I got the tootsie roll bank for Christmas. All is well in the world.
Oh and Christmas isn't all blue, speaking solely of the color, not the temperament (temperament good, see below). Sure the sky and ocean are, but the grass is green, and the foliage is an assortment of colors.
Christmas was great, spent a lot of time just relaxing and not thinking about work or schools, or anything more serious than, "Is the pain incumbent with eating 20 or so pecan tarts worth it?" (Yes, and yes. I find all pain related to over-eating is typically worth it. Pain due to food poisoning, not as worth it.) Just chilling with the immediate family and seeing family members for the first time in a decade, debating over which movie to watch first, contemplating what songs to get off iTunes. These are the decisions and activities that maybe, just maybe, will be the most crucial ones in my life someday. We all have dreams.
More to the point, in a round-a-bout way, I was given a trip out to Utah. It's under the auspices of helping my brother, but I know his work will only take a day and I'm already booked to spend three days there. So here's the deal.
Monday night, as in this Monday the 29th, I'm going to be having dinner at Winger's. Not sure which one yet, likely the one at PTC, but that's beside the point. If you are one of the handful of people who read this and are in the greater Provo area during the holidays, please try and clear your schedule. I would love to see you and share a bowl of popcorn and two plates of sticky fingers, (two because I'm not really going to share them. I'm going to eat one on my own and whatever you don't finish, I'll eat that as well.) while I tell you about how awesome it is to still be wearing shorts.
Seriously, let me know if you'll be able to make it. There will be a mass text sent out tomorrow some time, and either reply to that or post a comment here, or, if worse comes to worse, a phone call is still valid. I look forward to sticky fingers, and seeing you all would be a bonus.
Word.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
How Can I Be Lost, When I've Got No Where To Go
Two things off the top: 1) How amazing was the Dark Knight? I picked it up (funny story and I hate to sidebar this early, but it must be done. I went to walmart* at midnight Tuesday morning to be one of the first ones to get it. I was expecting a crowd because this was easily the best movie to come out in years and if you don't get it for Christmas let me know. I might have to remedy that. However, I forgot that I live in a retirement community where no one is awake after ten. I get there and it's empty. In fact, they had the main alleys cardoned off for polishing. I don't have any reports from how the Orem walmart* was that night, but I like to think there was a line.
So I brought in an ad from CVS which said they would drop the price down to $10 if you bought $15 in iTunes cards. A no-brainer as I definitely use iTunes. However, it took two walmart* employees twenty minutes to figure out how this deal worked and why I would want to do such a thing. Granted, it was midnight and I was asking for a $5 discount on a movie, but I didn't expect it to be such a production. Needless to say, I got it, at the price I wanted, and left questioning who was the more dumb party: them for their actions, or me for expecting something better from the late night walmart* staff.) and watched it, you have to pick up from the beginning of the sidebar. It was still just as amazing. It did seem a little longer then it did in the theater, but still solid from start to finish. No regrets with the purchase.
2.) I miss baseball like school kids miss the spring. The winter meetings are a tease that is supposed to tide me over from November to April. Good luck. It's not working. On the plus side, being in Florida means I haven't bought season tickets for the arizona fall league. You know I would have. Front row.
Finally, give it up for Greg Maddux. Now give it up again. He deserves it. Probably more, but that's all I ask of the public. Easily, the best pitcher of my generation. One of the top ten guys I either currently regret, or will regret not seeing play. (Also on the list: Ken Griffey Jr, Pedro Martinez, and Jim Edmonds [he probably won't make the hall, but he made the game look fun]). Watching him pitch was mesmerizing. The best hitters in the league would look like high schoolers. If I could raise my kids to be like one athlete, it would be Greg Maddux. Here's to you. Word.
