championship

2005-07-14T08:23:00.000-05:00

The British Open, the third major of the year for the PGA Tour, starts today. It's being held at The Old Course, at St. Andrews, the birthplace of golf. I will play golf on this course before I die.

Pictured, is the Swilken Bridge, located on the 18th hole. Nobody knows how old the storied bridge is, but it is believed to have been built in the 12th century. All of the golf greats throughout golf history have walked across the bridge as they have finished their rounds on the 18th hole, from Bobby Jones and Sam Snead to Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods.

Listen to The Decemberists in Concert

2005-07-13T08:06:00.000-05:00

For you Decemberists fans, you can listen to a streaming live concert at NPR.

Firefox 1.0.5 Update

2005-07-13T07:55:00.000-05:00

A new update of Firefox has been released. The new update has several security fixes and added stability and other improvements. So please update your Firefox.

Still not using Firefox? Shame on you! Taken from the Firefox website:

Firefox empowers you to browse faster, more safely and more efficiently than with any other browser. Join more than 64 million others and make the switch today — Firefox imports your Favorites, settings and other information, so you have nothing to lose.

Radio.Blog Update 4

2005-07-12T09:00:00.000-05:00

This Radio.Blog update focuses on the new Muckrakers CD, Front of the Parade. The prerelease show on Friday night was Awe.Some. There were a lot of folks there from Bowling Green and from Western Kentucky University, and it was good to see some familiar faces. Lead singer, Rob, gave props to BG and WKU several times throughout the show, each time with the crowd erupting in cheers. Their new website is up and running, and I encourage you to go have a look.

Jeff and Derick both made requests for songs to be added, so they have been included as well. Thanks guys! If you want to make a request, check out my iTunes library for songs that I have and feel free to request.

As a reminder, all songs that have been in the Radio.Blog before are now in the Radio.Blog.Archive. There are now 58 songs in the archive. That's half a day's worth of music!

New songs added:
Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds - Say Goodbye
Elliot Smith - Twilight requested by Derick
Iron & Wine - In My Lady's House requested by Derick
Nickel Creek - Can't Complain (From new CD Why Should the Fire Die?)
Nickel Creek - Somebody More Like You
Jack Johnson - Flake (Live 10-09-2004) requested by Jeff
Jack Johnson - Cupid requested by Jeff
The Decemberists - Eli, the Barrow Boy requested by Jeff
The Decemberists - We Both Go Down Together requested by Jeff
The Muckrakers - Cigarettes & Magazines (From New CD Front of the Parade)
The Muckrakers - Happy Inn
The Muckrakers - Sylvia
The Muckrakers - Through My Door
The Muckrakers - When the Morning Comes
The Muckrakers - Working My Way

edit: Howie Day - Annalise (Live 7-11-2004) requested by Ben
This is a new Howie Day song, not on his latest CD.

edit #2: David Gray is finally releasing a new album, after his highly successful 2000 release White Ladder, and 2002 release A New Day at Midnight. The new album is set for release in September. Here are two tracks from this new album.
David Gray - Alibi
David Gray - Lately

Dancin' Carl

2005-07-11T13:28:00.000-05:00

Anybody that has been to a Louisville Bats baseball game in the last few years, knows exactly who Dancin' Carl is. He's retired now, and isn't working at Slugger Field anymore. But he definitely can put a smile on your face. When the visiting team would make a pitching change, Dancin' Carl did his dance. He would run down the aisle and jump up on the third base dugout, and start dancing to the "Tootsie Roll". You know the song... "To the left, to the left, to the right, to the right. Now dip baby dip, come on, now dip baby dip..." I've googled extensively for a picture of him in his dance. But I couldn't find one. I did, however, find a VIDEO of him dancing. Download it here.

Derick came to town on Friday evening for the Muckrakers concert. He spent the night with me and we golfed on Saturday morning. We were a few minutes late for our tee time, and they told us to go to #2 tee and meet up with the other two that we would be playing with. So we paid and headed for #2. I saw this gray-haired guy on the tee and thought he looked extremely familiar.

We made our formal introductions on #3 tee. He said his name was Carl, and the other guy was Scott. I still couldn't figure out who he reminded me of. I even asked Derick if he looked familiar to him. We played that hole and drove up to the 4th tee to find that we would be waiting for the group in front of us to get out of the way. So Carl asked Derick and I what we did for a living. We told him. Derick then asked Carl what he did for a living. He said that he was mostly retired, but that he was doing some part time work here and there. Then he said that he had been working at Slugger Field as an usher and working with the promotional items that they toss up into the stands. At that moment, I realized who it was. I pointed at him and said "You're Dancin' Carl!!" He laughed and said yes. Derick then asked what Dancin' Carl did, and he demonstrated a dance step or two. It was great. I laughed so hard.

Carl is a pretty good golfer. His personality definitely matches what you would think, after seeing him do his little dance. He's a funny guy.

The Muckrakers!

2005-07-07T13:59:00.000-05:00

While I was a student at WKU, this great band formed there, and they're called "The Muckrakers". They've released two albums on a private label, and they've recently signed with a larger label. I've been to a few shows, and they're great. To me, they sound like a mix between Guster and Barenaked Ladies.

Tomorrow night, Friday July 8th, they're having a release party for their new cd at Headliner's in Louisville. It's a national release, and you'll probably start hearing their first single on the radio any day now. It's called "Through my Door". You can listen to it and three other songs from the cd at their myspace page. I added the coverart to my sidebar, and I hope to add song samples after I get a copy of the cd.

Doors open at 8, with two more local bands opening up for them. Catchpenny starts at 9, and Digby plays from 9:50 to 10:35. The Muckrakers play from 10:45 to 12:30. They put on a great show, and I encourage everybody to go. I know there are some Louisville people who read this, so I encourage you to go check them out.

$10 gets you in, and you get a copy of their cd with the ticket price.

Old Men are Great!

2005-07-07T08:29:00.000-05:00

I don't know what it is about elderly men that makes them so darn funny to me. And when I say elderly, I mean 70+. It's like they've lived their life, they have all this wisdom, and they're not afraid to tell it like it is.

There are two bathrooms in the building that I work. One is really close to me, and the other is about a 3 minute walk away. I eat breakfast at my desk every morning at around 8:30. I always clean my milk cup out in the bathroom before eating. About half of the time, the cleaning lady is in the bathroom nearest me, and it is closed while she cleans. So I have to walk to the other one. I went to clean the cup just now, and there she was, in there cleaning. So off to the other bathroom I went.

I walk in, and this old man is standing in front of the sink. I start cleaning my cup and he says to me, "D@mn hair, it all falls out when you're my age. There's three d@mn hairs on the top of my head, and they're all sticking straight up like a d@mn porcupine, and I can't get the d@mn things to lay down." While saying this, he is wetting his hand and trying to wet the 3 hairs.

I just smiled and said, "yeah, I guess that is aggravating. But that's all right."

I finish cleaning, and start drying it with paper towels. Then he said, "I work on the other d@mn end of this building, and every time I have to take a crap, the d@mn cleaning lady is in there, and I have to walk all the way down here squeezing my cheeks together."

I tried as hard as I could not to burst out in uncontrollable laughter. I held up pretty well, and said, "yeah, I work down there too, and I had to walk all the way down here just to clean my cup out."

He walked out the door and I lost it. I laughed all the way back to my desk. What a great way to start out the day.

Long Time, No Post

2005-07-06T12:30:00.000-05:00

I don't know what my problem has been lately, but I just haven't had anything to write about. So I apologize for the lack of updates. I'll try my best to do better. I have lots of stuff going through my feeble brain and it's wearing me down. I'm still going to be laid off from my job on Sept 30th, I still do not have a job lined up for October 1st, my wife is still pregnant (this I'm thankful for!) and we're still wanting to move to Bowling Green. I do have a couple of job leads right now, so hopefully something will work out for me with one of them.

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I hope everybody had a wonderful holiday weekend. We went to BG Saturday and came back Sunday after lunch. My in-laws have a vegetable farm in the summer, and they sell produce at the Farmer's Market and they sell from their front yard. For Sunday lunch, I had peaches-n-creme sweet corn that had been picked that morning. It was the best corn I've ever eaten.

My wife had to work on Monday, the 4th, so I thought I was doomed to a day of boredom while she worked. But I was wrong. The great neighbors Santa and Mrs. Claus took me and their two grandsons to the lake. We went tubing, and it was great fun! I'm sad to admit that I got my first sunburn of the season that day. I've usually burned several times at this point, and it shows how little I've been outside this summer. But tubing was fun. Santa drove the boat, and he zig-zagged across the lake all day long. I got thrown off two times. It was a weird feeling to be floating in the middle of the lake as they circled back around to pick me up. The tube would swing around and get slack in the rope because of the zig-zagging. Once the rope went tight again, it was nearly impossible to hang on without losing your grip.

