8 years later

The last time I wrote a blog post in this blog was 2005. That was 8 years ago and I was 16 years old. I graduated twice since then, started dating and got married, and am expecting my first child exactly 1 month from today. So I have several reasons to be introspective. More than anything, I feel like I need to get a message in a bottle for myself so that I don't forget.

If I were writing a story about the recent history of my life there is certainly a lot to tell, but I don't have the time this morning to tell it all. Maybe down the road, if this goes anywhere. For the sake of something different, I will deny my natural detail-oriented tendencies and forgo a rigorous timelined history. I will try to keep the purpose of this post simple: how do I feel today?

I'm 24 years old. I'm married. I have a BS in Mechanical Engineering and work as an Engineering Manager at a mid-size manufacturing company. I live 5 minutes from my job. I work about 45 hours a week. I don't get bored at work because I don't have time to get bored at work. There is too much to do.

I feel bored. Is bored the right word for it?

The thing I want most right now is a change. That sounds hard to believe given that I have a baby on the way, but its true nevertheless. I don't feel like doing the same things. I don't feel like driving down the same road. I don't feel like I'm spending the 17 waking hours I have doing something I don't like.

I guess I'm not really content with being an engineer. I don't think an introspective analysis of this statement is worthwhile... its just true. And I'm not really afraid to admit this. I don't feel like I wasted time or money on my degree - I learned something - but I need to take the next step. My vision is that there are many next steps, which will lead to more steps. Steps on a path to... what? I don't know, it doesn't really matter. I'm not going to NOT move forward, regardless of whether I can conceive or articulate the end goal.

If I'm not happy, then I should change something. Since I have no better ideas, I'll pose a simple question: what has made me happy?

Learning how to profit at something

I'll show you par

I know its been a finity of scout camps since I've written, and several people have put in requests (two thus far, but the rest are obviously waiting for the next installment)

When you approach the topic of golfing, you get this feeling inside of you very similar to the feeling when you spill juice on your pants, namely that you lose most of the feeling in your crotchoidal area.

*Note: crotchoidal is made up.

I know I do at least. Haha! Anyway, yeah golf can be considered a pretty hardcore sport. When you watch the pros playing, you notice that they make golf look pretty easy. Occasionally, they pull boneheaded maneuvers that only ameteurs (myself) would do, such as hit the ball in the opposite direction of the green into hazardous zones (like water), but for the most part just whack the crap out of the ball.

The first time I attempted golf (real golf, not golfing on astroturf with glorified mallets), I went to the driving range with my dad on a rainy day. Any normal person would notice the rain outside and say, "Hey Dave, its raining, so lets just go inside and enjoy a cold one." Not my dad. So I stepped up to the ball, and began the long process of standing so that when you start the backswing you don't tear muscles that were never meant to be torn (yeah, those ones). After a steady backswing, I whipped the club around at 983 miles per hour like the pros. I missed the ball, but by some miracle of God I managed to throw the pitching wedge 4 stories high. It landed over by some regular civilians, who looked at me with severe disdain. My dad motion at them that everything was ok and casually walked over to the club as if nothing had happened. I retired from golf for a while after that.

Luckily, I'm slightly better now. I can use a "driver" which actually doesn't do much driving at all, but rather allows me to put an amazing curve on the ball that allows it to travel exactly 400 yards to my right. I also have mastered the art of kicking my golf back after a lousy shot.

Overall, golf is a memorable sport. I know I have memories. I'm specifically thinking of the time at golf city when I hit my ball into fully-populated mini golf course at Golf City. Ah, what memories I have!

The joy of driving

Today, I experienced a sincerely wholesome feeling. A feeling equal to staying awake until 4:00 am at a LAN. I got my license.

This entire experience of earning a license, the final high point where all your vast driving wisdom is tapped, started long ago (yesterday). I went to the DMV, which is actually in the middle of nowhere (and probably designed by the some boneheads who drew up CV). I don't like the DMV, because they issue you a number upon arrival. Perhaps this is rationally important, but it really just makes me feel like a customer at McDonalds. You press this small button and a receipt pops out that identifies you as #60. After waiting for all of the DMV employees to get the correct volume for the subliminal background music (evlis) they yell out your number. They could use an advanced sound system so all 3 customers in the DMV could hear, but I suppose that would interfere with the Elvis music.

The guy who helped me at the counter looked extremely T.O.'d. He looked nice enough, but his demeanor expressed a kind of "I don't like working for the DMV" mindset. This helped me to relax more before the test. (sarcasm). I opted to take the safety/written/touch screen test first, because I had a few minutes to kill. I hopped onto machine 1 and the T.O.'d dude said "go ahead". I answered question 1 fine (basic speed law) but crapped out on 2 (what happens first when you drink alcohol. I'd say... you come 'this much closer' to passing out but the correct answer was it impairs your judgement. Judgement smudgement). I went on like this, and eventually failed the test at question 17. This staved me.

I still took the drivers test. After waiting for several minutes in the "drivers test" section of the parking lot, an older woman came out to test me. Things I did wrong in my test:

1) I drove on to the curb

After doing this, my heart dropped into my pancreas and my mouth went like this "whoosh". I slowly turned toward the instructor, but she appeared to be unaffected by my mishap. "Maybe she didn't notice", I thought to myself. I put the car in reverse and started moving back when the car went "whoosh" and dropped a total of 173 inches. I almost wet my pants.

My instructor didn't say anything, so I did the rest of my test with that "almost wet your pants" feeling that only occurs when you almost wet your pants. Otherwise I did fine.

Today I retook the Safety test and got 17/20. I managed to answer the Beer question correctly this time. Call me a genius.

I plan on utilizing my new license by driving to cool places such as any store starting with Best and ending in Buy. And La Roca. For the record, my license picture makes me look like Ronald Reagen.


