The end of a summer

I hope this helps give you an idea of the new place and what's going on now :)

Internships

This isn’t my normal way of updating my blog but this is one avenue that is available to me at the moment since my work is a little slow. 

                Last week was quite the action packed week with travelling back and forth from Salem to Corvallis and then to the coast.  On Monday we went to Corvallis for the 4^th of July where we had the annual picnic with the neighborhood where we got to chat with the Hanauers and the Gustafsons.  Cheri was having a ball with our grandkids since they were so new and full of energy.  The food was great as usual and afterwards we had a small fireworks display.  Interestingly Scott Catchpole showed up for the get together but didn’t actually have any food.  Instead he just came to socialize basically and then left after people had finished eating.  Alan then showed up later in the evening unannounced just to chat as well where eventually we scouted around on steam for some games that were cheap and could be played in groups.

                Thursday evening we headed out to the coast where we stayed at a motel 6 in Lincoln city which dad had reserved.  We ate dinner as a huge group of us with Uncle Drew and Ryan and Martina’s family at this Denny’s like restaurant called Sambo’s (some cat like animal’s name) which was literally less than a block from motel 6.  That night I made sure to take one pill of the motion sickness stuff dad got.  After watching some espn which I dearly miss we went to bed at like 9:30pm.  Almost immediately after hitting the sack I realized it would be a long night when started snoring.  I slept through most of it but almost every 2 hrs I was rudely awakened by a loud snort or something or being nudged or something since I was sharing a bed with dad (I was literally staying on the edge of the bed just to be on the safe side, no luck).  The next day started promptly at 5:30 a.m.  where I took two of the motion sickness pills as did Dane and Dad.  We went through the Tradewinds company in depot bay to get our deep sea fishing/crabbing license and the boat to go on.  Mr. Max was the boat we went on.  I think I faired decently well for the first 2 ½ to 3 hrs until the whole stop and starting of fishing at different spots finally got the better of me and I just couldn’t hold it anymore and the water (only thing I had to wash the pills down…) just started coming out of my system.  After a couple more times it was bile at which point one of the crew of the boat gave me some bottled water to keep me from ruining my teeth by not throwing up more bile.  So I didn’t really chum the water much but everyone around me seemed to be catching fish nonetheless.  Dane and Ryan seemed to be doing fairly well because Ryan was getting two at a time and Dane fished up a beast of a fish early on that he thought he had caught the bottom of the ocean.  Dad was consistently catching fish left and right but about 9 of them had to be thrown back since they were these ugly red/yellow fish that were small and not for catching.  Dad was getting a little frustrated since he only got to keep 3 of the 12 he was fished up but he was happy to have some action.  Of the people on the boat our group of 6 got the most (I believe).  It would have been even more of a blow out if Nate hadn’t had stomach problems (non sea related) and I hadn’t been out of commission for half of the trip at sea.  Once we got back I had to promptly head back to Salem for work where I ended up being 40 min. late but no one seemed to care too much although they thought it was odd that I showed up just after the sets were done so there wasn’t much to do at that point in the day.

                Sunday we headed down to Corvallis for Dinner with everyone to have shish kabobs and hot dogs/sausages.  Not a whole lot happened honestly since it was continual watching of little people running around and keeping them happy since there were occasional outbursts every 5-10 min.  I played the piano, watched some baseball with the guys of the family, and watched an episode of Naruto during some downtime.  Besides that I think I just chatted with Dane, Annette, and Kari here and there until it was time to head back home.  Everyone is very interested in where I’m going in the near future and I wish I could give them a better idea. 

                Monday was a day off of work, volunteering, and family which was odd and nice but a little boring since I hardly get days like this anymore.  I think I just beat an indie game called Trine which was far less epic than what I had hoped since it was very reminiscent of Lost Vikings but incredibly easier.  I found out around 4 o’clock that we were having dinner in Corvallis at Papa’s Pizza so that was a nice surprise.  Papa’s pizza hasn’t changed much but the atmosphere and the play area is still great.  The munchkins enjoyed themselves but didn’t like being pulled away for food.  We only had to get 2 large pizzas to cover everyone there but they were ridiculously expensive.  Each cost around 28$ which blows my mind but that is why papa’s is a special occasion place and not a frequented restaurant.