So I brought in an ad from CVS which said they would drop the price down to $10 if you bought $15 in iTunes cards. A no-brainer as I definitely use iTunes. However, it took two walmart* employees twenty minutes to figure out how this deal worked and why I would want to do such a thing. Granted, it was midnight and I was asking for a $5 discount on a movie, but I didn't expect it to be such a production. Needless to say, I got it, at the price I wanted, and left questioning who was the more dumb party: them for their actions, or me for expecting something better from the late night walmart* staff.) and watched it, you have to pick up from the beginning of the sidebar. It was still just as amazing. It did seem a little longer then it did in the theater, but still solid from start to finish. No regrets with the purchase.
2.) I miss baseball like school kids miss the spring. The winter meetings are a tease that is supposed to tide me over from November to April. Good luck. It's not working. On the plus side, being in Florida means I haven't bought season tickets for the arizona fall league. You know I would have. Front row.
Finally, give it up for Greg Maddux. Now give it up again. He deserves it. Probably more, but that's all I ask of the public. Easily, the best pitcher of my generation. One of the top ten guys I either currently regret, or will regret not seeing play. (Also on the list: Ken Griffey Jr, Pedro Martinez, and Jim Edmonds [he probably won't make the hall, but he made the game look fun]). Watching him pitch was mesmerizing. The best hitters in the league would look like high schoolers. If I could raise my kids to be like one athlete, it would be Greg Maddux. Here's to you. Word.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
So Long, Put Your Blue Jeans Back On Girl, Go Home, Remember
I own 28 different seasons of various tv shows. Eleven of them have to do with medical shows. Since working at the hospital, I have had several epiphanies. Chief among them is that people at real hospitals are no where near as good looking as people at fake hospitals. Not even close. I've had direct interactions with over a thousand patients in the past three months. I can tell you, at no point did I ever even think about asking for one of their phone numbers. Not a one. In their defense, some were unconscious, or had facial trauma, or were old. (On the list of things that used to be creepy to me, but now don't even register: Old people without their teeth in. Used to be so unsettling how the lips curled in way past vertical. Now, not even disturbed when they're asleep and their mouths close much farther than they should.)
The point is, where is one tasty coma wife? They just don't exist. I want them to, badly, but they don't. Now, of course, the shows revolve around the physicians and staff, and all of the television personnel are at least decent. #13, Elliot Reid, Cameron, Jordan, Kim. All of them very beautiful. Even the minor female characters are soft on the eyes. Real hospital staff, not even close.
Out of the hundreds of doctors, nurses, aides, dietary and janitorial staff, there are maybe a handful of ladies whom I would spend time with outside of the hospital. It's stunning. I don't know what I was expecting, but I can tell you hollywood taught me to expect more. And after working in a business office where the attractive girl to non-attractive girl was at least close to the one presented by "The Office", I had little reason to doubt the same ratios would hold from medical shows to medical work. For the record, they don't.
Word.
Ok, so I have to put this in, even though I know I already closed it out. It's completely unrelated, but completely amazing.
I was going through an old box where I store all sorts of notable things from my life. High school diploma, EFY pictures, tae kwan do black belt, you know a "memory box". (Note: mine is waterproof and always closed tightly. When you live in an area constantly struck by hurricanes, you just keep things in a constant state of ready-to-evacuate-ness.) As I'm going through, I see something I thought I had lost. Tickets to the two Giants games I went to during the 2001 season. One was against the Dodgers and the other against the Cardinals. Yes, that's cool to know I saw the 2001 home run chase of Barry Bonds in person, but the cooler part is on the back side.
Yep, there he is. The Say Hey Kid. It looked weird, and indecipherable, which of course lended to its credibility. I checked with his other signatures just to be sure I didn't imagine him signing it in the San Fran airport, and it's legit. I thought this was lost to time. I'm unbelievably pleased by this. Also, I found the ticket from the White Sox/ Royals spring training game I went to in 1997. Not much special, until I flipped it over and saw Johnny Damon's John Hancock. Needless to say, being awake at 4am has finally been worthwhile.
Word.
