So I'm part of a mix tape club where each month an assigned person creates a mix based on whatever they want. Some have had a good mix of songs, some go with a theme, like dance music or off the wall indie-emo music or whatever. Well I made my own which is across the board. From movie soundtracks to country to punk rock. Here is the list. The mix is actually a zip stored on MediaFire which is AWESOME!
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Monday, August 4, 2008
Goodbye boys!
In other news... I had a vasectomy consult this morning. I'm going to schedule it and get my boys snipped. I'm scared, and a little reluctant because I'm considering it permanent. Some say they can be reversed, but I'm not going to count on it. While it would be nice to have another child, I don't think that my wife's back can take it. I'm pretty sure our finances and personal lack of responsibility won't be able to take it either.
Another child would seriously put a damper on our 5 year plan to be well on my way to another job via school. So after prayer and thoughtful consideration, I'm going to schedule it. *gulp*
Titled for Ben
It's a funny thing when you complain to yourself and all your friends and family about how bad your situation (job) is, just how much worse it can get. I've been a phone jockey for the last 10 years. I started in 98 working for Feature Films for Families doing surveys. I moved to sales and then on to management. After our department got shut down, I got busted back to the phones. I left that company and worked for another doing sales. They laid me off, and I went to do support for GroceryWerks. Then I got my MSCE and worked for the prison and got fired for selling tobacco to the inmates. After that I was back on the phones doing web support for Ikano. I left that job after a year and became a waiter at Village Inn during the 2002 Olympics in SLC. After that fiasco, I did door to door sales for AT&T cable. That was good money, but it made me really hate people. I then went to work for my grand parents doing construction for the summer. In the fall, I went to work for Teleperformance doing dialup support for msn users. I left the next summer and worked again for my grand parents. Returned again in the fall to Teleperformance. It was early November when I heard about my current job opening up at Qwest doing DSL tech support. So in a nutshell, while I've done some other things, I've been on the phones for the majority of the last decade...
Read on for how just about any situation get worse...
When I left Teleperformance I was making $9.50 an hour. When I moved to Qwest, they started us out at $12.50 or so an hour. We could have started at $8 something, and the worked our way up to the cap. But since we started with some experience, they gave us 2 years worth of 9% raises every 6 months. So from December 1 2003, every six months we got a 9% raise till we finally capped out at the current rate of like $23.50 or so. Tack on benefits (about $12k a year) we're doing quite well here at the Q. The problem however initially is that it's still a phone job, and that always sucks your brains away. It wasn't all that bad though, lax management, friends at work and the most I've ever been paid. Things are changing though, the managers are now all about firing people and we have our very own national socialist who happens to share a name with the gayest computer company around. Things were so bad earlier this year that people who have NEVER done anything wrong in their lives were getting suspended (like from high school) for 3 days for browsing the net, or talking about Qwest policies on a public forum... Well all that sucks hard, but I have a group of friends that I work in close proximity with who can share my pain. Well had I guess. My best friend is leaving the company to go to school full time. That was a hard blow to my small amount of happiness at work, but I still had several other people I really like who work right near me. Well today the two that matter the most to me got different jobs within Qwest. I'm happy for them, for sure. Those 2 are going to be making a considerable amount more money and they won't be under the current management. The other guy, well he's on his way out and I can't be happier for him.
Meanwhile, I'm going to stick to my plan and hopefully be rid of this hell hole in 2-4 years. School seems to be my only ticket out of here.
Sorry for the long post, but ah stuff it.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
I gots a hit!
Well 2 actually. The first one was some dummy recording telling me that she could sell my car for more than I have listed and blah blah blah, she was interrupting call of duty time, so that was the end of that. The second hit was from a kid who wanted to trade me a 1998 2.5 Impreza with a 2003 WRX motor. Sounds enticing, right? Well it looks like butt, and I'm not a fan of butt looking cars... The search goes on. A pic of my car and his after the jump.
Mine:
His:
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Blue Civic
So I might be selling my Civic. But then again I might not be. I dunno, if I'm going to get a different car, then I'll have to. I can't afford insurance on 4 vehicles. I want a car that has a few amenities, like you know... Back seats, Air conditioning... a heater. Things like that. I've got my Civic up for sale on KSL.com, but it hasn't returned any results. I also put up a blog about it at http://bluecivic.blogspot.com, but nobody really knows about it. I'm going to have to replace the driver's side window since I shattered mine the other day after the dang thing fell off the track. I can't sell the car with a shattered window.
I guess I could, but I'm trying to maximize the amount of money I get for the car, and even though it might cost 200 to have a shop do that, I'd probably have to drop 500 off the price. I'm not sure I can do it, it's hard to maneuver in the door area.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Monday, March 31, 2008
le sigh
I've done it. I've told myself that I'm frying my brains on Math. Well it's complete. The soft gray matter is now an overcooked waxy lump that is incapable of further thought or learning. Thanks a lot math 1050. That sounds sad doesn't it. It would be much cooler if I could say, "Thanks a lot particle physics" or something like that. But I just don't agree with math.