                The next day was also nice to be able to sleep in and later in the evening Dane and Dad came to watch Thor at Northern Lights where I work.  It was fun showing them the theater and all the perks for working there.  We had free admission, drinks, popcorn, and half off all the food we ordered which ended up costing us 12.65 or something near that.  Normally all of that would have cost 45$ for the 3 of us so dad was extremely grateful.  Thor ended up being pretty mediocre which I kind of suspected but I thought the fights would have been a bit better.  The very first battle in the movie was the only one that I thought was pretty good besides the rampaging through S.H.I.E.L.D.’s security to mjolnir (the hammer).  My colleagues at work were really nice and accommodating even though they didn’t need to be but it was nice to chat with some of them.  Afterwards Dad and Dane stuck around a little bit to chat with Kari and Nate and then headed back to Corvallis.  I didn’t have much to do so I messed around playing League of Legends for most of the evening before having to hit the sack at 12 since I had to work at the hospital at 8am the next day.  If you can’t tell I’m able to write this 2 page entry due to the fact that there is literally nothing for me to do today and I’m tired of the e-learnings that are available since I tried to find some new ones only to realize that I had already done them and started nodding off during some of them.  I even had 45 unread emails that I was able to go through in less than 20 min. so it is safe to say that my time at the hospital is less than desirable (understatement). 

In other random news the summer sales through Steam have ended.  I think I purchased close to 40$ worth of games which seems like a lot but I was basically investing in things for me to do since that money got me over 20 games to play if I get in the mood.  I tried to err on the side of games that were multiplayer based since what’s the point in playing games alone if you have the chance to play with people.  There is only one game that I wish was still on sale (Terraria) but only so that I wouldn’t have to pay full price but thankfully that game is only 10$ but I’m waiting to see if people are going to continue playing it since many of the online crew go through phases of games that they play and I hate to get sucked into buying a game that doesn’t last more than a month or so.  It’s only 10:45am and I have 5 more hrs to go…

Unexpected changes :)

I forgot to mention it but I started last week with 175 lbs to be on the safe side and get form down while trying out squats.  I went up to 200 lbs this past week and I know I can do more since it seemed heavy but nothing I couldn't handle.  Oh, I got to meet old friends from Corvallis this past weekend when we had a MSYSA conference in Albany so I hung out with them sunday evening after dinner.

Time to fill :)

So I found a nice format when recording videos from the webcam so that uploading is way easier.  This file was only 17mb to upload for a 4 minute video, not bad.  Sorry if it's not all too exciting but it's what is going on right now :).

New Methods of blogging :)

I thought it would be fun to journal using the webcam I got a bit ago and see how easy it was and if it was a decent size to upload.

I had to download a converter since the file is extremely big like 117 mb raw so I converted it to like 17 mb so it would actually upload but the quality might be crap, sorry.  As it turns out the video quality uploads to a scratchy look since it looks fine on my computer, ugg.  I'll play around on future videos so it doesn't look so bad.

Keeping busy

It's kinda sad when you can't think of anything all that worthwhile in the past couple of days that is all that noteworthy.  The only thing that happened that was surprising was our church basketball game that went incredibly poorly lol.  After 40 minutes of playing our team was only able to get 21 points, yeah that is almost as bad as if not worse than middle schoolers.  I think I was 1/5 so the majority of the time I wasn't even shooting but they stopped guarding us in the last 10 min because it didn't even matter and we still couldn't even score.  It was soooo pathetic.  After that game I was so flabbergasted that I didn't even want to continue the rest of the season because our players suck soooo bad.  The players who actually know basketball strategies and play regularly are our worst players...  Simple things like stopping the ball when they are pressing up the court like on a fast break.  Giving help defense on a screen or sliding off the person you are defending to keep someone from driving to the basket.  Boxing out your man so he doesn't get in front of someone who is actually boxing out the big dudes who will score under the basket.  Don't force a pass that you waited too long to make just because they are open to score but you can't get it to them cause you have terrible timing or are blind lol.