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I've also been working on a little project for the Dave Matthews Band community. Two of my favorite albums of theirs are Crash and Under the Table and Dreaming. In the past, Dave has done acoustic tours with his long-time friend and professional guitarist, Tim Reynolds. Several concerts were recorded straight off the soundboard, so the quality is superb. I gathered up all of the soundboard concerts, and made compilation albums for both of these albums, and I creatively named them Crash LIVE and Under the Table and Dreaming LIVE. I used Adobe Audition audio editing software to normalize all tracks and mix them together, so that it flows like a real concert. If you are familiar with Bit Torrent, and would like to download my compilations, you can get them from here, as they are now complete.

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I can't think of anything else interesting. So I should probably get some work done.

Unheralded Basketball Star Declares for Tonight's NBA Draft

2005-06-28T10:36:00.000-05:00

AP - Newsbrief
June 28th, 2005

The unheralded basketball star Jason L from Bowling Green, Kentucky, in a surprise move on the National Basketball Association's draft day, declared himself eligible for the NBA draft.

In a press conference held from the living room of his Jeffersonville, Indiana apartment, Jason said, "This is a great day for my family. I have decided to forego my final 3 months as a government employee and pursue a career in the NBA."

Scouts are extremely impressed at Jason's basketball abilities. In a recent workout session with the Indianapolis Pacers, he sank 35 straight paperwads in a trash-can from nearly 20 feet away.

Pacers scout Iwatchbasketball Foraliving said, "We may have found a replacement for Reggie, with this Jason kid. He can light it up!"

Jason has not opted to sign with an agent. In the rare instance that he is not drafted tonight, he will remain eligible for his final three months with his government job, and will likely return to that job on Wednesday.

Great Neighbors

2005-06-23T15:12:00.000-05:00

We have two of the best neighbors you could ever have. I'll call them Santa and Mrs. Claus. He looks exactly like Santa Claus, and he plays Santa all throughout the Christmas season. His wife, Mrs. Claus, is the manager of our apartment complex. They're old enough to be our grandparents, and they are the closest thing to family that we have up here.

They got married when Mrs. Claus was only 16, and they started making babies really soon. They had 9 children! They wanted an even dozen, but she had troubles with number 9 and the doctor told her that she should quit there, and take care of the 9 that she had. They have 7 living children now, as two of their sons were killed in a car accident when they were in high school.

My wife and I had been living in our apartment for nearly a year before we even got to know Santa and Mrs. Claus. My wife was in the office one day to pay rent or something, and began talking with Mrs. Claus. They discovered that we were all church goers, and so Mrs. Claus was thrilled to know that she had fellow Christians living at the complex. She soon invited us over for dinner one night. We had so much in common with them, and we were all wondering why it took so long for us to figure it out.

Soon after that dinner, we ate over there again on a night that I hope to never forget. Mrs. Claus has a piano in their living room. She is very good, and both her and Santa are excellent singers. Santa works for Enterprise Rent-a-Car, and a coworker of his sings in a gospel trio. They invited my wife, me, and the young coworker over for dinner on this night. Let me also point out, that my wife has an angelic singing voice. I took my guitar as well. We were in store for an awesome night of old-timey gospel singing after our dinner.

And an awesome night of singing it was. There were 5 of us crowded around the piano, and we were singing four-part harmony, in all it's glory, to very old classic gospel hymns. I like all sorts of music, as you can gather from this website, but this type of music has its own place in my heart as being the best. I think a few tears of joy were shed on this night by everyone.

It was this night, that brought the Claus family and us to the relationship that we have today. Since then, we've eaten countless meals together (both at our apartment and at theirs), we've gone to the lake together on their boat, they've followed us to Bowling Green for a dance in Lost River Cave, we've driven two hours to their home town to help them celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, I've fixed countless problems on their computer, we've sat on their front porch as the sun goes down and simply enjoyed each other's company, and last but certainly not least, we've gone to church together. In the struggles that my wife and I have gone through here in Jeffersonville in finding friends and feeling at home, I truly believe that God put Santa and Mrs. Claus into our live. And I'm so thankful that he did.

Radio.Blog Update 3

2005-06-23T14:45:00.000-05:00

The theme for this radio.blog update revolves around my favorite songs. I went through and picked my two favorite songs from 10 of my all-time favorite artists. I wouldn't really call these my favorite 20 songs, as I like some artists moreso than others, but you get the picture. And as a reminder, if you want to check out what has been in the radio.blog before now, check out radio.blog.archive. New additions are:

Ben Folds - The Luckiest and Magic
Ben Harper - Not Fire, Not Ice and Picture of Jesus
Chet Atkins - Remembering Gabby and Windy & Warm
Coldplay - Clocks and Til Kingdom Come (X&Y Bonus track)
Dave Matthews Band - Best of What's Around and Pig
Howie Day - Brace Yourself (acoustic) and Madrigal
Iron & Wine - Muddy Hymnal and Naked as we Came
Jack Johnson - Better Together and Taylor
John Mayer - Love Soon and My Stupid Mouth
Ray LaMontagne - Can I Stay and Hold You in My Arms (Both live from 2.19.2005)

Enjoy!

More Firefox Stuff

2005-06-22T12:57:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. Blogger hasn't been working for me at work this week. It works fine at home, but not at work. Hmmm... I hope they haven't blocked our access to blogspot.com sites. I can get into my dashboard and post, but I can't view my blog. Anybody else having this problem?

While trying to make my Firefox browser faster, I've found two more goodies. I use gmail as my primary email account now, and I've always hated that there is no Delete button for the junk mail I get in my inbox. Anthony Lieuallen at Arantius.com has written a Firefox extension that will add a Delete button next to the Archive button. It's fantastic and makes deleting email so much easier. Get the full extension here.

Everytime I open up Firefox, whether it be at home, or at work, I always open up 3 or 4 tabs and open the same sites on each tab. My.Yahoo.com news page, gmail, my blog, and sometimes a message board or current weather conditions. With this trick, Firefox will open all of these sites in seperate tabs.

Go to Tools>Options>General and add all of your sites to the homepage section. In between each address, put a | character. It's right above Enter key on the keyboard. If you type

http://my.yahoo.com|mail.google.com|whenjasonisbored.blogspot.com

into the homepage section, all three sites will come up in seperate tabs.

I also hope to do another Radio.Blog update soon. I'm getting more ideas on what I want to add. Any suggestions or requests? Anybody have new music to recommend?

Edit: After two days of NOT working, Blogger is finally working. woohoo!

Speed up Firefox

2005-06-20T09:18:00.000-05:00

Most of you know of my love affair with the Firefox browser. If you aren't using it, switch now! You'll thank me later.

My only complaint with it, is that it seems to be slightly slower than IE when it comes to loading pages. But I just discovered an easy tweak, that will speed it up tremendously. Pages load instantly now.

1. Type about:config in the address bar and hit enter.
2. Scroll down until you see "network.http.pipelining". Click on it until the value changes from False to True.
3. Next click on "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" and change the number to anything under 30. I set mine at 15 and that seems to be high enough.
4. Finally, click on "network.http.proxy.pipelining" and change the value from false to true.
5. Close Firefox, and reopen. Start browsing with faster speeds.

You can google "faster firefox" to learn more and to get more detailed directions.

Falls of the Ohio

2005-06-19T20:59:00.000-05:00

I finally had a weekend at home where I was all by myself. My wife works every third weekend, and she took off the last weekend that she was supposed to work. So it has been almost 2 months since I've had one of my precious weekends. Is it bad of me, that I look forward to these weekends? It's not that I don't want to spend time with her, I just enjoy the free time that I have. I always try to plan stuff that I normally wouldn't be able to do with the wife around. This weekend was no exception.

The main project was to reformat my computer. I knew this process would take several hours, and I'd never get away with doing this with her around. The reformat went pretty flawlessly. After several hours of reinstalling my programs, the computer is running as great as it ever has.

After fixing the computer, I cleaned my car, inside and out. It was quite dirty. I have spilled at least two drinks in there in the past few weeks, and I finally got that sticky mess cleaned up. I don't like clutter in my car, but I tend to slack on the dusting and vaccuum duties.

My last project involved picture taking. Lately I've been inspired by the guy that runs the Daily Dose of Imagery. If you've been there, you've seen some excellent photography. His photoblog has won many awards for being one of the best.

Sunday afternoon I headed towards downtown with my camera to attempt to copy his style. I got sidetracked though. I made an unplanned stop at the Falls of the Ohio. I've lived here for two years, and I've never been. To sum it up, Falls of the Ohio is a 220-acre area of exposed fossil beds. The beds are among the largest naturally exposed Devonian fossil beds in the world. They say that many many years ago, this area of Indiana was under an ocean, and the fossil beds were part of a coral reef. It was awesome.