No, not really.

Stave it off

Recently (the past several months), I have been using the word "stave" in casual conversation quote a large amount. For all of you eager readers out there who have always wondered what the implications are of "staved" I will explain now.

To stave something generally means to screw it up. At one point, I was carrying a large object (1 million + pounds) and accidentally slipped on the gym floor of West Salem. I had staved my knee in this instance. If someone had shot my knee, that would mean my knee had been owned. My knee is still staved to this day.

Stave can also be used as an exclamation, similarly in usage to such words as CRAP or FLIP. When stave is exlaimed, it means someone is experiencing something unpleasent. A proper time to say stave would be if you puked on your date. An improper time would be if you puked in the toilet.

Stave can also be used in conjuction with the words: it, off. This combination of words creates the saying: "stave it off". When said, this literally means to "shrug it off" or "ignore it" or plain "stop caring". If you are whining about getting owned by my ak-47, I might say Stave it off. Likely, I would just say shut up.

Finally, stave can be said at pretty much anytime while doing work, because work can be associated with negative things (see original meaning of "stave"). I might say stave while at school, simply because school is staved and I wish I could just stave it off.

God bless America, and the staved.

Death or buying kevlar

Counterstrike source has recently become an obsession of mine, so much to the point that while I am participating in the physical world, such things as people jumping the right way or looking around corners triggers a reaction in my, such as crouching or attempting to fire a few rounds out of my ak-47. Yes, I am a nerd. No, you are not cooler than me.

I would like to say that I have listened to air1 for 4 hours today, it has gotten me through my 4 math assignments. While on this homework bonanza, I developed nausea from overexposure to work and mental anguish. I then got up and drank some water, we ran out of orange juice.

I'd also like to say something on school. I've noticed that most teachers lead fairly normal lives outside of teaching, which is an abnormal act. Mr. Thomspon in particular does fairly normal things such as eat fast food and slack on grading papers. Mr. Thomas hates his wife (typical), and I think Mr. Garvin just watches basketball... a lot. This brings me to a talk about Mr Garvin. I've always wondered what he is thinking while teaching our primitive psychology class. My theory is, he has perfected his teaching style to such a degree that he can speak without thinking about his speech, thus explaining why he says "as you go through" so often because it just rolls of his tongue. While speaking about psycological matters, he is probably thinking about 1) basketball 2) iowa stuff 3) blonde jokes 4) blondes?. My guess is Mr Garvin's brain has the following sections:

1) Basketball
2) Food
3) Blonde Jokes
4) Iowa
5) Teaching lobe
6) Lack of emotion tumor
7) Basketball clothing hemisphere
8) "As you go through" speech receptor

Mr. Thomas is proof the only proof of evolution I've seen in my life. Ms. Collins has a fake fro... I think. I also think she needs to stop using dysfunctional apparatuses such as shoes without attaching devices or a chair that you use your knees to sit with. Sanchez is actually the devil, in the form of a woman.

Finally, I'd like to say that Spider man is a pretty sweet movie, and fried ice cream from Ixtapa is over-rated. I think they buy the ice cream part at thriftway, which explains the high cost and bland taste.

Looking at Homework

Today, I found myself with a serious dilemna. Almost as serious as losing the power in my room. I thought, "maybe I should do some homework". You may ask, why is this a serious dilemna. The answer is equally simple. 1) I won't do it tomorrow, and 2) I have a crapload of it to do.

Right now, I am even debating whether or not to be writing in this Blog or going over Physics problems that are a two weeks old. I could be doing 1 of the 3 math assignments i need to do. Meh, I say to myself, meh. I'll do it tomorrow... after robotics.

I would also like to say that I think I am becoming sick, because my throat has large globules of garbage, and causes me to go "herhem" every 20 seconds. I hope I don't barf up a lung or something, or maybe I do. I would like to miss some school, but generally I leave that up to the weather (I want snow).

Seeing as this current composition is going in a pretty lame direction, I think I'll revitalize it by talking a bit about current trends in... music.

1) Ashley Simpson is actually an alien.
2) Dick Cheney was actually a Rock Artist once (I'm pretty sure I made this up)
3) Avril Lavigne sucks pretty bad
4) MTV sucks pretty bad
5) Eminem is actually the result of a terrible experiment
6) The experiment involved Dick Cheney and possums
7) Thats Gross.

Cheers!

Thoughts on Crescent Valley

With my recent involvement with robotics, it has occurred to me once again that Crescent Valley exists, which sends shudders through my spine.

I have only been to their school a handful of times, all of which had to do with robotics scrimmages. Since robotics scrimmages are generally not an activity I tend to happily engage in, I dismissed the whole event as some lame thing I had to attend and have thus stereotyped the entire campus at the same level I stereotype Prisons.

I say Prisons because CV is the best representation of a prison I've ever seen. Even better than the principles office, because CV feels negative. The entire building is made out of pure conrete, even the roof. Don't ask me why the roof is this large mass of concrete, because I would tell you "because it was built during the clinton administration", which it was.

CV has a pretty cool stream going through the middle of their "center congregating area", but while I was there it looked like it was so littered with Taco Bell wrappers that the water was actually a dark green. The benches were also crappy, they had no backrests.

My final point about CV is the fact that the school is out in the middle of nowhere. You have to drive upwards of 5 minutes outside of Corvallis just to get to it, and when you drive past you think you've missed it because you don't visually match prisons and schools. "Hey mom, there's my school!" "No Billy, thats a prison. That's where your father is".

Basically, CV is a bad place, and I urge all of you to stay out of range. Or, if you must go within range, take some scissors so you can cut off one of their robotics team members (nicknamed "Mullet") who has a large Mullet.