It didn't help that they scored 50 some odd points to our 21 but man... let's at least keep it competitive.  The fact that I'm the tallest guy on our team and fastest doesn't mean I can play post and point guard at the same time... I'm only 150 lbs so boxing out is a task against 6'3" guys who are 200+ lbs.  If I couldn't jump as high as I can I would also be screwed.  Needless to say at the end of the game I am spent when I actually try.

In other news I finally got to talk to that girl I took on a date regarding what happened and I'm at least on good terms with her but I don't think I can ever trust her the same lol.  She just likes to chat a lot and be a tease it seems, fun...*shakes head*.

Volleyball this past thursday was another 1 of 2 win since we are ranked 2nd and play the #1 team each week now and can't seem to win one against them of a best of 3 games match.  We are able to beat every other team though but we can't play consistently enough against the best team to pull out a win.  We keep trying a 6^2 format for our formation which normally works well for hitters but it also creates confusion for people when there is a lose ball that didn't get bumped well to the setter so people watch waiting for a set when they really need to take charge and just set someone else instead of letting it hit the ground...

Classes are somewhat stale but the programming class I have with Java programming using BlueJ is entertaining when it is a challenge and when I feel like I have a shot at coding something without the help of a textbook or the professor.  It's somewhat annoying that the configuration of code is just different enough from C# that I swear my code is perfect but Java comes back with errors saying I'm using an incorrect symbol but really all is wrong is I need extra curly brackets {} or parenthesis () using 'if' statements or things of that nature just cause it's Java and not C#... stupid.

I think I'm about done but one last thing I noticed recently is people from Salem here like to make trips to Idaho or Utah to visit people at Rexburg or BYU.  The thing is they simply want to be around more lds people or their friends who went off there when they could simply start going to school and then they wouldn't have to waste their money with these trips that are expensive and are a once or twice type of deal.  Just boggles my mind.  Yes it is a roadtrip but couldn't they do something different for a road trip if all they really want to do is visit people... you could get that interaction by going to school or moving there for crying out loud.  Also, people who are back from school for a term from byu-i or Utah simply won't stop talking about how much they miss it to those of us who DON'T CARE.  If you don't want to be here stop whining about how boring this place is, jeez.  Some of us live here, hello!

Ok I'll get off my rant box again lol.  What to do for valentines day...hrrmm, good question.  Get a job? If only, lol.  Must stay positive :) haha. Yeah that's all I got for today :).

Rant

Ok, I gotta get my thoughts out on here or I'm going to burst a fricken gasket and I don't care if other people read it because this is my blog and my journal in a sense.  So I've only gone on official dates with 3 different girls that I can think of since coming to Salem and of those three 2 of them have blatantly been fondling, wrestling, flirting up a storm, or something to that regard THE night before I have taken them out on a date WHILE I'm there.

I'm saying this because that is just what happened tonight and I'm going to be taking this girl out the next day for dinner and a movie that you can do at this place called Northern Lights.

Now I'm not asking for them to stop dating other people, nope, not at all.  I don't even mind if they want to keep their options open because that totally makes sense.  BUT could you have the decency to fricken play around with another guy AT LEAST when I'm not around or the night before a date.  It's a small request.  What bothers me just as much is that this girl has said on several occasions that she dislikes this guy for who knows how many reasons but yet her actions speak butt loads more than her words it seems.

I feel like the guy who has a sign over his head that says "use me" cause that's what it feels like.  What's sad is I will still take this girl out tomorrow and have to do what I did the last time and act like nothing even happened because I don't want to be the jerk that makes the night suck incredibly bad (even though it basically will since it's hard to enjoy the evening with the knowledge you have).