The point is, where is one tasty coma wife? They just don't exist. I want them to, badly, but they don't. Now, of course, the shows revolve around the physicians and staff, and all of the television personnel are at least decent. #13, Elliot Reid, Cameron, Jordan, Kim. All of them very beautiful. Even the minor female characters are soft on the eyes. Real hospital staff, not even close.
Out of the hundreds of doctors, nurses, aides, dietary and janitorial staff, there are maybe a handful of ladies whom I would spend time with outside of the hospital. It's stunning. I don't know what I was expecting, but I can tell you hollywood taught me to expect more. And after working in a business office where the attractive girl to non-attractive girl was at least close to the one presented by "The Office", I had little reason to doubt the same ratios would hold from medical shows to medical work. For the record, they don't.
Word.
Ok, so I have to put this in, even though I know I already closed it out. It's completely unrelated, but completely amazing.
I was going through an old box where I store all sorts of notable things from my life. High school diploma, EFY pictures, tae kwan do black belt, you know a "memory box". (Note: mine is waterproof and always closed tightly. When you live in an area constantly struck by hurricanes, you just keep things in a constant state of ready-to-evacuate-ness.) As I'm going through, I see something I thought I had lost. Tickets to the two Giants games I went to during the 2001 season. One was against the Dodgers and the other against the Cardinals. Yes, that's cool to know I saw the 2001 home run chase of Barry Bonds in person, but the cooler part is on the back side.
Yep, there he is. The Say Hey Kid. It looked weird, and indecipherable, which of course lended to its credibility. I checked with his other signatures just to be sure I didn't imagine him signing it in the San Fran airport, and it's legit. I thought this was lost to time. I'm unbelievably pleased by this. Also, I found the ticket from the White Sox/ Royals spring training game I went to in 1997. Not much special, until I flipped it over and saw Johnny Damon's John Hancock. Needless to say, being awake at 4am has finally been worthwhile.
Word.
Monday, November 10, 2008
The Spirit Of A Hustler And The Swagger Of A College Kid
So, it's 1am. It is technically Monday, but for me it is Friday because I work Friday through Monday, and have Tuesday through Thursday off. So, now I'm starting my weekend. Want to know the only downer about this? I just finished my bookshelf project. I won't lie to you. Its beautiful. You're quite jealous of it. It's ok to be. I would if it wasn't mine.
Setting its beauty aside, as hard as that is, it now leaves me with a dilemma. You see, when I wanted to break away from things and just relax, I had the bookshelf to work on. Measuring, cutting, routing, sanding, sanding, and of course more sanding, staining, sealing, mounting and finally, choosing the books and items to place on it. I reveled in it, because it was mine. From first cut, to final nick nack, it was mine.
But it is done now. Well, at least 90% done. I still have one shelf to fill with non-book items. I could put more foreign souvenirs, but I don't like the idea of putting up more than one from a country and I would quickly run into this problem. Now my though is baseballs, and I have more than enough to fill the shelf, but not many of them are worth putting on display. Essentially, I've hit a writer's block on the last paragraph. Frustrating. Ideas?
Really what I wanted to get at is that now I have completed the thing I wanted to get done for a while. Please, don't ridicule "building a bookshelf" as a task worthy of this honor, but for me it was. And I've completed it. What now? It was nice because for the hour or so a day, I wasn't thinking about the things I probably should be thinking about. Medical School, Marriage, Dating, and what happens if the first one doesn't happen. (Please don't ask me. I really have no answer. Ask Mike instead. He might actually have one. Not kidding. Smart money says he has much more a backup plan for me than I do.)
Now what? Here are my thoughts. Mind you, I work 32 hours a week. That's not nearly as important as the 48 hours I spend awake and unoccupied on days not Sunday during the week. Also, I have moderate funds, but not limitless. I only wish. The ceiling of the extravagance of ideas is to purchase the most beautiful car ever, and the restore it. Amazingly, I think this might end up costing only $3500 over the space of the next ten months. It doesn't take a math major to realize that means $350 a month. How I decide this being the cap? Because that's how much rent use to cost. Logical, as always.
