Gettin back on that horse....

Yes, it's me again. I'm sure the RSS feeds did a double take before they posted me back up. To be honest, it's been a hectic month for me with plenty to talk about but not much of it being anything most anyone here would probably care to hear.

The sparknotes? Sure, I am now an uncle (congrats Sis), have been working 40-50 hours/week (but getting paid for 40), have had packed weekends (for the first time in my entire life I may label myself as a nap-taker....scary), and have done a ton of catching up with "myself." Call it what you want, I've settled with the term "Quarter-life crisis" to describe the past month.

In the end I have come out of it realizing most that in the routine of life I have not taken any time to just sit back for even an hour and reflect on me as a person. Who am I? What am I really doing with my life? Am I really going to be happy with the choices I need to make now, five, ten, even twenty years down the road? While I'm sure this may sound like some Zen bullshit, I can't recommend just getting away from everything enough. No phones, no facebook (gasp!), no internet, no PS3 (double gasp!), no friends. You'll be surprised how much you can learn about yourself in just a short time of doing this.

My "get-away" consisted of literally getting away from my comfort zone and going somewhere completely new where I would be a stranger to everyone. After looking at the prices for plane tickets (holy crap.... no wonder GE can pay me what they do....) I quickly realized that getting to LA or NYC was just not possible. So I looked closer, maybe a few nights somewhere within driving distance would be do-able. The problem with that however, is that I wasn't truly leaving any comfort zones at all. If there is anything I have gotten a lot of experience in this past year, it has been long-distance driving. I have even come to enjoy it quite a bit. While my goal wasn't to do something completely miserable, it was to push myself out of the comfort zone. That wasn't going to happen in my 2 door Escort.

After a little inspiration, I became dead set on a few nights of wilderness camping. Bare essentials, no outside contact, me and nature: perfect. I also (ignorantly) figured that this would be a low-cost venture; no plane tickets needed. In the end, the bill stacked well over $700. I left Monday, July 13 for Shawnee State Forest, with a ~45 lb backpack with enough in it to last three nights (four if needed) without any human contact.

The sparknotes:
- I'm amazed (and overwhelmingly appreciative) that my parents not only bought into the idea, but even supported me throughout it. Backpacking is tough. Solo backpacking is dangerous. Solo backpacking with zero backpacking experience, is about a dumb as you can get. I don't think I can thank them enough for the support.

- Maybe the only reason they didn't object too hard is because they have some weird sense of foresight beyond my wildest imaginations. After getting three miles in (of a 26 mile loop) on my first day, I stop at a creek side for lunch. After eating I take off my shoes only to find 6 blisters already formed, and popped, on both of my feet. At this point I knew that I could either trudge onward, and risk some serious - potentially long term - medical issues, or do the only smart move and turn around. After amount 10 minutes of sitting in disbelief and a fair amount of cussing, I begrudgingly started walking back the way I came.

So, mission accomplished? no. I did however, catch the "bug" and fully intend on "getting back on the horse" as soon as possible. Back to the Zen bullshit though: even in the few hours I was alone ("in the wild" as I say), I feel like I took monumental steps in discovering who I really am. I would be fooling myself to say that going on essentially a day-hike with a toddler strapped to my back solved all the craziness in my life - it did make it seem a lot more manageable.



So, that about wraps up the first 10 days of my absence. Obviously I have a lot of catching up to do, and I intend on doing it. I was not-so-subtlety reminded by someone recently why I first started this blog. It was not so much for the video game reviews (though I love talkin some polygons for a few minutes), or the youtube videos (Fuck yea!), but a way for me to stay connected to people that I don't want to lose contact with. Whether posts are monsterous (see: this), or tweet-esque (see: what I always intend on doing, but never actually do), it is still a helluva lot better than lately!

With that, I bid you adieu. Until next time - peace up, a-town down.

The Best Advice Ever

From some pretty OK teachers. I'm kind of hoping that there really are other people whoh read this, because if not, it would be a sick and twisted kind of post-graduate brown nosing.

And I ain't down wit dat.

Ahem (Paraphrasing. sorry, not exactly a titanium trap):

"I smoked once in college. I had one cigarette and I liked it a lot. So I knew I should never do it again."

-- Seriously... think about that for a second. Profound I tell ya.

"If you want to save your GPA, sure maybe you should drop the class and move down. But if you want to progress as a person, I think you should stay in the class, try to learn, and not worry about the grade."

-- Some chemguy way back in junior year. Something about a rather cranky math teacher on tenure giving me a couple bad quiz grades and me asking him if it would hurt to just drop the class. I still remember my grades for that class every quarter: C, B, A, A. I guess I learned something.

"If you really want to not have any more teen pregnancies give every kid in high school a car, a job, and something to do after school. They won't have time to have sex."

-- One of those off-topic days in the school paper that once was. Really, you can't argue with that much. And trust me, I love to argue.

They don't seem as profound when I try to recite them anywhere from a 1-2 years later. The point stands, you learn a lot from people outside of biology or chemistry or... publication/photography/ad-sale?

And I could rattle on even more about other stuff like Catholic guilt, that trap door guy in everyone's head (and how one person killed him), Olympic curling, coaching sports teams that suck (but don't you dare say they suck), raising money a couple pennies (and s***load of calls) at a time, just plain having a hobby outside of your job, or making sure your job is your hobby.

But I won't. Probably because the only people reading already know about that.