This girl has been incredibly open with me from the start so it sucks even more when I was pressured to tell her what was bothering me when this wasn't the first time she has done this but with some other guy each time at an activity while I"m there making me wonder if I should even be there.  She tells me that it's her insecure side coming out and she just likes to flirt.  Ok...but with the guy you incredibly dislike as well who you said you will only joke with now that you know what kind of guy he is...ok you're losing me now, I'm confused.

So me being the trusting guy cause that is what you are supposed to do to even get anywhere in life I say "ok" I'll just assume it really is your insecure side coming out, fine.  But there is a pretty obvious line between flirting and hanging all over a guy to the point that the guy is almost forced to push you away (the guy is one of my very good friends and yes he is a ladies man but he is trying for someone else and has said so).

Ok, the anger has subsided now and I think I can go to bed knowing that I won't do anything stupid.  Just a little frustrated by the turn of events.  I could go on much more involving txts and conversations I've had but it won't help anybody at this point and my mood is slowly going back to chill and I want to keep it that way.

We watched the movie Red tonight and it was fairly good.  Lots of big name actors and the storyline was not bad.  John Malcovich is really hilarious despite his creepy vibe that he always sends off but it worked incredibly well in this movie.  We also played 2 volleyball games for our city league team and we wrecked both teams we played.  I don't know what was the problem with one team but I was serving for honestly 10 straight points before they managed to have a decent return and finally win a point.  I started reading the second book in the series of "Gregor the Overlander, The prophecy of Bane."  Yes it sounds like a book for a teenager but that is what Kari has available and I burn through books with the amount of off time I have with this Masters program.

I think I'm done now. Night.

I'm back, kinda :)

There will be no pictures in this post but it is sort my start to having some kind of journal since I have more free time now and I'd rather get in the habit of doing this instead of gaming or whatever other waste of time I can think of.  I don't play WoW anywhere which come as a surprise to some but it is a gigantic waste of time that pays off (in the cyber world) very little.  I'm taking up a game that costs no money whatsoever that I can play on my own time and for short bursts.  It's called League of Legends.  Now you might think "Oh great just another thing for him to waste time on" which would be entirely correct if I actually played a fair amount.

These past couple months I've been getting out almost every night with some friends from the Salem area (our ward if that helps put you at ease lol) to get me off my post and out of the house.  Right now we have stake basketball which is fun but we suck bad.  It is a good thing Gerrett is heading out on his mission in March instead of like February because we would be getting crushed even worse right now.  We have this mentally handicapped members who like to play which is fine but it destroys all hope of winning so you just have to sigh a little and take the losses with a grain of salt.

The other thing going on right now is city league volleyball on Thursday nights with some friends from the family wards.  We played our two opening games this past Thursday and won handily.  I got in some nice spikes that even surprised one of our members since she hadn't seen me play in a while (yeah, I got better, you can stop thinking "hah, yeah right" cause it's true I swear!).  I also got to see some of the better teams that were in our league that were ranked higher starting out and I'm pretty sure we can take them if we have our normal lineup with Gerrett taking Nate's place since he opted out (grr).

At church I'm the 1st counselor in the Elder's quorum presidency and basically take care of all that deals with the sacrament.  In addition I am the one that goes to all the activities so I know the members in our ward better than the ones that are actually from here...imagine that.  I gave a talk 2 weeks ago, I am giving the elder's quorum lesson tomorrow, and I am in charge of the ward's basketball games (making people aware of them and to actually show up since we only had 4 this past Wednesday, ugg).  So while I'm doing my Masters degree at Western (two days a week this term Woo!) what is really keeping me busy is all the ward stuff plus trying to get out of the house as much as possible (my gas money is getting wrecked!).  I figure in the end it's for the best and as long as I only spend money and time in this way I can only come out on top right? :)

Oh, I almost forgot.  I've got this nifty folder for all the music I carry around with me now and I can play practically every piece inside of it.  Now it isn't perfect but it is a whole heck of a lot better than in the past and when I practice after/before activities at the church I get a lot of head turns and questions ("dude, I didn't know you could play", bwahaha that's what they think) so I must not suck that bad lol.