I am standing on some elevated rocks at eye level with the river level. If you look in the distance, you can see the dam with water trickling through it. I walked around where you see other people walking. I snapped several pictures of stuff that had fossilized. Here's an example.

Several weeks ago, this whole area was flooded. I drove past it, and the water was so high you couldn't see the dam at all. It left logs and trash as the waters receded. It also left a rather large catfish. I saw what looked like a spine and rib section of a fish. I bent over to take a closeup picture of it, and almost fell over when I realized the fish carcus was right beside the bone. It looked like a plastic bag at first. But you can definitely see its head and tail.

I spent so much time walking around the fossil beds, that I didn't have time to go wander around downtown. I guess I'll have to save that until my next home alone weekend in three weeks.

Headphones in the Grocery, Part 2

2005-06-17T09:46:00.000-05:00

Read Headphones in the Grocery, Part 1 first, if you haven't already.

I finally did it. I finally had the perfect opportunity to take my music into the grocery and listen while I shopped. A few weeks ago, I saw somebody else listening to their iPod (the white corded headphones gave it away) and I finally got the confidence to do it myself.

I haven't really had that many opportunities to do it. The wife and I have been going together recently, and I haven't had to make many after work solo trips. But I had my chance on Tuesday this week. We were grilling hamburgers and we didn't have any charcoal or buns. So I stopped at the store, put on some Jack Johnson, slipped my iPod in my pocket, and listened while I shopped. It was great. From now on, I will continue to do it, and I won't feel a bit weird about it at all.

It's a BOY!!!

2005-06-16T08:43:00.000-05:00

The ultrasound visit yesterday was awesome! My wife's mother came up Tuesday, and my mom and the wife's sister came up yesterday morning. They all wanted to go back to the room with us. Her sister was tickled to death, to be able to go back there. She's 18, and can't wait to be an aunt.

We squeezed into the tiny room and the ultrasound began. The lady squeezed the blue jelly stuff on wifey's belly, put the device up to her belly, and we instantly saw the little fellow. He was breached, so it was going to be much harder to tell if it was a boy or girl. But we got to see everything. The head, brain, its heart beating, arms, hands, fingers, legs, feet, spine... everything. It was an amazing moment for us all. After several minutes, we still didn't know the sex. The lady doing the ultrasound started trying to find the baby's bladder, and then all of a sudden he flipped and spread his legs for all of us to see! There was no doubt about it. We are having a boy!

Everybody has always referred to the baby as he or him. We were even doing it in there before we knew. The lady asked us if there was a particular reason why we were doing that, and we said that we just hoped that it was a boy. Then she said "Well you've all been right. It's a boy."

The wife started crying, the mom's started crying. I just said "Yes!" and threw both arms straight up in the air like I'd just scored a touchdown. It was a happy moment.

The phone calls started immediately. I'm sure half of Bowling Green knows by now.

We had a nice celebratory lunch and went to Babies R' Us. The mother-in-law grabbed a cart immediately, and I began to guess how much money would be spent. We looked at the little boy clothes, and everybody collectively went "AWWWWWEEE" at every outfit that was pointed to. Nothing went in the cart though. Then we showed them the crib and changing table that we have picked out. Rockers were next, then strollers, car seats, and other necessities. We finally made it through the entire store. Amazingly, nobody purchased a single thing. I was shocked.

We stopped by Walgreens and made copies of the ultrasound pictures for everybody to take back home. We said our goodbyes, and they all headed to the interstate to go back to Bowling Green.

It was the first time that she and I had been alone all day. We just looked at each other and got all giggly. Now that we were alone, we went to Target and bought a little soft blue teddy bear that plays Brahm's Lullaby. And we bought a frame to put the ultrasound pictures in.

Doing a complete knockoff of Derick's ranking scale of days, this day was a perfect 10.

Tomorrow is the big day!

2005-06-14T08:54:00.000-05:00

For three weeks now, I've been counting down the days until the 15th. The wife's ultrasound is tomorrow at 11:00. We'll finally know if she's packing around a girl, BOY, or twins. If I'm not being subtle enough, we both want a BOY. I won't be disappointed with a girl though.

My mom and her mom and sister are all driving up. The moms are going back into the room with us. We're all giddy with excitement. I'm sure that when we leave the doctor's office, we'll go straight to Babies R' Us and buy half of the store. If I can get back to a computer tomorrow afternoon, I'll post the verdict and possibly a scan of the ultrasound picture.

New Sony Headphones

2005-06-14T08:44:00.000-05:00

I haven't been very impressed with the quality of the headphones that came with my iPod. They're pretty crappy. I just got an email from Amazon with some specials they were having. I just placed an order for some Sony MDR-EX51LP Fontopia Headphones. They are 37% off at Amazon, and are $25.31.

Derick is back from Bonnaroo and he gave me a mini review last night. He said the best show of weekend for him was Ray LaMontagne, which was a bit surprising. I got out a concert that I had downloaded of his and have listened to it this morning. It is fantastic! I have a new favorite song. Forever My Friend. I've put it in my Radio.Blog. I've listened to it at least 7 times so far today. Check it out!

Comments

2005-06-13T14:54:00.000-05:00

I just changed the way that my comments work. For my regular readers, do you like the change, or do you like the pop-up comment box better?

Alien Steve

2005-06-13T10:15:00.000-05:00

The wife and I had dinner last night with my old college roommate 'D' and his wife. We were roommates for 4 of my 9 semesters at Western Kentucky University. His wife is 8 months pregnant, and we ate together so that we could give them their baby shower gift. Conversation topics drifted from babies and pregnancy, to old times back at school. I say old times, but it was only 4 or 5 years ago.

D reminded me of one of the funnier moments that we had in school.

-------------------------------

For 3 of my 9 semesters, I lived in North Hall, a dorm in the middle of campus. I will forever be known as an NHB, or North Hall Boy. At the time, it was a very old, run down dorm. It has since been renovated, and is one of the nicest dorms on campus. When I lived there, there was no air conditioning, and everything about the building was very bland. Because of the no AC, everybody always had their windows and doors propped open to help circulate what little breeze could be found. It was an excellent way to make new friends, by just walking up and down the halls and by going in and out of people's rooms. This is how I met D, as he lived across the hall from me during my first semester at North Hall. We quickly became friends, and decided to be roommates during the next semester.

The Residential Assistant (RA) on our floor during that semester, Brad, was a great friend of ours. He came to me one day near the end of the sememster, and he asked me if I would like to be an RA. He said he was getting promoted, and he was trying to find someone to replace him. Since I already knew everybody on the floor, I said I would do it. It was a great experience, and one that I could write a hundred more entries about, but I'll save them for later.

Being an RA meant that D and I had to split up. I would be getting my own private room. Brad had this lifesized blow-up alien hanging from the corner of his room (very similar to this one). He said the alien's name was Steve, and that I could have him for good luck. So I left him hanging in the corner. All of the furniture in my room was movable, including the beds. I took the two twin sized beds and scooted them together to make a king sized bed. It was awesome.

I started my RA duties in January of 2000. Let me add here, that the wife and I started dating in this month. In February, she and I went on a ski trip with a local church. It was an all day trip, and it was after midnight when we got back home. I dropped her off at her parents' and went back to North Hall. As I got to my room, I heard the TV on behind the door. I knew that I hadn't left it on, so something was weird. I opened up my door and the light was on, and I knew that I had left it off.

I walked into the room and I immediately burst into laughter. The kind that makes your stomach hurt. Alien Steve had been removed from the corner and had been placed in my king sized bed, with the covers pulled up to his chin and his head was propped up on two pillows so that he could watch TV. His arms were on top of the covers with a Mountain Dew can taped to his left hand, and the TV remote control to his right hand. To top it all off, the TV was on the Sci-Fi channel.

The guilty parties had left their doors open so they could hear when I got home. They heard my laughter and came running. It was hilarious. I had a disposable camera and took a picture of him. I tried to find it so that I could post it here, but I couldn't find it. It's probably at my parents' house.

Everytime D and I get together, we usually reminisce about our college days. I really miss those times. I wouldn't go back and take those classes again for anything though.

edit: I have to post a song of the day. I don't want to ruin the quality and downgrade it by converting for the radio.blog, so I'll post a download as a high quality mp3. This song has some of Dave's best lyrics, and the band is at their best.

Loving Wings - Dave Matthews Band - Live 6.12.05 (last night!)

iPod Contents

2005-06-10T10:54:00.000-05:00

I've done some major re-coding on my iTunes Library page. I've been getting tons of hits from google and yahoo searches, where people are searching for various CDs or song names. So I added the option for visitors to add comments for the music that they're searching for. Check it out!

Radio.Blog Update 2

2005-06-09T09:06:00.000-05:00

I just added ten new songs to the Radio.Blog today. Nine were moved to Radio.Blog.Archive. Many of you probably have not heard some of the songs I've added, and might not have even listened to any of these bands. But if you've liked what I've given you so far, you should like this stuff as well.