The complications involved in such an undertaking are numerous, but not irreconcilable. Below that, it's wide open. Call it ADD. Call it needing a constant change of pace. Whatever it is, it's definitely something I need to resolve.
Oh, and I refuse to let Jake and Holli have a more recent blog post than me. Of course I'm that petty. I thought about Jared and Courtney, but I wouldn't have a shot. They simply have much more of an audience and therefore they need to please them much more often. Case in point, they've had a counter for roughly three weeks and they have had approximately 600 hits. Mine's been going for almost ten months. Finally hit 1000 yesterday. Ridiculous. Can't match that. Won't. Too intimidating.
There you go. Word.
Setting its beauty aside, as hard as that is, it now leaves me with a dilemma. You see, when I wanted to break away from things and just relax, I had the bookshelf to work on. Measuring, cutting, routing, sanding, sanding, and of course more sanding, staining, sealing, mounting and finally, choosing the books and items to place on it. I reveled in it, because it was mine. From first cut, to final nick nack, it was mine.
But it is done now. Well, at least 90% done. I still have one shelf to fill with non-book items. I could put more foreign souvenirs, but I don't like the idea of putting up more than one from a country and I would quickly run into this problem. Now my though is baseballs, and I have more than enough to fill the shelf, but not many of them are worth putting on display. Essentially, I've hit a writer's block on the last paragraph. Frustrating. Ideas?
Really what I wanted to get at is that now I have completed the thing I wanted to get done for a while. Please, don't ridicule "building a bookshelf" as a task worthy of this honor, but for me it was. And I've completed it. What now? It was nice because for the hour or so a day, I wasn't thinking about the things I probably should be thinking about. Medical School, Marriage, Dating, and what happens if the first one doesn't happen. (Please don't ask me. I really have no answer. Ask Mike instead. He might actually have one. Not kidding. Smart money says he has much more a backup plan for me than I do.)
Now what? Here are my thoughts. Mind you, I work 32 hours a week. That's not nearly as important as the 48 hours I spend awake and unoccupied on days not Sunday during the week. Also, I have moderate funds, but not limitless. I only wish. The ceiling of the extravagance of ideas is to purchase the most beautiful car ever, and the restore it. Amazingly, I think this might end up costing only $3500 over the space of the next ten months. It doesn't take a math major to realize that means $350 a month. How I decide this being the cap? Because that's how much rent use to cost. Logical, as always.
The complications involved in such an undertaking are numerous, but not irreconcilable. Below that, it's wide open. Call it ADD. Call it needing a constant change of pace. Whatever it is, it's definitely something I need to resolve.
Oh, and I refuse to let Jake and Holli have a more recent blog post than me. Of course I'm that petty. I thought about Jared and Courtney, but I wouldn't have a shot. They simply have much more of an audience and therefore they need to please them much more often. Case in point, they've had a counter for roughly three weeks and they have had approximately 600 hits. Mine's been going for almost ten months. Finally hit 1000 yesterday. Ridiculous. Can't match that. Won't. Too intimidating.
There you go. Word.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
I Was A Champion For Me It Was A Fall
Two months. Yes, it has been the longest cessation since the beginning of this log. Needless to say, there are a lot of things that need to get covered, and covered they shall be. Bear with me as this will have to be a multi-post so that you won't have to sort through the posts about things that don't interest you.
This part, the first one I'm writing after the silence, has to be about the most prominent thing over the past two months. Without a doubt it would have to be the relationship I had with a particular girl. I'm hesitant to use her name, so for the story's sake, she'll be known as M (Really, if you're reading this and don't know who she is, welcome to my life. Enjoy the ride).
We met up about late August/early September, and began attending social gathering together for a couple weeks, and then started dating by mid September. This continued until early this month when the relationship ended. I'm not going to go into the details of that part, but will say that it was difficult, and we're both getting over it.