Other then that I just read whatever book Kari shoves in my hands and I finish it within a week or two because of the way my classes are setup on Tuesday/Thursday.  Btw, I've read books now that I probably wouldn't have picked out myself but they have been rather good nonetheless.  Like one is called "What my girlfriend doesn't know" which is displayed in the book like a poem but reads like a normal book but is dang funny at parts but I never would have picked it up otherwise.  I almost didn't read it before/after classes because it just looked like a girly book and didn't want to have people catch me reading it but it was just so funny at times.

Anyways my mind is spent and I feel like I just wrote a short paper for a class that isn't giving me credit for it so I'm going to check out now :).

Graduation and a Game!

Yeah this is a rare post but it fits since these past things don't happen all that often :). This past month I finally graduated from Oregon State University with a degree in Business Information Systems and a minor in Russian. The funny thing is I started college back in 2003 and just barely finished this past June, ugg. Of course I do have the excuse of being gone from 2004-2006 but it still took me 5 academic years to finish since I took so long to decide on which major to focus on.

It was a very sunny day as you can tell. What you can't see is that the left side of my face was burning in the sun the entire afternoon because they read off over 180 names for Ph. D. students, for the love!
This was the first time getting out of the sun where they offered cold orange type drinks which weren't all that great but they had peanut butter chocolate chip cookies which made it worth it (that and my face finally started to cool off).

I added this last one cause it makes me think I was brooding over what the heck to do with this degree I received. In all reality I was just checking it out to see if it really was legit and if they actually put any money into making it.

You might have guessed from the title that my dad and I went to a baseball game this past week. It was a Seattle Mariners game that went 13 innings (9 is the normal but the game was tied and went into extra innings). It was an interesting game to watch but hitting on both sides was pretty bad or inconsistent. The Mariners had plenty of chances to win the game with the bases loaded and no one out but as usual this season they choked and did absolutely nothing. Ichiro was 2/5 with a single and a double which was cool to see. In the end the Cubs won 3-2 cause the Mariners couldn't execute, the first base umpire made bad calls for both teams, and the pitching/defense for the mariners made mistakes at the worst times.

We had pretty decent seats compared to the spots we've had in the past and everything was visible. It was apparent that the large players on the field honestly couldn't bat the ball any farther than the little guys which was sad since everyone had warning track power :(.

This is proof that my Dad and Dave Myrold were there and that I didn't just snag the picture off the internet somewhere :). I almost forgot but we got complimentary towels for being part of the first thousand or something to show up to the game. Nothing spectacular but free* nonetheless (free in the sense that we didn't pay extra on top of the price of the tickets, hehe).

I think that's all I got. I'll probably be staying up in Salem for the summer while I search for a full time job while doing on call work for this job I have in Salem troubleshooting computers for the Salem-Keizer School District as they are remodeling most of their schools. Oh, btw I haven't stopped playing the piano and I'm decently proficient at quite a few songs, not just 2 or 3 note plunkers but full fledged pieces.

Don't get injured without insurance...

It appears that I am a very unlucky person since coming off my parents insurance because since I have been uninsured I have had 3 incidents worthy of going to see a doctor. One of those incidents actually required immediate attention unfortunately (the latest one).

The first one happened about a year or so ago playing basketball where I had to rebound a ball off balance because I got bumped and landed wrong on the outside of my right foot. Because of that I had a very bruised pinky toe that took a couple weeks till I could walk normally on it again without pain. I have a picture but nobody likes to look at feet. I still can't bend my pinky toe all the way down without noticeable pressure to this day.