New Songs added:
Belle & Sebastian - Boy With the Arab Strap
Blues Traveler - Carolina Blues
Coldplay - Square One (from new album X&Y)
The Decemberists - Infanta (From new album Picaresque)
The Decemberists - Sporting Life (From new album Picaresque)
Keane - This is the Last Time
Rufus Wainwright - Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk
Ryan Adams - Let It Ride (From new album Cold Roses)
The Shins - Young Pilgrims
The Wallflowers - Days of Wonder (From new album Rebel, Sweetheart)

On another note, you might have noticed that my Blogger Search Bar and Next Blog button are gone from up top. I was browsing with it yesterday and came across a site with some "adult targeted images" and realized that I didn't want a kid to come to my blog and hit that button and see boobs on some pervert's blog, so I tweaked my template to remove it. There are much better ways to browse blogs anyways, with Blogexplosion and Blogclicker.

Cartoon

2005-06-08T09:15:00.000-05:00

OK. This is the dumbest thing I've ever posted. But what the heck. It took all of 2 minutes in Microsoft Paint:

Blah

2005-06-07T14:23:00.000-05:00

I see you all coming to my blog today. You're probably expecting something new, but I'm sitting here trying to think of something to write. Nothing is coming to me.

I updated my coverart column once again. I've discovered some great new music. Thanks to a comment left by Sarah, I checked out The Decemberists and I absolutely love them. I listened to Picaresque this morning, and it is rare to like an entire album on first listen. But it happened today. I've also listened to the new Wallflowers album, some Belle & Sebastian, and some Rufus Wainwright. Everything has been excellent. It's been a great day for music. I'll try to make Radio.Blog update 2 soon and add some of this stuff.

But everything else is pretty much blah. I have a week's worth of work to spread over the rest of the month. I have slow times ahead of me at work.

And oh yeah! Kim felt the baby move yesterday. For the first time. Then last night it kicked her three or four times as she was trying to go to sleep. These are exciting times, for sure.

It's definitely Friday

2005-06-03T09:17:00.000-05:00

It's been a short week. It's Friday, and this is only my third day to work this week. I took off Tuesday to help the wife take the rugrats home.

With the morning that I've had, I can definitely tell it is Friday. Last week, my bosses said that we can start working overtime again. With a kid on the way, this is great news. Well, it would be great news if I could get my lazy butt up in the mornings that is. Yesterday, I was able to get up 30 minutes earlier and get in 30 min of OT. Today, I wanted to come in at 6:30 this morning. But did I? No. I got up at 7:30 and got to work at 8 like I always do. As I started to walk out the door this morning, I grabbed my new toy that I MUST have with me everywhere I go.... my iPod. I put on a polo shirt that I thought had a chest pocket. It's the perfect size for the iPod, so I attempted to put it in there. Pocket wasn't there. I was still groggy, so I must have been thinking of another shirt that had a pocket.

Made it to work and walked halfway across the parking lot, then realized that I forgot my security badge in the car. Doh! Had to walk back and get it. And it was raining. I got the badge and walked inside. When I got to my desk, I started going through my morning routine. I logged into my computer with username and password, then hit the spacebar at the next screen to continue the process. While the computer loads [see note], I always take my black cup to the bathroom and wash it with handsoap so that I can get my milk for breakfast.

So I'm in the bathroom washing my cup. I glance up in the mirror to see how groggy I look. I see that I forgot to shave. I also notice a funny pocket shape on the wrong side of my chest. Then I glance down and realize that my shirt is inside out! Then I notice all of the seams pointing outward and the tags hanging out in the back. I'm such an idiot. At least I was wearing the shirt with the pocket, like I thought earlier. I should have investigated it more before blaming it on the grogginess. There wasn't anybody in the bathroom, thankfully. So I stripped down and flipped the shirt back to normal, and pretended that everything was fine.

Thank goodness the weekend is tomorrow!

[note: Here's a computer tip. I use roughly 6 programs at work on a daily basis. To help speed up the loading process, I created shortcuts for all 6 programs, and put them in the startup folder. So when I get back to my desk after washing my cup, all of my programs are loaded up and ready for me without me having to do a thing. The startup folder is in the Start Menu under Programs]

Radio.Blog Update 1

2005-06-02T19:34:00.000-05:00

I just added some new songs to my radio.blog. I added 8 songs, and removed 7. I added something new also. Underneath the popup link for the regular radio.blog is a link to radio.blog.archive. As I take songs out of the main player, I will add them to the archive player.

New songs added include:
Barenaked Ladies - If I had $1000000
Ben Folds - Songs of Love
Ben Harper - Suzie Blue
Jack Johnson - Inaudible Melodies
John Mayer - 3x5
Keane - Somewhere Only We Know
The Killers - Mr. Brightside
The Muckrakers - Through My Door

Please make requests. If there is something you want to hear, leave a comment and let me know. Enjoy the new songs!

Hello DMB Summer Tour!

2005-06-02T15:04:00.000-05:00

The Dave Matthews Band kicked off their summer tour of 2005 last night with an excellent set. I won't be going to a DMB show this summer, for the first time in several years. I'll probably regret it later, but for now I'm content on not going. Last night's show included several songs from their new album, Stand Up. Here is the setlist:

Wednesday Jun 1, 2005
UMB Bank Pavilion, St. Louis

Best of Whats Around
The Stone
Dream Girl
Hello Again
American Baby
Too Much
Louisiana Bayou
What Would You Say
Time Of The Season *
Die Trying
Everyday
Stand Up
Where Are You Going
Hunger For The Great Light
Two Step
__________________

Steady As We Go
All Along The Watchtower

* Zombies cover

For you bit torrent users, you can download this show, along with many others, from Dreaming Tree. You have to register to download, however.

Call me a DMB freak if you want, but I'm anxious to play the DMB Game for this tour. Because the band switches up their setlists for each night, and never plays the same set twice, it's really fun to try and predict the setlist before each show. For last night's show, I picked 9 of 17 songs correctly. You get more points for picking the show opener, closer, and encore closer, and for picking songs in the correct place in the setlist. It's very much a fantasy setlist game.

B and K

2005-06-01T10:08:00.000-05:00

I don't think that I have talked about "B" and "K" yet. B is my nephew. He is my sister's 4 year-old son. "K" is our 7 year-old goddaughter. She is my mother's brother's step-grandaughter. Her grandmother has custody of her, and she spends most of her time at my grandparents' house. Confusing, I know. But everything works out. She is very happy. And she loves us very much, and we love her.

The wife is in a stretch of several days off, and she thought it would be a good idea to see if B and K wanted to come stay with us for a few days. They love playing together, and we thought they would have a great time if they came home with us. We went to Bowling Green on Saturday morning and brought them here Sunday afternoon.

K has been to our apartment before. But it was B's first visit. So the newness of our apartment to him was apparent, and he had to explore every inch of it. The wife and I are on a Star Wars kick, after seeing the new movie. I don't remember any of the old movies, so we're going to eventually watch them all. B loves Star Wars too, and he wanted to watch A New Hope, the very first episode that came out in 1977. So on Sunday night, we watched most of this movie. I say most, because the movie was interrupted by a lengthy visit to the emergency room.

B and K were playing and being really good. They were playing some sort of monster game. They were in the kitchen looking for monsters. The countertop on our kitchen cabinets extends out to make a snackbar. They were standing right beside the snackbar, and B had his back to it. He said in his most excited voice "Come on K! Let's go!" As he turned around, he smacked head first into the snack bar. He was just tall enough for it to hit him right across the bridge of his nose. A huge goose egg knot swelled up on his forehead, and he had a big cut across his nose. His nose swelled up too, and we thought it might be broken.

The wife scooped him up, grabbed an ice pack and put on his forehead. I put on the first pair of shoes I could find (which happened to be my Jesus sandals. I still had my socks on too, so I made the fashion blunder of wearing socks and sandals. But I didn't care. Must take kid to hospital!) and we took off to the ER of Clark Memorial Hospital. B was screaming from the moment he fell to the floor. "I want my mommy! I want my mommy!" over and over. But Mommy, my sister, was two hours away.

We got him checked in and back to a bed. Everything seemed to be ok, except for the uncertainty of the broken nose. He calmed down after 15 minutes or so. He was laughing and talking with K, and feeling much better. After 30 minutes, we were finally able to take him back for x-rays. He freaked out, once again. He started screaming for Mommy again, and he added, "I don't wanna get a shot! I don't wanna get a shot!" I tried to tell him that he wouldn't get a shot, but he must not have believed me. He turned 4 last week, and had to go to the doctor to get new shots. So the shots were still fresh on his mind. Poor guy!