We'll see how this semester pans out, but based on my last midterm, it can't be all that good. At worst, I got a 33%, and at best I got a 66%. I realize I'm just moaning, but seriously, how does one remember all the formulas and tricks and other crap to make this stuff work? And on top of that, if by chance I can flog my lump of mass formerly known as my brain into remembering the formula for exponential decay and then applying it to carbon dating some imaginary fossil leaf found in some imaginary desert it's going to take me quite a long time. I started to work that particular problem when I noticed that I had 25 minutes left of my 90 minute test and still had 6 of 15 problems to go. I find it annoying that the measure of my knowledge is based on how fast I can pull it from the recesses of what my eyes may or may not have transmitted correctly to my lump. Perhaps I'll study history, or something else. But based on my feelings toward this class and the fact that it's the bottom rung of anything engineering based, I think I'm going a different route.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Stake Conference
We had our stake conference this past weekend and it was great! I find it kind of hard to believe that I could enjoy 4 hours of church on Saturday and 2 hours on Sunday, but it was really something else. The presiding authority over all the meetings was Elder Bruce C Hafen of the Seventy. You know how sometimes people with tell a few jokes during their talks? Well Elder Hafen told several each time and made for a very entertaining event. Of course, we don't go to church to be entertained and that wasn't his main message. Read on for more...
During the Priesthood leadership meeting from 4pm to 6pm, he told us that he is involved in the creation of a new church manual. I'm assuming the Melchizedek Priesthood leadership manual, but I'm not sure. Anyway, after about 40 minutes of talks and testimonies, he broke from the norm and had as close to a one on one as you can with as many men that were there. He asked us as leadership what the problems we saw in our stake was. The topics that were thrown out varied from disinterested fathers to forgotten families. It was a pretty big eye opener as to what our stake thinks are major problems locally.
As for the Adult Session from 7pm to 9pm it was a fantastic meeting that centered around rearing children. This talk was interesting as well, as it was both Elder Hafen and his wife Marie taking turns talking, back and forth about the differences between toddlers to teenagers and their experiences raising their 7 children. Elder Hafen told joke about his oldest kid who was I guess a troubled child, and he said that the lord blessed him with their other 6 kids in payment for taking his oldest off his hands, lol! He also put the proverbial "parental curse" of making their kids have kids just like them... He said that he had triplets, and that it's been very good for his character, haha that got a laugh out of the entire crowd. They had some good advice which I'm going to take to heart with my own kids. Probably the biggest thing I got out of it is that praise is paramount, and it's very trying as I found out the last 2 days in testing it out on my kids. In particular Trevor is a major thorn in my side sometimes, he's got to be the most stubborn kid alive. I love him to death, but it's really hard to be as calm as I need to with him.
I'd like to tell you what the main session was about on Sunday, but... well those kids of ours really make it hard to pay attention sometimes. Even though neither myself, my wife or my kids really get anything out of the talks, I think it's important for them to be there and understand that it's a life choice that will benefit them in teh long run, and besides after they're grown, we'll be able to pay attention then. =]
I can't believe it's December already. Couple more weeks and it's Finals time. I'm totally not ready, but who ever is? I've been selling lots of my stuff I had on my old car to save up some money to get my Wife a Christmas present that won't suck. I hope she doesn't think it sucks anyway.
We had our stake conference this last weekend and I want to make a post about it, but not one tied to this one.... so later today.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
OUCH!
I'd like to let everyone know what I've been up to for the last couple days. Really it started back in May of this year when I woke up in the middle of the night with severe upper abdominal pain. I couldn't shake it, ibuprofen and tylenol didn't help so after 4 hours of unrelenting pain I went to the ER where they gave me an anti-inflammatory through an IV and I felt better. After talking to the doc, we decided that I had pulled a muscle while trying to get an old chain saw started the day before.
Fast forward to Labor day and I'm camping 35 miles of gnarly dirt road away from the nearest sign of civilization (easy to do in Wyoming) and I get the same pain. I was incapacitated for about 8 hours. I suppose I should describe this pain, it starts in the back just below your shoulder blades and feels like you [i]really[/i] need to pop it for it to feel better. Then it stays there, but spreads to the front of your chest just south of your xiphoid process (the bottom of your sternum) and aches and aches and aches and aches. It doesn't matter what you do, lay down, stand up, sit, crawl, moan, cry.. anything, it just hurts. =( Now I've felt worse pain before, but you know how they ask you at the hospital what level of pain you're feeling? 1 for nothing, 10 for the worst you've ever felt, well imagine and 8 that [b]never[/b] goes away. It just hurts, continually. So I was about to have my dad drive me into town when I started to feel better and decided I'd go to the Dr some other time so I didn't have to ruin everyone's camping trip.
