Getting Away

Weekend forecasts:

Chicago, IL
Friday: mostly sunny, high 31
Saturday: mostly cloudy, high 36
Sunday: partly cloudy, high 30

Orlando, FL
Friday: sunny, high 68
Saturday: sunny, high 73
Sunday: sunny, high 77

Ahhh.... Getting away this weekend will be sweet (other than the dozens of guys trying to kill me on the rugby field).

O Woe's Me!

Today, November 29, 2005 marks a day of tragic loss. My beloved red lumberjack hat was left behind on a purple line train at approximately 6:00 am. Although this is a hard time for everyone, we must remember the great times we had together...like going outside in the cold during the brisk Chicago winters, and...well that's about it. Although I have more less accepted the loss, this is not the first time my hat and I have been seperated. About two year ago the hat was misplaced later to be found a month later. So for all of you readers out there, if you have found my beloved hat please comment to this blog so we be once again reunited. I keep the hope alive and thank you for your efforts in this matter.

Chistmas in November

I find it interesting how Chistmas insantly begins the day after Thankgiving. Sure a lot of people want to get their shopping done early on "Black Friday," but why do we have to start celebrating Chistmas that early by hanging up Chistmas decoration and hearing Chistmas music on the radio. In my opinion, Chistmas celebrtations should not begin prior to December 1st. That way we are at least in the same month as the actual day. By the same logic, we should start celebrating New Years on December 3rd. So break out the champaign and noise makers this weekend for the new year!

Turkey Day Eve

At about 9 o'clock this morning I started to go into vaction mode. You know...thinking about a big turkey and stuffing and mashed potatos and beer and how eating all that food is so much better than working. So at that point my productivity started to go down like a Friday on steriods.

Drunk Theology

So last night I consumed some mead and headed for the bar for more beverages. After about 4 or 5 drinks I needed to use the bathroom. Afterward while I was washing my hands I realized the purpose of life. The resaoning is quite deductive in nature and you have to believe in the first couple of pretenses for it to be valid. First you must believe that God created humans regardless of the means (evolution or intelligent design). So if man was created in God's image, and God is the creator of life and the world, then it is the role of man to create life and otherwise. In order to remember this reasoning, I had to write it down on a Harp coaster. It's funny how alcohol (especially mead) can make you so wise.

Walk the Line

So I saw the Johnny Cash movie this weekend and it was pretty good. It must be exciting to have a life great enough to have a movie made about it. Yet it'd kinda suck because most of those movies are made after you are dead so you never really get to see them. But I suppose that you lived it aready, but it might be fun to relive it (other than the drug dependence thing).

Fighting your Memory

I had a great topic to write about today, but I forgot what it was. I know it's still in my head somewhere, but I'm just not sure how to pry it out of there. It's funny how many things we have in our brain that we cannot recall unless prompted correctly. So many things I's like to recall are so far back in my brain I don't know if I'll ever be able to think those thoughts again.

Winter

Why do Chicago winters start on one very specific day? For example today winter started. Yesterday was fairly nice and then this morning it feels like it is 17 degrees outside, there is frost and snow coating the el stops, and that wicked winter wind is once again punching you in the face. Times like these require extra precautions. You need a large warm jacket, a hat warm enogh for a lumberjack, and perhaps someone to keep you warm on the winter nights. These are the essentials to making it through this winter, which started today.

6 Months Down

Today marks the day that I have been working for half a year. Let review what I have accomplished in those six months from 7 to 3 five days a week:

1)I have helped my boss get richer
2)I have significantly raised my blood pressure.

So that's about it. I've managed to shelter, feed, and entertain myself for those 6 months, but in America that's not all that hard to do (although I like to think that I did it with style). I also put away $150 for my retirement which is nice, but according to my calculations it will take a little more than that to retire.

Some other interesting points:
-If I work until I am 65 years old, then I have complete 1/86th of my working career.
-At my current saving rate, I will retire on $12,750 (plus the interest accrued) or 1/3 of my gross annual salary. NOTE: This figure is misleading since I only started saving for retirement six weeks ago.
-Outside of work I have been much more productive by producing about 50 gallons of alcohol and consuming most of it.