The wife went into the x-ray room with him, but came right back out a few seconds later. She couldn't stay with him, because she is pregnant. So I had to stand by him and try to calm him down. Easier said than done. The big hard white table was scaring him to death. I think after 15 or 20 minutes, they were finally able to take all of the x-rays.

So back out to his bed in the ER, we went (oooh, a Yoda line). We sat and waited and waited and waited some more. I pondered the idea of taking off my white socks and stuffing them into my pockets, but I didn't. In the meantime, a boy was assigned to the bed next to B's. His parents were with him. He was walking quite funny as he walked over to his bed. They had just been fishing, and his mother was casting the bait out into the water. As she casted, the hook went back and dug into an area just below his right knee in his calf. It was disgusting. We had a nice conversation with the parents, exchanging stories of how our two boys were injured. The doctor came and gave the boy a numbing shot, and extracted the hook. He said that they remove over a hundred fish-hooks every summer! That's over one per day. Sheesh!

Shortly after the boy's fish-hook had been removed, B's doctor finally came back to us. His x-ray showed that his nose had not been broken. The nurse gave him some apple juice, and at nearly midnight, we were finally able to go back home. Both kids fell asleep in the car in the 10 minute ride back home, and they both slept until 11 the next morning.

--------------------

Day two with B and K was almost as exciting as day one, but in a different sort of way. We took them to the Louisville Zoo. Bryson proclaimed that he "did not like aminals" and that he would not be having any fun while at the zoo. After lots of walking, and seeing the snakes, lions, tigers, elephants, etc. he finally said "I love aminals! Thanks for bringing me Uncle Jason!"

It was fun, and I'm glad that we were able to spend some time with them. I was about ready to rip my hair out yesterday when we took them back home, however. It was Pete and Repeat the whole time they were here. Everything K did, B had to do. Everything she said, he said. They behaved for the most part, but it eventually began to get on my nerves. I wonder if the wife and I were getting a glimpse into the future.

Latest doctor visit

2005-05-27T14:09:00.000-05:00

The wife had another visit with the doctor this morning. She is now 16 weeks pregnant. It was a brief visit. We talked with the doctor for a few minutes and then we listened to the heartbeat again. Everything still looked good. We scheduled the ultrasound appointment for June 15th. So that is when we find out the important stuff. Whether there is 1 baby or 2, and whether it is a boy or girl.

We're still really excited about the baby. I'm still job searching. The stress levels are still high. And we're still praying for a way to make it back to Bowling Green.

Job Search

2005-05-26T14:33:00.000-05:00

Here's a brief job search update... I've hit some more dead ends. For a quick recap, I will be laid off from my job on September 31st and I'm desperately trying to find employment in Bowling Green, KY. My wife is also 4 months pregnant, due in November. I can't be an unemployed father! Does anybody have any friends, family, or colleagues in or around Bowling Green that might be in a position to hire me?

RadioBlog Grand Re-Opening!

2005-05-26T07:43:00.000-05:00

After a few weeks of downtime, my RadioBlog is back open for business. Thanks to my new host Jeff, you can now listen to a few of my favorite songs while you look at my blog. If you like what you hear, you can click the popup version link, and keep listening when you browse away from my site. I've loaded it up with a fresh playlist of new songs. I put some Iron & Wine in there for you, Derick. Current songs are:

Alison Krauss - There is a Reason
Ben Folds - Gracie (from new album, Songs for Silverman)
Ben Folds - Landed (from new album, Songs for Silverman)
Coldplay - Fix You (live)
Dave Matthews Band - Dreamgirl (from new album, Stand Up)
DMB - Old Dirt Hill (from new album, Stand Up)
DMB - You Might Die Trying (from new album, Stand Up)
DMB - Trouble With You (from Stand Up B-Sides, Bonus disk)
Guster - Demons
Guster - I Spy
Guster - Red Oyster Cult
Howie Day - Ghost->Beams of Light (Live)
Iron & Wine - Evening on the Ground
Iron & Wine - Freedom Hangs Like Heaven
Iron & Wine - Woman King
Jason Mraz - Wordplay (single from new album, Mr. A-Z)
Old Crow Medicine Show - Wagon Wheel
Postal Service - Such Great Heights
The Shins - New Slang

Let me know what you think. I'm also open to accepting requests. If you want to hear it, and I have it, I'll add it to the playlist.

10 things I did this weekend... it was a busy one

2005-05-23T14:45:00.000-05:00

1. Slept incredibly late on Friday morning. It was awesome. At 4pm, we mustered up enough energy to pack and drive to Bowling Green.
2. For supper, ate lasagna and homemade parmesan garlic bread on the back porch of my in-laws' house on their new patio furniture. The weather couldn't have been better.
3. Went to the mall to buy the wife some toeless panty hose. Ended up buying new pants and shirt for me also.
4. Slept incredibly late again on Saturday morning. Again, it was awesome. At noon we left for Chic-fil-a for lunch.
5. Went to the wife's little cousin P's one year old birthday party. Watched him make a mess of a birthday cake.
6. Went to the wife's sister's high school graduation. Afterwards, went to O'Charley's to celebrate.
7. Church Sunday morning. Ate a quick lunch with Mom and Dad.
8. Went back to the in-laws' house for a graduation party for my sister-in-law. Ate more food, and hung out with family and friends.
9. Got in the car with the wife and drove around for 2 hours looking at houses.
10. Said our goodbyes to everybody, and drove back to our apartment in Jeffersonville.

Quiz for folks who know everything

2005-05-19T13:24:00.000-05:00

This is pretty tough. I only got a couple right before cheating and looking at answers. I'll leave answers in my comments after everybody has a chance to read it all.

1. Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

2. What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward?

3. Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perennial vegetables?

4. Name the only sport in which the ball is always in possession of the team on defense, and the offensive team can score without touching the ball?

5. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

6. In many liquor stores, you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the bottle is genuine; it hasn't been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside the bottle?

7. Only three words in standard English begin with the letters "dw" and they are all common words. Name two of them.

8. There are 14 punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name at least half of them?

9. Where are the lakes that are referred to in the Los Angeles Lakers?

10. There are 7 ways a baseball player can legally reach first base without getting a hit. Taking a base on balls (a walk) is one way. Name the other 6.

11. Name the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.

12. Name 6 or more things that you can wear on your feet beginning with the letter "s."

Fix You

2005-05-18T13:00:00.000-05:00

I just listened to a song from the new Coldplay cd. It's called "Fix You". It's a live version recorded from the Coachella Music Festival on April 30th. Coldplay's new cd X&Y will be released on June 7th. I really like this song.

Download "Fix You" here.

Decoration Day

2005-05-16T13:06:00.000-05:00

The third Sunday in May has always been known as Decoration Day at my church, Harmony Missionary Baptist. And yesterday just happened to be the third Sunday of this May. It is one of three Sundays during the year that I wear a tie to church (the other two being Easter and Christmas). It is a day that is set aside to remember the old saints of the church that have passed away. Family members of the dead will decorate the headstones with the prettiest of flower arrangements. I have many family members and friends that are buried in the cemetary, and it is a day to celebrate their lives.

As a kid growing up, I hated Decoration Day. Mainly, because it lasted so long. Sunday School starts at 10, which is followed by the preaching service at 11. The ladies of the church prepare food for a potluck dinner (or a pitch-in for the northern folks). After dinner, there is a singing service. There are several family singing groups scattered around Southern Kentucky and Northern Tennessee, and every year the church will invite one of the groups to perform for the church. The singing service would go for another hour or longer, so you typically don't leave church until 3. So as a kid, 5 hours of church in a neck-tie was misery, especially when it's usually only 2 hours without a tie.

Decoration Day also brings in a large congregation. The average Sunday service will have 20-30 people. We are a very small church, made up of a few close-knit families. But the Decoration Day service will have 50-60 people. Most of the extra people are from out of town, who have family members buried in the cemetary. The other visitors come from neighbor churches in the community and come for the fellowship.

As I've gotten older, I am starting to appreciate the meaning of Decoration Day more than I did as a child. My grandfather that I was so close to, died just over two years ago, and it is a great time to think back over all of my memories of him. And I enjoy sitting and talking with family members that I only get to see once a year on this special day. And the worship service is always a great one. This year was no exception.

New Firefox update released: 1.0.4

2005-05-12T12:23:00.000-05:00

A new version of Firefox was released today. From the firefox website:

Firefox 1.0.4 is a security update that is part of our ongoing program to provide a safe Internet experience for our customers. We recommend that all users upgrade to this latest version.

Firefox is becoming quite popular, and it has a good reputation of being able to block spyware and adware. Since it's becoming so popular, evil-doers are searching for ways to break through the protection, and this update offers several security fixes. Get the new version here.