Ok, I expected to write more about this, but I feel that to be sufficient as is. In conclusion, the break-up was rough, but even if I knew how it was going to be, it still was worth the ride before the end. To quote Peyton Sawyer (Big kudos to anyone who tracks down this reference), just because the song has an end, doesn't mean you can't enjoy the music. And it was good music.
Word.
This part, the first one I'm writing after the silence, has to be about the most prominent thing over the past two months. Without a doubt it would have to be the relationship I had with a particular girl. I'm hesitant to use her name, so for the story's sake, she'll be known as M (Really, if you're reading this and don't know who she is, welcome to my life. Enjoy the ride).
We met up about late August/early September, and began attending social gathering together for a couple weeks, and then started dating by mid September. This continued until early this month when the relationship ended. I'm not going to go into the details of that part, but will say that it was difficult, and we're both getting over it.
Ok, I expected to write more about this, but I feel that to be sufficient as is. In conclusion, the break-up was rough, but even if I knew how it was going to be, it still was worth the ride before the end. To quote Peyton Sawyer (Big kudos to anyone who tracks down this reference), just because the song has an end, doesn't mean you can't enjoy the music. And it was good music.
Word.
Is It Getting Better, Or Do You Feel The Same?
If you were wondering if I have cleaned another man's butt, I for better of worse, have now. I recently finished a CNA certifying course. Right now, half of you are thinking, wow CNA, sounds like a big deal. It's not. At all. No really, they're the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to health care. Their duties typically include changing linens, checking vital signs, and making sure the bed is in its lowest position. Oh and measuring and monitoring excretions. Of all kinds. How jealous are you of me? It's ok to say very jealous.
Clearly, I took this job for the prestige. My new pick up line has to be, I know the proper way to transfer you from a wheelchair to a bed. (Cue the cheesy grin and of course, the double shooters). Bullet-proof, I know. The ladies of central Florida better beware.
In all seriousness, I'm doing it because it's the best way for me to gain great first hand experience in health care. I'll be assigned to roughly a dozen patients and be in charge of the menially tasks incumbent in their care. I'm cool with that. Plus, it gives me a job that I can pickup wherever I live. Go ahead. Look up your local hospital's job listings. I guarantee there to be at least one listing under CNA or Patient Care Tech (materially identical). Yep, that could be me.
I'll take the certifying test on the 3rd and then get hired on here at one of the local hospitals. It might be a pay cut from what I'm doing now, but I'll be getting better experience, more hours and better hours. Working the entire weekend really put a cramp on my social life, back when I had one worth talking about. The new gig will have me likely slinging three days a week, 7a-7p and then every other or every third weekend off. It will be a nice paycheck and a great way to know more of the inner working of health care. And no, if you do end up in my hospital, on my watch, I will not wipe your butt. I'll let you wallow in it for days. Trust me, I'll win that battle easily.
Word.
Clearly, I took this job for the prestige. My new pick up line has to be, I know the proper way to transfer you from a wheelchair to a bed. (Cue the cheesy grin and of course, the double shooters). Bullet-proof, I know. The ladies of central Florida better beware.
In all seriousness, I'm doing it because it's the best way for me to gain great first hand experience in health care. I'll be assigned to roughly a dozen patients and be in charge of the menially tasks incumbent in their care. I'm cool with that. Plus, it gives me a job that I can pickup wherever I live. Go ahead. Look up your local hospital's job listings. I guarantee there to be at least one listing under CNA or Patient Care Tech (materially identical). Yep, that could be me.
I'll take the certifying test on the 3rd and then get hired on here at one of the local hospitals. It might be a pay cut from what I'm doing now, but I'll be getting better experience, more hours and better hours. Working the entire weekend really put a cramp on my social life, back when I had one worth talking about. The new gig will have me likely slinging three days a week, 7a-7p and then every other or every third weekend off. It will be a nice paycheck and a great way to know more of the inner working of health care. And no, if you do end up in my hospital, on my watch, I will not wipe your butt. I'll let you wallow in it for days. Trust me, I'll win that battle easily.
Word.
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