Adventures in Paintballing

This weekend I went paintballing for the first time ever and it was very interesting. First the place we went to really sucked for a lot of reasons. First, we waited around for about 2 hours to get registered and equiped. Then right before our first game, my gun fell apart so I spent another half hour waiting for it to be fixed. So finally, I'm ready to go. But we were forced to wait for a game to be announced. But we decided to go off on our own (against the rules) and play amongst ourselves. This was the best move of the whole day. I snuck around the perimeter of the field and snipped an enemy from the blind spot. Then I ran right between a standoff between the two sides. At that point neither team knew which side I was on so I got pelted from both sides. And they got me good too. After that, we joined an organized game, which was fairly fun. But afterward several of the members of our group got disciplined by the refrees for various infractions. We did not respond well to that as the refs were punk teenagers. So after that mishap, about half of our group left, but the rest of us went on another game. About two minutes into the game, my gun broke for the second time. So I walked out of the game with the intention of walking back and getting my guin fixed. So as I was leaving, I got chased down by a pimp faced ref, who informed me that I couldn't walk back by myself. So he escorted me back. So for the second game, I sat out until one of my players was hit out of the game. Then I took his gun and headed in only to be followed by the same referee, who informed me that I could not play because I started out of bounds. So I ignored him and kept playing. Then he threaten that if I kept shooting I would be kicked out of the park. By this time I had nothing to lose because the place sucked and I was planning on leaving after the game anyway. So after my warning I took my gun and pointed it towards the ref and fired off my last shot of the day. He took my gun and demanded to see my ID wristband. So I explained how it fell off so a threw it away, an obvious lie. He kept asking for it and I kept telling him to eat a dick. So I got my drivers license and headed out of the park, probably never to return to a paintball field again.

T.O.

Take Mr. Terrell Owens, formerly of the Phidelphia Eagles. Possibly the best wide reciever in the NFL, suspended for the season by his team. Why would you put such a talented athlete on the bench for a season. He stirs up the chemistry of the team so much that his attitude overrides his ability to perform on the field. Any team that signs him after the Eagles let him go are fools if they think that T.O. can change his selfish ways and actually be a good addition to a team. Although T.O. is an extreme example, it shows how individuality can trump the success of the team.

Teamwork

One of the classic conflicts in life is the individual versus the team. For a team to be truely successful everyone has to work together to accomplish greatness. But within the team context the individuals yearn to stand out from the group. Although individual and team success can coinencide, often individual aspirations harm the team. That's why leadership is so important in a team atmosphere. If you have leaders who can limit the amount of harmful individuality on a team, the team will be destined to succeed. But when a team lacks those leaders, the team will often go into disarray. And when individual achieve greatness, it should be defined within a team setting and celebrated as a team accomplishment.

Venting

Do you know what I hate? When people vent on other people because they're mad at something else. Like when you have a bad day and come home and kick your roommate's girlfriend's little white dog. Then the dog goes and bites you roommate so he slugs you. It all seems kind of childish to me. If you are going to let yourself get worked up, you should at least take it out on something that you won't upset and pass it on to someone else.

So all together: Out with the bad air...in with the good. Relax and have a great day.

Shopping

Has anyone else noticed how men and women are different in buying things. Men are so much more quick when purchasing things because we just don't really care. We just like cool things that plug into the wall and make a wirring noise. Men are much more likely to find the novelity in purchases and focus less on the actual functionality of our buys.

Unlike women who are always looking for a perfect answer to their consumer needs. That's why women are so much more likely to take longer before they find something that they really want to buy.

Freecell

So I learned to play freecell today and I like it a lot. It offers a great change of pace from solitare and minesweep when you are at a computer with nothing to do. Like most people who have real jobs.

Halloween

I feel bad for the kids of Chicago. They never get to go trick or treating all night, with the rules the city sets. And its too bad because you could really clean up in a this city.

But Halloween isn't just for kids, it is fun for everyone. While sitting on the stoop last night we were handing out candy and jello shots. We got numerous smiles and made at least 3 people take 360 turns to grab jello shots after they turned down candy. It really made people feel like kids again to be trick-or-treating as grown people (especially when a 225 pound mouse is handing out the candy).

One final note: drinking too many jello shots and beers is very bad.