Wordplay

2005-05-12T09:37:00.000-05:00

Jason Mraz is set to release his second CD creatively titled Mr. A-Z, on July 26th (ten days after Harry Potter and THBP). Mraz has a new single from that album on the radio now. I just heard it for the first time, and I really like it. It's called "Wordplay". Check it out!

On a side note, my car still isn't fixed. I'm in the pimp mobile again.

Car troubles & Stand Up

2005-05-11T13:41:00.000-05:00

My week has been all screwed up, and it's only Wednesday. I got in my car yesterday morning to come to work and it wouldn't start. I ended up taking a sick day, hoping I could get it fixed yesterday. I called a local Mom & Pop mechanic to see if they could come get it and fix it. This was around 9:30. They didn't come with the tow truck until 3. Then they didn't call me until this morning with the verdict. The anti-theft system is messed up. It will not start up if it thinks I am a thief. So apparently, my car thought I was a thief and was trying to steal my own car. I hope it is something that can be reset easily.

So today I am driving my apartment manager's pimp mobile. It's a 1985 Cadillac and it looks just like this. It is SO smooth and fun to drive. I may ask to borrow it again sometime just to drive around.

edit: Just called the Chevy dealer and they won't know anything until tomorrow morning. Having car trouble sucks!

--------------------------

So yesterday was the release date for the Dave Matthews Band's new cd Stand Up. I was very excited for the new album, as it's the first CD they've released of all-new material since Everyday in Feb 2001. After listening to it several times now, I've concluded that I really like the album. It doesn't sound quite like the DMB music I'm used to. But the change is good and it is a great album to listen to loud in the car with the windows down. My favorite from the album is "You Might Die Trying". Check out a live version here.

I'm really loving a song that didn't make the final album cut. "Trouble with You" was put on the second disk as a b-side along with some live tracks from the 2004 summer tour. It is my song of the day.

I apologize for having to disable my RadioBlog. I'll try to get it up and going soon, with all new songs. Stay tuned!

New Harry Potter trailer

2005-05-09T07:35:00.000-05:00

I just watched the trailer for the new Harry Potter movie, The Goblet of Fire. I can't wait for this movie. If you haven't seen the trailer yet, you can watch it at this link. You must have Quicktime to play it.

GOP

2005-05-06T09:04:00.000-05:00

I've tried to keep politics out of my blog. Not because I don't really have anything to say about it, I'm just not the type of person to stir up a controversy or debate. But today I'll simply post the results of a little test that I took. So in case anybody is wondering...

I am:

92%

Republican.

"You're the perfect sycophant of the Republican elite. Tom DeLay and Karl Rove would be utterly proud of you."

Are You A Republican?

The Suspense is Killing Me

2005-05-04T13:26:00.000-05:00

I'm supposed to have a phone interview at some point today. I made the mistake of not scheduling it at a certain time. So it could be at any moment. I've been a nervous wreck all day. Kim has called three times, and each time the phone has rang, my heart has about jumped out of my chest.

This reminds me of what it was like back in my high school speech class. The teacher would always ask for volunteers on who would like to go first. I always wanted to go first, to get it over with so that the pressure would be gone. But I would always wait and go towards the end. I was nervous and weary for the entire class. But if I had gone first, I could sit back and enjoy the rest of the class. I feel just like that now. I've been nervous all day, and I can't wait to get it over with.

edit: Well that was crap. They finally called my cell phone after work. I have the skills they asked for, but not the required work experience. The search continues...

Spyware is the devil

2005-05-02T14:29:00.000-05:00

I'm blogging all over the place today!

I just went through another round of spyware on my home computer. The people that create this stuff need to be locked up for a really long time. I've gone through 3 or 4 really bad bouts of it at home, and one more even worse round here at work. I've also cleaned off my coworkers' computers, and a couple of friends' and neighbors'. So I've gotten to be pretty good at getting the stuff off.

The latest round at home dealt with popup ads, and the popup window said "Aurora" each time. I had to do several scans, and boot into safe mode to delete specific files. But I am all clean now.

If anybody needs help with spyware and adware, let me know and I'll be happy to assist. I wonder if there would be demand for some free-lance spyware removal services? Anybody have ideas?

Heartbeat!

2005-05-02T09:20:00.000-05:00

The wife's first doctor visit was last Friday morning. We heard the hearbeat! I was surprised at how fast, and how strong it was beating. The doc said it was beating 150-160 beats per minute. I just sat there in amazement as we listened. It was a defining moment, as we listened. For the first time, I realized that there actually was a baby growing inside my wife. I believed that there was a baby this whole time. But this was the first physical proof that we had seen so far. It really was amazing.

I still have no new job. I have a couple of new leads, but nothing promising yet. I'm really starting to worry. And the worry and stress is beginning to take its toll.

Powder Jumped

2005-05-02T08:04:00.000-05:00

We have a 20-gallon fish aquarium. It was given to us by my buddy Ben around 6 or 8 months ago. We filled the tank with various fish and an albino African clawed frog. Our tank has been infested with Ick on two seperate occasions, and all of our fish died both times. Ick is a disease that can overtake an aquarium, and is a fish-owner's worse nightmare. We keep getting new fish from the petstore each time the Ick takes them out.

The frog has been strong however, and has lived through it all. He has been quite a tough little frog. Because of his white color, we named him Powder. It's been quite fun watching him grow over the past several months. He eats like crazy, and will eat anything you put in front of him. We had a pair of guppies that produced countless babies, and he ate them all. He eventually grew large enough to eat the grown-up guppies. Two weeks ago, we bought 32 feeder guppies, and 5 feeder gold fish. Feeders are only 7 cents, and are meant to be fed to other fish in your tank. Powder gorged himself, and ate 30 of the 32 guppies, and 4 of the 5 goldfish. He became quite fat.

Last Thursday, I went home for lunch as I always do. I went over to the tank to feed the fish and frog. Powder was missing. I looked all around the tank, inside the ship, and couldn't find him. He had jumped out! I guess all of the guppy food gave him a boost of energy.

I looked all over our apartment for the rest of my lunch hour. I crawled on my hands and knees, looking under stuff. My hour was over and I had not found him. After work, I continued searching and still did not find him. After looking in every possible place that I could think of, I gave up the search.

the wife started getting ready for bed around 9:00. She was on her side of the bed fixing her pillow and the sheets. She picked up a pillow that was on the floor, and Powder was wriggling underneath! The wife screamed and yelled for me. I grabbed a napkin and picked him up and took him to the kitchen table. He was covered in dust bunnies and hair. We put some tank water in a bowl, and tried to wash him off. He was suffering pretty bad. He was now pink and brown, and in dire need of water. He started kicking frantically in the water, and we thought this might be a good sign. We got as much of the dust off of him that we could, and dropped him back in the tank. He floated around for a long time, kicking randomly here and there. He was definitely weak, and it would be a miracle if he lived over night. But, he had survived two rounds of Ick, so he must have been strong to do that.

The next morning, little Powder was dead. He had been through too much. I gave him a 1-flush salute and sent him off to the sewer which led to froggie heaven.

Running in the Park

2005-04-28T15:29:00.000-05:00

There's a small park near my apartment where I like to run. It has a 1-mile trail that goes through the woods and it is very fun to jog on. There is a birdhouse on a tree that is my starting line, and stepping onto the blacktop as I exit the woods is my finish line. I have a stopwatch installed on my cellphone, and my 1 mile runs have been getting quicker and quicker. Yesterday afternoon, I think I set a personal record that I may not beat for a while. And it wasn't because I just felt like running. I was running in fear.

Near the very middle of the wooded area, there is an open field that used to be a softball field. I guess you could still play softball there, but vines and bushes have crippled the backstop. The running trail runs alongside this field for a few seconds, and is fairly close to the mid-point of the trail.

Yesterday evening as I approached the field, a very familiar aroma filled my nose, one that I haven't smelled in quite a long time. I've been to enough Dave Matthews Band concerts to know exactly what I was smelling. Somebody was smoking pot, and they were really closeby. As I got closer and closer to the field, the smell got stronger and stronger. It got to the point to where my nostrils started burning from it.

There is a large bush near the edge of the field, and as I passed it, I discovered the source of the pot smell. Four high-school aged boys were smokin' it up. I tried not to look at them, hoping that they would think that I hadn't seen them.

I was running with my brand new iPod. iPods are the only mp3 players right now that are white, which makes them very easy to spot. Even the headphones are white, which makes them even more noticeable. Here were 4 boys, getting high as a kite, and here was I running all by myself with the flashy iPod in my right hand. I don't know why, but I started to become paranoid, thinking that they were going to catch up to me and mug me, and steal my precious iPod. They could very easily back track, and get to the trail's exit before I could get around to it.

