Halcyon Repose

Teaching various martial arts, I have noticed how different kids interact to different situations and to each other. I have always enjoyed people watching, and specifically watching the social interactions that make up people’s everyday life.

MSN had an interesting article up about how the latest generation of kids are turning out to be overanxious thanks to growing up in an environment where mom and dad provide everything including the solutions to all of the problems thier child will face in life.

http://health.msn.com/pregnancykids/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100142037&GT

It is a long article and worth the read. Interestingly enough, there is a section on cell phone use and how they might influence the social and mental developement of youth today. Their use is something I have commented on, but I never connected that it might have further reaching and deeper impacts beyond the obvious.

Well I managed to finish my list, and in the process started recauling the outside of the bathtubs. The townhome we are in is a few decades old, and apparently so is all the caulking around the tub and toilets. All of it has turned a nasty black color, and is in dire need of replacing. Just from what little I have done, I can tell this will be a big improvement on how things look.

It’s been a long time between posts, so I’ll try to play some quick catch up.

Car

My car is still doing well, in the first two months, I am approaching 3k miles, which is more than I would like (esp considering gas prices) but she still runs like a dream. I did have one small incident involving my door handle and the side of the garage (after I spent 3 hours detailing it no less). Good news was that after checking it out and then walking away in disgust, my roommate was looking at it a few days later and noticed that it didn’t seem to be a scratch into the door handle, but stuff on the door handle. Sure enough, after I attacked it with a buffing cloth and pocket knife, I was soon rewarded with an almost mint condition door handle. Three coats of wax for the win!

I normally do something minor to my car within the first few months, and I always left the damage there as a ward against other mistakes, but not getting my handle fixed never even crossed my mind. When I thought of the body work I was going to have to get done if the paint was damaged on the handle, I immediately realized I needed to get into gear and sell my old Integra to help cover repair costs. I was planning on doing some more work to it, but I wanted money fast, so I cleaned up the exterior as much as I could given the car’s dire need of a new paint job. I grabbed some images for posting on recycler.com and craigslist.com, and planned on cleaning up the rest of the car the next night. Not 10 minutes after I posted the ad on craigslist.com the next morning, I had a phone call asking about the listing. Throughout the day I had about 15 phone calls and 5 emails. With that much interest I wasn’t going to drop the asking price one dime till every one of those people turned me down. I told people that I was going to be home at 7, and all of them wanted to be there right at 7. I sort of feel bad for not making appointments, I mean I didn’t want 4 people there trying to outbid each other (that would have been nice though), but in the end, the guy who called me first showed up an hour early, and ended up paying the asking price for the car without even taking it for a test drive. The whole process felt rushed, but I had the cash and his contact information to give to the DMV, so I am not too worried about it.

I took part of the money and upgraded my home computer, and some more to buy a NICE stereo for the car that integrates VERY well with my iPod (since I wouldn’t be able to afford to get either for a long while), and shunted the rest into savings. I am very happy with both purchases and it makes going back into leaving from paycheck to paycheck a little easier. The disadvantage to setting my car payment as high as I could absolutely afford is that my disposable income is going to be nil for a very long time.

E3

I wasn’t very trigger happy with the camera at this year’s E3. I do have a few pictures to put up, but most of them revolve around the huge Illidan statue in front of the Blizzard Booth (the Demonic bad guy in the next expansion for World of Warcraft), and some pics of Ed and Frances posing with Frogger, Ryan getting Frogger in a headlock, and of course Frogger’s revenge. But where I didn’t take any pictures, there were those who did step up to the task. Manny snapped some pictures through out the day, and Jamin brought his camera to the party. I haven’t yet gone through them and to do my typical web resizing, but they are there in all of their glory. I am actually in a number of them, which is strange because typically people with cameras tend to avoid me.

Around the House

This past weekend was extremely productive for me, even though I still haven’t figured out why. Starting off on Saturday, I got to fill in for Brenden in his fencing classes since he was out of town for a tournament. Getting off from there I went home with the intention of collapsing, but instead Kenny and I both mentioned to each other that the back garden needs to be cleaned up. I didn’t take any pictures to serve as before shots to show you how bad it was, but believe me when I say it was extremely bad. My roommate’s girlfriend had started a garden over a year ago, and when she stopped weeding it, I refused to help as it was her baby. As of this weekend, the weeds were easily waist high, and a huge eyesore. I ran to the hardware store to equip us with the necessary tools, and when I returened; Kenny, his girlfriend, and I launched our attacks. The end results were three and half trash bags of nothing but weeds, and two triumphant green gladiators. After removing the weeds and cleaning a bit, it actually became apparent that we actually do have a back patio. We stopped by the hardware store again to resupply on our weed killer so that we could finish the roots, and while we were there, Kenny decided that what our back patio really needed was a new grill. What do you know, but The Home Depot actually sells grills! We rented a truck (no I am not putting a grill in the back of the new Mustang), and carted Kenny’s new prize home. Once we returned the rental truck, we then promptly broke in the new grill with some fresh grilled hamburgers, grilled corn, and home-style french fries (yum!). We are thinking of just trashing all the current soil in the patio planter, and going with fresh new soil so we don’t have to worry about surviving roots or seeds from the weeds, but that will have to be a project for another weekend.

