It's Just My Job

Yesterday I got yelled at on 3 seperate occasions for being too assertive with a couple of my tasks. At this point I interpreted this as I was working too hard (me...I know that its hard to believe). So on this advice I coasted through the rest of the day and pretty much today also. My lack of professional duties left me with a void of time, which I successfully filled with Slime Soccer (see below). This game proved to be just the antidote for my problems. From now on I plan to live by the vow that I will never work hard again...at least at work.

My World Cup Dreams

Today I won the World Cup in Slime Soccer. I spent the better part of the morning competing against some of the best slimes from across the world. Although this may seem a little easier than it sounds, but I challenge you to do it. http://www.addictinggames.com/soccerslime.html

Strange Goings On

Yesterday many a strange things happen to people around me. The first was probably the strangest and most disturbing occurred on the train on the way home from work. Not long into the ride I was dozing off only to be awoken by a girl standing up and yelling at this guy running off the train. After he got off she said, "He pulled out his thing and tried to touch me with it." Half asleep it took me a moment to register what she was actually saying, but I guess this cracked out guy tried to cock-smack her on the train. Then later on I talked to my brother on the phone. He started out the conversation by asking if I have ever heard of anyone dropping a phone in a pool and then fixing it by replacing the battery. This was his brand new (uninsured) Razor. I pretty much told him that he was screwed. Then he told me about his friend's pool that they were swimming in and its one foot hole in the liner. I pretty much told him that his friend was screwed. Then he told me about his fat friend who was trying to kill a spider on the roof and when it feel on him he shreiked, fell over, and sprained his ankle. Finally the most scary thing that happened yesterday (that I just found out this afternoon) was that my dad collapsed yesterday evening and my mom spent all of last night in the emergency room. Thankfully he is ok but he has been putting too much work on his bad knee and has a condition where all his blood is focusing on his knee so his blood pressure and heart rate dropped to very low levels. After his overnight stay in the ER he is thankfully doing alright today. I find it quite interesting that all these strange incidences occurred on the same day.

What I Do When My Girlfriend is Away

My girlfriend left me for a long weekend to attend her high school reunion. Men could use this time for a lot of different things and here is how I used it. After brewing an experimental ale on Thursday, I completed work on Friday and came home to assemble some new brewing equipment. Then we went out to an all you can drink special for 3 hours and it is safe to say that I drank all that I could. I would just be foolish to stay at a bar after the all you can drink so over, so we headed out looking for adventure. The first stop on the magical voyage was a trolley that would guide us through the rest of the evening. I'm not entirely sure whether the trolley was part of someone else's party or a promotion for a bar. But all I needed was the case of beer aboard and the will to have a good time. I asked the driver if the trolley was going to take us to a certain bar where one of my coworkers was having a party (which was coincidently all you can drink also). he told me it was going there, but what he did not mention was that the trolley was going to make a stop between here and there. So there I was at a bar on the beach with my new trolley friends with no idea where we were, what we were doing there, or how long we were going to be there. After a while I grew tired of standing by the doorway waiting to go, so I headed back down to the trolley to see when we were going to leave. He told me that the trolley parked there was just for show and another one would be taking us to the next bar. So I boarded the trolley anyway and noticed the rest of case of beer sitting there. As people walked by asked if we were going to leave I handed them a beer. Before no time the trolley was full and we were on our way to the bar. We arrived at the bar with 15 minutes left in the all you can drink special, so I only go two more drinks. I met up with our other coworker and we had a conversation about how I should work hard and try to move up the ladder. I soon grew weary of his conversation and went to go find my friend. The last time I saw my drinking companion for the night was when he feel off and stool and broke a glass. I later found out he got back on the trolley threw up on it, got kicked off, and then passed out on the street where someone used his cell phone to call his girlfriend to tell her to pick him up. His night was over when I last saw him, however mine continued on. After my failed attempt to find him after visiting the bathroom, I decided that it was time to leave. The only problem was that I had no idea where I was. So I got some cash and then hopped into a cab. It took me to my house, but instead of calling it a night I went to our rugby bar and met up with a few players. After a long conversation about how I should work to try to play international rugby. I quickly grew tired of this discussion and headed back home for the night. Needless to say the next morning I felt pretty bad, but that didn't stop me from making the most beer out of my day. I made a trip for to the homebrewstore to pick up some ingredients not for that day but for my ambition to brew two days in a row. Then I drove about 45 minutes out of my way to an Indian neighborhood to pick up a special more aromatic type of coriander. After I cracked it open I was glad that I did. It had a much better citrusy smell that normal coriander. After I got home we made some seasoned salmon and then I started my brewing. It took me until later hours than I had expected but I am confident that the increased effort of getting better ingredients and new equipment will be well worth it. The next day I brewed again. I will not bore you with any details (if you'd like some leave a comment...I brewed a Belgian Wit), but I did see the movie American History X for the first time and felt that it was a lot to take in. The rest of Sunday night I watched TV, made my grandma's banana cupcakes, and then got a call from home that proved to be too late for me to talk to may dad on Father's Day (he was passed out, it was probably from the hops in the beer he drank). What can I say...I'm a bad son.