My second incident occurred six weeks ago in basketball as well where some Asian dude in church basketball was playing apparently too seriously and jumped on me when trying to get a loose ball and forced my finger at the end of the joint to bend really far when my finger was completely straight.As you can tell it wasn't all that pleasant. The joint is practically healed but it is crooked (if you can't tell I'm not surprised cause I point it out and someone has to stare to notice) and doesn't bend all the way. Oh, I went in to the *free* walk-ins at OSU's health services to get it checked out and it took an x-ray for them to be like "yep it's broken", WELL DUH. That cost an annoying 80$. When I came back after 3-4 weeks the doctor finally listened to me that my finger was crooked and said "well it is a little late now, it is set in place", wow... After that he said I could go see a specialist and probably have hand therapy or something to help. It would cost like 80$ just to get a consult and more to do the therapy so obviously I turned that down. The funny thing is I told him I didn't have insurance yet he kept referring me to things that would cost extra money when it was his fault for not listening to me in the beginning so this wouldn't have happened. FRUSTRATING.

This final incident (hopefully the last) occurred this past Wednesday during Tennis. I am not proud of this one in the least. To keep things short let's just say I hit myself in the face with a tennis racket. No it was not on purpose and yes I really was playing tennis. It all comes down to a bad court, a bad bounce, and me trying to adjust to play the ball and ending up hitting myself in the face with my racket. I will never give advice in any sport now because I've obviously lost all credibility as to my skills, *sigh*. I broke off a HUGE chunk of my front tooth and cracked my lip open. I had to have a root canal and my tooth filled in until I can get a crown. Thanks to Bro. Curtis Clark from my home ward this was all done on short notice, i.e. within 15 min. of the accident. For this I am extremely grateful (and to not look like a pirate...).

Pictures speak a thousand words so I'm putting in the foot injury picture. Don't stare too long cause that's gross and feet are just plain gross.
Moral of the story

Stuff happens and you just have to deal with it even when the timing is absolutely horrible. I say this because I haven't been injured since early high school and since turning 25 I have had 3 considerably bad incidents. For anyone that wants stuff to happen to them so they have something to talk about, you're dumb. If I sound a little mean I'm sorry but this past week has been less than desirable considering it's spring break. On a side note though I can successfully play about 4-5 songs on the piano now (with both hands!!!). Hey, give me a break. I haven't had piano lessons since I was 8.

To keep you guys happy

As the title probably confirms this post is not for myself but for you guys since I've been hassled a few times for not having updated my blog in over 5 months. This is not to say that I haven't been keeping a journal cause I have but I think sometimes that my blog isn't really for me but for others so it is harder to keep up.

Another reason for not blogging is that you can't have a post without a picture or video for it to be good in my opinion and I never have either of them but today I thought of an old highlight video that featured me for 40 seconds during one of our matches online where I played decently well. I went by Reubonic during that time since I've used that name ever since I started playing online games. Just fast forward to 2:50 and my part ends at 3:30. It's from Day of Defeat and your objective is to capture flags fyi. Oh, you're killing nazis so it's ok :) right?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w597JqHp9Cs

hmm, I wish I could inbed this movie into the post but it is not letting me...anyways, enjoy from youtube at least.

How about another random thing from the past. This picture was taken at Imad Insari's wedding which took place in Boston, Massachusetts. Imad is a long time friend from Corvallis. Let me know who you recognize.

Yeah I'm running out of stuff to talk about that is worth sharing or is of interest to anyone else. Our stake basketball team is like 1-6 right now because one week we will have barely 5 and the next we will have 15 which has made us very inconsistent or incredibly tired. The game we won was because we had only 8 solid players there and everyone contributed. What was funny was that it was probably against the #2 team in the stake and yet we won by 18 points. Come to think of it we have lost 2 or more games by less than 5 points so really it has been because of bad luck or miscommunication, frustrating. Playoffs is this next week but I won't be able to play well because of a bruised foot bone or something to that nature. When it happened I literally thought a ball had shot up from the bottom of my foot to the top and had to readjust to go back into place, so painful and uncomfortable. We'll see if I just aggravate it this Tuesday because I don't think I can keep myself out of the game. Anyways, enjoy the post for what it's worth!