As I ran, I started looking for new exits. In case I saw 4 kids approaching me, I needed to find an escape route. And keep in mind, that my pace was near sprinting levels because I wanted to get the heck out of there and fast! I made it all the way around the trail and was coming down the last stretch. I could see the parking lot pavement several feet ahead as I neared my finish line. As the trail ended, I looked at the trail entrance just in time to see the 4 boys walking towards their car. My pace quickened to an all out sprint now. I had to run about .3 of a mile to get back to my apartment's parking lot, and I wanted to get there before they could pass me. I ran, and ran, and was panting with every step, looking over my shoulder to see if they were creeping up behind me. I don't know why they were going so slow, but I made it back my apartment complex just seconds before they drove by. I was already on the sidewalk of the nearest building when they passed me. I had made it. I was safe. And thus, my iPod was safe also.

I don't know why I got so freaked out about this. But I did. In my mind, 4 pot smokers meant trouble. But I left them alone, and they left me alone.

Songs for Silverman

2005-04-26T20:34:00.000-05:00

Ben Folds' new album Songs For Silverman came out today. I highly recommend it. My favorite song from the new album is probably Gracie, but Landed is a close second. I'll try to get a couple of songs from the album in my RadioBlog soon. I apologize for not updating that more often. I had great plans for the RadioBlog, I just haven't gotten to them yet.

Today was supposed to be a day of golf with Derick. We both took off work and everything. But it rained. All day. So no golf unfortunately. But it wasn't a wasted day. My wife and I had lunch and Derick had breakfast at Cracker Barrell, then Derick went back home as the wife and I went furniture shopping. We're looking for a TV stand and we're having a hard time finding one that we like. After furniture shopping, we went to the mall and did some clothes shopping. We stopped by Babies R' Us also, and looked at cribs and other baby stuff. It was fun. The rain was stopping right as we were leaving Babies R' Us, and the sun was shining brightly as the clouds had just revealed it. It was still raining slightly, and a rainbow formed. It was the brightest rainbow that I think I have ever seen. It was beautiful.

I think this is the first blog that I have done at night. It's nice, because I've gotten to reflect on my day today. I might try to do this more often.

Frozen Thunder

2005-04-25T09:16:00.000-05:00

Saturday's Thunder Over Louisville kicked off two weeks of special events and activities leading up to the Kentucky Derby. Even though we've been in Louisville for 2.5 years now, this was the first Thunder that the wife and I have gone to, and we almost froze to death. It was cold, windy, and rainy. But we stuck it out.

The airshow began at 3:45, with several airplane acts entertaining the smaller-than-normal crowd. We went down to the festivites at 6:00. I went to our neighbors to borrow their lawn chairs, and as I stepped off of their porch, this is what I saw:

A B-52 Bomber. It's the biggest airplane I've ever seen. And it was just a few hundred feet over my head as it circled inland to make another pass over the river. There were several other Military planes that flew over, including F-16's, and the B-2:

Then there were the acrobatic Red Baron bi-planes, doing looptie-loops and barrel rolls while in formation:

Promptly at 9:30, the largest firework show in the US began. Fireworks started going off from 2 different barges and from the 2nd Street Bridge. For nearly 30 minutes, the sky was filled with colorful explosions:

These pictures are not mine. The pictures I took didn't turn out very well.

Thunder was great. I wish it had been warmer, but I can't control the weather. The next two weeks are great for the city of Louisville, with the climax taking place on May 7th at Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby.

Twins... (maybe)

2005-04-21T12:28:00.000-05:00

Well, actually not. But that's what I dreamed about last night. The wife and I were at the doctor's office for her first checkup. We are both concerned that we might have twins, because I have 2 sets of twins in my family, and she has 2 sets in her family. She's just now starting her third month of pregnancy, and she's starting to show slightly. So that has us even more concerned.

So in my dream, we were with the doctor. We asked if he could do an ultrasound to see if we were having twins. Instantly, we were looking at the ultrasound monitor. And this is what we saw (or something very similar). He then said, "It looks like a couple of girls, too!"

Then I woke up. I'm not going to be upset or anything, if we do have a girl(s), but the wife and I both prefer a boy(s). But either way, we're going to be happy. I'm still working on that job though. I HAVE to find one soon!!!

And the golf gods were smiling...

2005-04-18T22:41:00.000-05:00

OK, I don't believe in any other god except my Lord and Savior up in Heaven. But if there were such a thing as a golf god, he was definitely smiling down on the 17th hole at Perry Park Golf Club near Carrollton, KY on Saturday afternoon.

When the first warm day of spring arrived, I longed to be on a golf course. My first round of the year took place on Saturday with my golfing buddy Derick. It was a perfect spring day. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the temperature was just perfect. It was the temperature that you wish it could be year round.

During my last several rounds of golf, my swing has changed and I've been hitting some nasty hooks. I know how to alter my shot to get rid of the hook, but I really have to concentrate and think hard before every shot. The way our round played out on Saturday, concentrating hard on my shot was rather difficult. You see, Derick and I don't get to see each other very often, so we were wrapped up in conversation from the minute we stepped onto the first tee, until the moment we were driving down the 17th fairway in our cart. Since I wasn't concentrating hard, I was playing bad. Derick, on the other hand, was playing quite nicely, and had a good score going into the 17th hole. I beat him on the first 9, but he had a 2 shot lead on the back nine. He apparently plays well when he doesn't have to concentrate on his shot. Let me point out, that I don't ever recall Derick ever beating me on any 9 hole stretch of golf.

We stepped up to the 17th tee. We had just realized at this point, that Derick had his 2 shot lead. I hit first, as I had parred the 16th. My drive went straight down the middle. Derick hit next, and his drive also went straight down the middle. Mine was slightly longer, so he was next to hit. He was about 150 yards away. I don't remember what we were talking about, but I was in the middle of telling him something. I paused so that he could hit. Once he hit the ball, I continued talking. I noticed that he was staring down his ball rather closely. It hit the green, and we both thought at the same time that it was going to go in the hole. I jumped out of the cart with my hands in the air, thinking that I was about to witness a miracle shot. It hit in front of the hole and bounced 6 inches past it. It was an incredible shot. Derick even made the comment, "I was beginning to wonder if you were seeing that the ball was going straight at the flag! You just kept talking..."

I was next to hit. I was aprox 135 yards away. I grabbed my 9 iron and took a practice swing. My mind was already ticking away. Derick had his 2 shot lead, and he was 6 inches away from the hole for a birdie. If I didn't hit it close, I would probably be 3 shots behind going into the last hole. So the conversation had stopped by this point. All thoughts were being focused on the swing... "Don't hook it" I was thinking to myself. I hit the ball, and it took off straight towards the flag. For a second, I thought I had hit it too soft and that it would be short. It actually did bounce a few feet short of the green. But I got a huge bounce and the ball kicked up towards the hole. It rolled and rolled and it bounced off of the flagstick! For a second we both thought that now my ball was going in the hole. It came to rest about 12 inches from the hole, after ricocheting off the stick. Derick got out of the cart and ran around to me and we gave each other a huge high 5. What a moment! We both tapped in our birdies, the first and last ones of the day for both of us.

Now we stood on the 18th tee, Derick still having a 2 shot lead. It was in his head now that he could possibly beat the mighty Jason. This little thought in his head was all that I needed to ensure victory for myself. Our day long conversation had ended with our little 17th hole miracle, and he was now focusing on golf. And so was I. He fell apart, making a triple bogey 8. I made a par, 5. And I had taken victory from his grasp.

But it wasn't about who won or lost on this day. It was all about our 5 hour conversation, the perfect spring day, the dogwoods blooming, and the 17th hole. Now that you've read my side of the story, go check out Derick's side.

It came!!!

2005-04-18T22:16:00.000-05:00

My free iPod has arrived! It is sitting here next to my computer, as my 2,500 songs are transferring over to it. I never believed that it would come, but I am now convinced that the people at freeipods are not frauds afterall.
Here's a brief rundown...

Feb 4: Signed up for an account at freeipods.com, through this conga line site
Feb 8: Moved to the top of the freeipods conga line
Feb 25: Three out of five referrals are confirmed and turned green
Mar 29: Five referrals are finally confirmed and green
Apr 4: Ordered iPod
Apr 13: iPod sent to freeipods.com so that it can be sent to me
Apr 18: iPod delivered to me!

And here it is!

Allergy season has arrived

2005-04-15T07:27:00.000-05:00

Spring is by far my favorite season of the year, but it does have its setbacks. I awoke this morning with my first allergy symptom of the year. My eyes are itchy, watery fireballs this morning, and will be for the next month. Within the next week, I can expect a stuffy nose and 10-20 sneezes a day. It's misery.

General update

2005-04-13T13:58:00.000-05:00

I haven't given a job search or free iPod update lately. So here goes...