Knowledge

I've been thinking about all the stuff that I have learned over my lifetime and I think it is funny how we learn such a little bit at a time. Like today I learned a couple things that just gets tossed into my knowledge bank. Tommorrow I will hopefully learn something else and that will get tossed in there too.

What gets me is the way that creativity grows in a similar fashion. You may have a spark of a creative idea and then it get tossed into the bank. Then your ideas become more refined and new ones form. Knowledge and creativity kind of go hand and hand in this way. When I learn something new and it goes into my brain, later on I may develop a creative idea from the nugget of knowledge that I picked up.

Fit

What should you do when you get yourself committed to something and then once you really get into it you don't really seem to fit. What you are doing does not match your skill set very well and you feel like you are wasting a lot of your time. Should you go out and seek change or is the cost of doing so too great to really afford? It could be worth it though.

The Spanish Connection

After getting off of work on Friday, I called my mother to see what time she was going to arrive as she was driving up for a visit over the weekend. After I talked to her I slipped my cell phone in my pocket and boarded the train to go home. Upon arriving home it was brought to my attention that I no longer had my phone. I looked all over the house to no avail. So we began to call it to see if we could hear it but heard nothing. The only other place it could be was on the train, so we kept calling to see if anyone on the train could hear it and pick it up. After a couple of attempts someone actually answered. I asked, "Did you find my phone?" They a woman answered, "Si, phone." Then I asked, "Can I have it back?" to which she replied, "No English." So now I had a language barrier to overcome if I had any chance to get my phone back. So I called my girlfriend's sister who is fluent in Spanish and asked her to call the lady back. A little while later, she called back and said that the Spanish lady claimed that it was her phone and she paid for it. I told her to offer her a reward for returning the phone (which I probably was not going to honor after she tried to steal it) but the Spanish lady was not longer answering. So we called the cell phone company and told them to deactivate the service. Now if she tries to take it in to activate it, it will turn up lost or stolen. I don't see what else she could do with it. I doubt donating it to charity will any good as I doubt that she doesn't pay any taxes.

Workng for the Weekend

Weekends are pretty great when you have a lot of stuff to look forward to and especially when you take a long weekend while everyone else has to work. This should be a good one with Ribfest, a friend's open bar party, and going home to work a golf tournament on Monday. Then to make it better I'll have a four day work week before next weekend. The only thing that is sad is that it is my weekdays that make my weekends seem so great.

Weddings

I have been to two weddings in the past two weekends and I find it interesting how weddings mean different things to different people. Sometimes they celebrate commitment, sometimes they celebrate a person's desire to be attached at the hip with their mate, sometimes it gives the bride the opprotunity to try to convince you to get married, and sometimes they get someone a green card. They are extremely important to some people and to others they just present a chance to mock tradition by hoarding garders or bouquets. Or they are just an opprotunity to get all your buddies drunk. It seems no matter what your opinion on weddings, just about everyone seems to enjoy going to them.

Priorities

From time to time we need to look at our lives and figure out what we really want to do. Oftentimes we get caught up in what we are doing and then we can forget why we are doing it. It is an example of attitude following action. We go to work every day and start thinking we enjoy what we do. This is until something happens and you realize that it is not really that important to you. Suddenly your job is not that important and you start to enjoy your life. Maybe we need to be more like the Europeans and work less and enjoy life more.

Youth Hostel

I got back from my former roommate's wedding to find an Aussie named Burt sleeping on my bed. He seemed as confused as I was waking up at 2 o'clock in the afternnon. Although I was not overly surprised in find him sleeping in my bed, it was a tad confusing. For see this man Burt went out with my roommate to the local bar and stayed past closing. Not too suprising, but Burt lives above the bar that they were drinking in. So instead of going upstairs to his room, he walked a block down the street to crash in my bed. Perhaps he felt it would be better to walk down the street than walk up a flight of stairs.