See, I do remember some stuff you teach :)

//creepy foreshadowing on the picture there...and yes.. i do always look that retarded.

HOORAY FAT TUESDA--- awww ash wednesday :(

The most drastic 24-hour mood swing in the Christian faith: Fat Tuesday/Ash Wednesday.

Ash Wednesday (that funny day when all the Christian kids have some smudges on they foe'head) also marks the beginning of every meat-loving American's favorite 40-year span, Lent! No meat on Fridays, andddddd other stuff.

Note to self... go to church more often...

ONE THING I DO KNOW THOUGH is that it is common practice to give something up. The "religous" twist of this (in the Christian faith) is that it is to recognize the sacrifice Jesus underwent in his 40 days in the desert. Not sure about this, but I think Jews have a Lent in some form or another (help me out here echt...) but it is for the 40 years in exile.

In the past (and I don't see this changing outside of someone telling me this is completely heretical and will result in excommunication) instead of giving up something, I do something to better myself. Usually this is like actually working out every other day (the first year I did 100 pushups and 100 situps a day, talk about a solid, easy workout), doing all my homework (for 40 days, about five or so weeks straight depending on how spring break falls, that is no small feat for me) or serious spring cleaning. I'm far from a priest, but I like this because I think it really gets to the point more. It's not like Jesus was some masochistic freak or anything, so why should I torture myself just for the sake of the sacrifice?


BEHOLD, THE POINT OF THE POST! (sorry about the caps-heaviness, it's kinda my thing tonight...)

What I Am Doing For Lent
1. Workout a minimum of 2.25 hours/week. No weenie shit, good, hard lifting. Gain five pounds of solid muscle by Easter.
2. Keep anything that the police don't approve of to once a week, and only on weekends. That doesn't mean YAYAYYA CRAM IT ALL IN TO ONE NIGHT OF DEBAUCHERY!one!.
3. Go. To. Church.
4. Make mama proud.


I think if I complete 1-3, 4 will be easy.

mini-Jolts

Sit down and think for a second. Think about everything you have ever learned. All the way from birth to now, at this exact moment, sitting in front of your computer. I'm going to make a safe bet that if anyone reading my blog really really thought about it, the amount of stuff would be staggering. Shit, think of how much stuff you have probably forgotten even. Now of all that stuff, how much of these morsels of wisdom were discovered in your lifetime. I know for me that accounts for easily less than 5%.

In that little thought occured my "mini-Jolt" as I have come to call them. That is my term for those little thoughts (that for some reason I'm having a lot of lately) that make you go wow, we really are specks in time. We live 60, 70, 80 years for the fortunate ones. 100 is a miracle. There could even be a strong argument made that the first 19 years of my life (25% of it if I'm fortunate) have essentially been lived for me by the institutions that be. Not that I'm complaining, I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to figure out how to read or write on my own. And oh the things I have already learned (and forgotten). What I'm trying to get to here is, holy crap the train has been moving to that big brick wall for 19 years and I haven't ever given it a serious thought. Scary stuff.

Or exciting stuff. I was browsing the good-ole Sundance on Demand tonight and came across a great philosophy of the massively interesting broski Deepak Chopra," I start my day by saying to myself 'I hope today is even more uncertain than yesterday.'" Hear hear.

I have been in the state of mind that for the next month-ish I can in theory do whatever the hell I want. So far that has consisted of sleeping until 12, saving virtual worlds and winning virtual national championships, and surfing the 'tube. Pretty fun but rapidly losing excitement. That WILL change from here on out. Everyday I'm going to do something I didn't plan on doing waking up that morning (which, by the way, will be much, much earlier than 12). In the short term, that sounds like a great goal.

Long term though (since that is essentially what this post is about) what will this all mean? My best guess right now is that I will have beaten the system. Being a member of the rebellion at heart (had to get a Star Wars reference on meetnewschool eventually) beating systems is what I live for. I want to live more of a life than what my little speck was meant to live. I wonder if Mother Theresa, or Robin Williams, or even Hitler ever had this same thought. I wonder if Patches ever had this thought.

Early New Year Resolutions (cause its 365 days, why not have more than one friggin goal?)

1. Never plan a day sunrise to sunset.
2. Actually see a few sunrises.
3. Do.
4. Are you satisfied? You better not be.

Jimmy V

After a thorough study I have come to decide that 73.5% of the time I can't stand ESPN. I have ESPN on for background noise at the very least, on average, 8 hours of my waking hours now. It's sickening, really.

Good news is that about 26.5% of the time they really do come up with something worth watching (interestingly, 15% of said time involves Chris Berman). Their support of the Jimmy V foundation kind of hits a soft spot for me. This may sound harsh, but I really have no idea why. I think a great deal of it has to do with how outstanding this speech at the ESPY's Jimmy made really is.

The message of the speech is so translatable through almost any struggle; medical, personal, or otherwise.

If you've never seen it, watch it. If you have, watch it again.

A couple things that stand out:

• It's jolting how short "forever" can mean in some circumstances.


• Maybe I'm playing a demented sort of "Monday morning Quarterback," but this looks like a guy speaking with both a message and nothing to lose. He speaks to an audience of a few thousand like they are just one collective person.


• I hate audio delays on videos. Grr.


• This is one of the few youtube pages in which not one comment bashes another. It's the little things in life that I notice...


• The "30 seconds" comment had to probably be the most awkward feeling in that producer's life.

His three things really do make for a heck of a day. I know everybody has had at least one of those.