Thanks to a tip from Jeff, I applied for a job vacancy yesterday that isn't going to be made public. That makes five outstanding jobs that I've applied for. I'm hoping to hear something back from these soon. I'm still searching though. I'm not counting on hearing good news from any of these jobs. That way, I won't be disappointed if I don't get a job offer. But I have to wonder if this pessimistic viewpoint is doing more harm than good. I just hate the feeling of getting my hopes up for a certain job, going through the interview process, only to receive an email several weeks later that says I'm not the person they were looking for. I have more plans though, on different avenues that I want to try in this job search. For what it's worth, I've added document and pdf links to my resume in my profile section.

Now for the iPod update:

If you can read that, it says "Sent to Vendor, Waiting on Product". From what I've read, this means that the Gratis Network has verified my 5 referrals, and has ordered my iPod from its vendor. When Gratis receives my iPod, they will ship it out to me. So it should ship out early next week, and I should receive my iPod by the end of next week. Hopefully. I've been arranging and organizing my iTunes library for several days now. I'm getting everything ready so that I can just plug the iPod up to the computer when I get it, and transfer everything over to it. You can check out my iTunes library from the link at the top of my left column. I'll let you know when it comes!

I miss golf

2005-04-12T13:00:00.000-05:00

What other people may find in poetry or art museums, I find in the flight of a good drive. ~Arnold Palmer

My favorite tournament of the year took place over the weekend. The Masters, at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, GA. It was great to see Tiger win again, and in such dramatic fashion. Every time the Masters rolls around, I get such a huge desire to go out and play.

In previous years, when the Masters takes place, my golf clubs left the closet and went straight to the trunk of my car where they stayed until Fall. But over the past few years, this hasn't really been the case. And I severely miss having the freedom to frequent a golf course.

I got my first golf club for Christmas from my Aunt D when I was 7 or 8. Her husband J was an avid golfer and he cut off one of his clubs and had it regripped for me. He showed me how to hold the club in the kitchen of my grandparents' house right there on Christmas day, and my love for golf began.

I had a decent sized yard growing up, and I spent many hours out there knocking golf balls to and fro. A couple of years later, my uncle J gave me a few more clubs to go with the one he already gave me. It was at this point where I began to develop a "feel" for the game. I learned that the different clubs would hit the ball different distances with the same amount of force.

Throughout this whole time period, I never played on an actual full sized course. My play had been restricted to the front and side yards of my house. I had a friend in high school that played on the school's golf team. She encouraged me to try out for the school team right before my sophmore year. I was very excited about this and I jumped at this opportunity. I played my first round of golf when I was 15. I played with other kids that had been playing their entire lives. I beat almost all of the kids that were my age on my very first try. I shot 99, while most of them shot over 100. The coaches couldn't believe it, and thus my love for golf skyrocketed. From that day through the end of the season, I played almost daily, getting better and better.

I played several times through the winter months and on into the spring and summer of the following year. I couldn't wait for the next golf season to start. Two or three seniors had graduated, which opened up some spots on the varsity team. When tryouts were over, I had made the varsity team and would be playing in all of the matches throughout the season. It was very exciting. When my senior year rolled around, I had moved all the way up to the #1 spot on the varsity team.

After graduating, I got a job at a local golf course, which I've talked about before. I would golf in the morning and work in the afternoon, or vice versa. I worked there for 2 years. So counting the previous 3 years of high school and those 2 years in college, I played golf almost on a daily basis through the spring, summer, and fall months. It was at this time that my golfing ability was at its peak. My handicap was in the neighborhood of 5. When I had to quit working at the golf course, my rounds of free golf had come to an end. And I'm sad to say that I haven't been able to play near as much as I used to, and I'm not near as good as I once was. Golf is just too expensive to play very often!

I'm hoping that once the wife and I get settled into a house in Bowling Green, that I'll be able to join one of the golf clubs there so I can start playing again. I miss it sorely. There's just something about the smell of freshly cut grass, the dew in the early morning, a pleasant breeze on your face and the feel of a shot hit squarely on the sweet spot that just cannot be topped.

---------------------------

#12 at Augusta, one of my favorite holes. It is my dream to play at Augusta someday. How exciting it would be to walk across the Ben Hogan Bridge, where so many other golf greats have walked. Who knows if it will ever happen, but I will be forever grateful to anybody that can make it happen for me (as you have to "know somebody" in order to get in there).

Radio Blog

2005-04-09T12:52:00.000-05:00

Making its debut today on my blog, is the Radio Blog! You can listen to my current favorite songs with the player underneath my profile. You will need the latest version of Macromedia Flash Player for it to work.

Let me know what you think about it. You need your own webspace in order to have your own. If you don't have your own space, check out this thread for help on how to set one up for yourself without your own server. I don't have my own server. So thanks to Adam Laughlin and his generous offer for helping me out.

Solar Eclipse tomorrow, April 8th!

2005-04-07T09:20:00.000-05:00

I just found out that there will be a solar eclipse tomorrow! I'm a huge astronomy nut, and I love events like this. I always try to witness solar and lunar eclipses, comets, and meteor showers whenever they happen. I guess I'm attracted to this stuff because it's so rare and visually spectacular.

Here are some specifics for the eclipse tomorrow. It will only be a partial eclipse for the southeastern United States. I will only get to see an eclipse of 5% here in Louisville. People to the south and east will see more. Southern Florida will have the greatest eclipse in the US, with roughly 50% of the sun being covered.

I am counting down the days until August 21st, 2017. There will be a total eclipse over Bowling Green, KY, where I plan to be living 12 years from now. I've always wanted to see a total eclipse, and this will be my chance.

This is my favorite photograph of a total eclipse:

And this is the track of the total eclipse in 2017:

Devotion

2005-04-06T13:33:00.000-05:00

I'm starting to wonder why I have a hard staying devoted to stuff. For example, I joined the gym here where I work back in December. For over 2 months I worked out 2 to 3 days a week. I really enjoyed working out. I felt great doing it, and I slowly started seeing some progress. While I was at the gym, I would run for a while on the treadmill and then lift weights. Over the past few weeks, my days in the gym have dwindled down to about 1 day a week.

Another example... when we went on our ski trip to Colorado, the people there told us not to drink caffeine because it would give us headaches. So I drank lots of water and sports drinks. I knew that I was drinking too many cokes, so I continued this habit for about 1 month. Now, I have reverted back to my 1 to 2 cokes per day habits of old. I was also eating healthier during this time. I didn't eat large portions, and I didn't eat as much fast food.

I've already had 2 cokes today (1 for breakfast and 1 for lunch). I've almost completely quit working out. I have tried to continue the running though. I run 2 or 3 times a week outside near my apartment.

So why can't I motivate myself to get back into the gym? Why can't I quit drinking so many cokes and eating junk? I felt great during that time period of being healthy. Now I'm starting to feel like crap again. I know that it's good for me, and I enjoy doing it. I just can't figure out why I have stopped doing something that I enjoy doing. It doesn't make sense. Can someone help me?

I'm hoping that me bringing this out into the open will be the motivating factor that will push me back into the gym.

When I'm Bored...

New Website Idea

Random iPod song questionaire

The Muckrakers Contest - Win A FREE CD and T-Shirt!

Stupid TV

Are You Bored With the Treadmill of Life?

I can taste the victory

General Update - Baby

General Update - House

General Update - Job

Sellout

..keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars..

I'm Still Here

He's here!

IT'S TIME!

Gellin' Like a Fellon

Work Perks

First Week

Am I Immature?

Unemployment

Last Day

Snap, crackle, pop!

How did this happen?

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Trailer!

Stargazing treat

I've been tagged

New job... check. Baby furniture... check.

Radio.Blog Update 6

House Hunting

Huge BUG

Bowling Green, here we come

After a year of searching...

Heat

Right Now at 3:14 pm forJeffersonville, IN (47130)

Wash Away

Radio.Blog Update 5

Trapeze Swinger

Laughter

Daughter(s)

Where in the heck have you been?

iScrobbler

When I'm Bored...

Interview update

Interview!

Show me the money!

Tonight is the night

The Open Championship

Listen to The Decemberists in Concert

Firefox 1.0.5 Update

Radio.Blog Update 4

Dancin' Carl

The Muckrakers!

Old Men are Great!

Long Time, No Post

Unheralded Basketball Star Declares for Tonight's NBA Draft

Great Neighbors

Radio.Blog Update 3

More Firefox Stuff

Speed up Firefox

Falls of the Ohio

Headphones in the Grocery, Part 2

It's a BOY!!!

Tomorrow is the big day!

New Sony Headphones

Comments

Alien Steve

iPod Contents

Radio.Blog Update 2

Cartoon

Blah

It's definitely Friday

Radio.Blog Update 1

Hello DMB Summer Tour!

B and K

Latest doctor visit

Job Search

RadioBlog Grand Re-Opening!

10 things I did this weekend... it was a busy one

Quiz for folks who know everything

Fix You

Right Now at 3:14 pm for
Jeffersonville, IN (47130)