Skip to Sunday night, and I wake up with the pain at about 4:00 in the morning and take some ibuprofen and it goes away. I have Wednesdays off and decide that since it came back for a 3rd time I'd go see a doc on my day off. Tuesday morning at about 4:30 it wakes me up again. This time, no drugs help and it gets worse. I'm sitting on my couch at about a 9 on the pain scale and I have to go to school to turn in my homework then go to work. I drive for about 30 minutes to school drop my homework off and by this time I'm almost throwing up the pain is so bad. So I call work and tell them that I'm not coming in and that I was going to the emergency room.
Luckily for me, our city just got a HUGE level 1 trauma center / mega hospital and transferred all the patients from the hospital closest to my work there. I get right into the ER, and they admit me. 30 minutes later I'm getting an ultrasound and they tell me that I've got gall stones. I'm only 28 and eat relatively healthy and I thought this was something only old people got. I figured that I'd have to pass a gall stone since I've heard people say things like that before. So the doc comes in and tells me that I need surgery that day (yesterday) or else I'll be back the next day with the same pain, probably worse. Again because nobody is at this hospital, they tell me that I can get in there right away and I consent. It was pretty scary being wheeled into the operating room and being put under. Especially considering that I had just enough time to call my wife and tell her to meet me when I got out.
Surgery lasted about an hour, they cut a hole under my belly button, and 3 more up top, filled my abdominal cavity with air and worked with their tools and scopes to crush up the gall stones and then remove my gall bladder. :scared: I guess it beats a huge gash in my side just to get it out though.
I'm all hopped up on pain pills now and I should be getting better, but I'm sore as hell. Sorry for the lengthy post, but hopefully if someone reads this then gets the pain I did (we're all pretty young and not used to the idea of organ failure) they'll remember reading this and get it taken care of.
[[[CLIFFS]]]
Weird pain for several months. Went to the ER. Had surgery to remove my gall bladder.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
stressfull
I took my civic out for a spin last night. I've still got some vibration due to the axles so I won't be driving it long distances, but it's still fun and fast around town. Hopefully next summer I'll be doing some of this:
Friday, September 14, 2007
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Hmm
I wonder if the LDS church sponsored a NASCAR team if they'd get more membership. Perhaps I'll write the $cientologists and see how their campaign is coming.
Camping pics to come!
Friday, August 31, 2007
ICMP!
I'm going to live in the woods for 3 days! Not turning into mr lightning, but my friend Sam sent me this pic:
I'm going to jump into a super cold layk! I love doing that. GOod luck to you all and I will return to the civilized world on Tuesday.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Monday, August 27, 2007
It's MONDAY again!
That's right folks the beautiful M day is back again. What a weekend we had, I thought that on Saturday I'd be going to Evanston early early to help my dad unload some Hay into his barn, but I called him at 8 and he was 2/3 done so he said not to worry about it. So instead we went to IKEA to look for a bunkbed for our girls. That place is nuts! We might have found something, but we'll have to see. After that we went up to the Kennecot copper mine outside of Heriman Utah.
and saw some big ole dump trucks!
I've been up there before, but my kids hadn't and they enjoyed it. Cheap family fun day I guess.
Sunday was a pretty good day too. I had my first Elder's Quorum meeting in the new ward early that morning, then church from 9-12. After church it was a lazy day full of reading and naps. (loved it) Then we went to a fireside which was amazing. This guy in our ward named John Watkins who has retired from the Air Force has told me this story a few times. While in the 82nd airborne wing, he was the only LDS member in his platoon until a guy named Kenny joined up who was also LDS. Being members as they were they referred to each other as Brother John and Brother Kenny. Also being stationed in the deep south, there was a large contingent of black people in their unit, he said that they fit right in as a lot of people called each other brother and bro. After a few years him and Brother Kenny baptized 7 or 8 other members of their platoon and they had a big group of members who they called Brother Bob, or Brother Joe.
Well the fireside was about missionary work and he was the first speaker and he told this story in great detail. After John, there was a musical number and then a new speaker got up and introduced himself as Brother Belonte from California. As it turns out their family is spread out Utah, Idaho and California and have yearly reunions, and this one happened to be in Utah. As the speaker went on he started to mention more and more of the same points in John's story. Finally coming to the point in his story where he said he was in the 82 airborne and although he didn't join the church while in the service, he did 5 years later all because of Brother John's influence and example. John had no idea and it was amazing to see this all unfold to him for the first time, to watch him find out first hand that he had been responsible for over a hundred and fifty people joining the church was an amazing thing. The oldest daughter from the family got up and presented Brother John with a plaque with their family story on it and a list of all the 150+ people he had helped towards the gospel. It just goes to show you that we have no idea that we are being watched. People may not think that we are the true church or that we're a cult or whatever, but if that is so, then why are we held to such a high standard by those who don't even think we're right? Something to think about. =]
Friday, August 24, 2007
EEP!!
Not much anymore gets me all giddy inside like a school girl, but this does:
Oh yea, that's my new train! My friend Chris took this with his cell phone as he was driving to work today (very dangerous Chris!) but come 2008, I'll be riding that badboi to work instead of cars and buses!
Edit: Found this pic:
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
I saw this...
Saw this vid on my friend's site:
And it reminded me of this one I saw:
Type rest of the post here
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