While I was at the hardware store earlier that day, I had found a seal repair for the toilet in my room. It had a slow leak into the bowl that means the valve turns on once every 10 minutes or so to refill the reservoir. I purchased a new seal, and that night I tore my toilet apart only to find that the seal I had wasn’t going to help any. Of course at 11pm at night, no hardware store is open, so I left my toilet and in pieces spread out round my bathroom and the next morning I ran and got all the parts necessary to completely redo the internals of the toilet. After a few hours of work, I had a new working toilet, and with the parts I pulled out of my toilet, I was able to replace the valve on the downstairs toilet so that it is now back in tip top shape as well. All in all not a bad weekend’s worth of work. Now for those of you who want pics of me repairing the toilet.. sorry, but I felt they would be in bad taste.. I apologize for the disappointment. ~

My apartment was in DIRE need of cleaning (seeing as how I am the only one that cleans really). Setting aside the money to purchase a vacuum has been on the list of things to do since my old one let me know, in no uncertain terms, that it had had enough of this sucking up dirt thing and was retiring.

Since the parents are coming for a visit, and my carput was about 80% saturated with cat litter, I figured that now was a good time to pick up a new vacuum. I decided that while my last $60 vacuum did well enough for an apartment, it obviously bit the dust a little bit sooner than I would have liked. I therefore purchased one that was a bit mor expensive (but not on the high end of the scale at all) and it really does make a difference. This new vacuum pulled up the kitty litter with no problem, and that was before I realized that there was a seperate switch to turn on the carpet beater/comb. It also has a cannister that pops out for easy disposal of the trash, versus a bag, and I found out how really nasty our floors were. *bleh*

Third post in one night, I must be chatty or something.

This video absolutely cracked me up. I don’t know if I am a child of vionlence, but watching the Easter Bunny taking out innocents had me giggling like a school girl.

At long last, I have finally managed to get my hands on a beautiful 2006 Mustang GT. I was able to pick her up at 9:00pm Friday evening, and I snapped a couple of pictures Sunday evening while I was detailing her. I realized that I had less than 10 minutes of daylight left when I took the pictures, so they are not the best, but they get the point across (basically that my new car is beautiful).

Of course after spending 4 hours detailing her, it just so happens to rain the next day, so I won’t be able to take more pictures till after I get a chance to wash her this weekend.

The story on what I had to go through to finally get my hands on this car is a long one, and I hope to post it soon.

In the meantime, I leave you with this image of me attempting to eat Brenden’s brains:

It is REALLY frickin nice out today. Not a cloud in the clear blue sky, little smog, and the sun is shining brightly bringing the temperature up to a welcome 84 degrees. I don’t wanna be at work today. I would much rather be at the beach with my bike or better yet my rollar blades, or out on the disc golf course. Instead I am stuck at work where all the window blinds are drawn. BLEH

Good news is that I have gotten back into the habit of jogging each morning, and I have officially dropped the 5 lbs I picked up over the holidays. Go me!!

I have been so lax on updating. Work has been crazy, and most of my free time has been spent hanging out with the roommate. Hopefully I’ll actually be able to post some life stuff at some point in time.

Oh yeah, and my cousin’s wedding pictures, need to finish those up so I can post them as well.

Baby steps……

Ah the rush of the holidays are finally over. The great thing is that I managed to finish up all my projects at work before leaving for my vacation, and I get back, and everyone is out of the office until after the 2nd. Of course this means a lot of looking for something to do. I would much rather be overrun with problems and running myself frantic all day versus having nothing to do all day. Bleh.

My trip home went exceptionally well. My cousin’s wedding was beautiful, and I’ll hopefully have pictures up this weekend. I always enjoy seeing the family and this holiday was no exception. I rarely get to see the extended family in Georgia and Alabama, so it is always nice to visit with them for awhile. After a couple of days in Newnan, we swung by Alabama to visit my mother’s side of the family, whom I have not seen since I moved to California.

After that it was all the way back to Tennessee. Now that was a relaxing trip. Naps every day, and some chill time with the friends and family. I didn’t get to see everyone in Nashville due to some conflicting schedules, but that is always the case.

After talking with some of my friends back here, and listening to all the family drama they got to go through, it really make me appreciate my family all that much more. We have very little drama in the family (compared to others at least) and it makes them all the more special.

I have a pimple on my nose and it is all red and blotchy.

Sometimes I think it would be nice if you could just turn of your feelings for someone.

Yay for emo LJ like posts!