Ze Work

I'm at work at the moment and Dad is busy running some errands so I'm here trying to make the most of my time. So as it turns out I'm practically done with my workout program due to lack of results after 11 weeks of working my tail off. As of right now I can only grab the rim with two hands and dunk it with a small ball but honestly...I could do that before I started this whole thing, darn. I haven't completely given up yet but I'm going to have to find another way to make this work since doing a lot of jumping and doing individual leg exercises were not enough.

My next plan of attack will probably encompass going to the gym for some leg press and maybe squats but I'm a little hesitant about squats. Usually it requires two people and can be bad for your back if done incorrectly and that just doesn't sound to great to me. I figure if I do a lot of heavy leg workouts that include hamstring and quad muscle workouts, I may just see some noticeable differences but I won't be able to start any of that until this upcoming term starts so that I can go to Dixon.

Right now I feel like a lazy bum just playing games to finish out this summer since old man softball is coming to a close this friday and volleyball in Salem is only on Thursdays (and it requires gas money). I don't know what it is but of all the things I would love to be doing it is to be a part of a team. When you are on a team you have expectations, goals, and things going on to keep you busy and give you a sense of direction. All I have at the moment is online gaming with a team which is shoddy and not exactly conducive to social interaction outside of the gaming realm. Some might think this is odd or asking too much to be a part of some team since most of the teams that exist after high school are collegiate or professional. Club teams are even an option but it is always nice to have someone you know that you can go with so that you aren't the lone guy who no one has ever seen before but is actually pretty good and everyone is afraid to get to know (it is that comfort and security bubble that keeps them from reaching out). The other problem with doing these types of these is that much is required and that also means change. If you don't know what you are getting into before you get started, you may get involved with something that you asks for too much or is just not as enjoyable as you had first imagined.

Maybe just feeling limited to outside interaction with people who can't really take you anywhere is what bothers me and makes me want something more. Old man softball is great but I'm not going to start up long lasting friendships with people who are 20-30 years older than me. The salemites are fun for those brief periods of time during volleyball but distance creates a huge barrier as well as familiarity with friends and families that I don't have any association with. It is funny but I don't think I have ever really branched out to people who I didn't grow up with since I just can't find enough things in common whether it be people, interests, places, or personality. The other problem that holds me back is willing to put yourself on the line and let people know who you are since too many times I get the immediate feeling of judgment or comprehension of position (them feeling superior in comparison to me) from those who I give the opportunity to get to know me. That feeling can really put you off and frustrate you to no end.

Teams just don't ever put me in that position since you have to mesh and create bonds with people who you play with. If you don't, you won't ever truly reach your potential. Another reason is that often I have qualities or abilities (not trying to brag) that are usually an asset to the teams I play on making my presence there wanted or needed. That is also something that really keeps people coming back and feeling a place of worth.

That is about all I want to talk about for today and I feel like I'm going into a complaining/whining session which is the last thing I want to do right now.

I wish I had some worthwhile pictures to upload...so here's the next best thing, Dad's Office!

All I smell is cherries...

For the past couple weeks I've been dealing with different kinds of solutions that my dad has been making to prevent the cracking of cherries with varied results. As you might have guessed, I am starting to get a bit tired of cherries and honestly the smell of them is kind of gross to me now if you can believe it. Well, that is not entirely true. The smell of soaked cherries is what is making me sick. See, we stick these cherries in bags for hours upon hours and see if our solutions have kept them from absorbing water and cracking. We check them every two hours and by the time we are done the whole area in which you are working smells like bacteria infested warm wet cherries...just foo.

My friends and I have started to get back into Day of Defeat which is a half-life modification (branch off of a previous game redone for the World War 2 era). Since it is extremely old and hasn't been updated the game can get very frustrating to play. The hit registration is horrid if you have a latency connection (ping, or time it takes to send information from your computer to the server) of double than the person you are playing against because the server has to make guesses as to what it thinks you will do or where it thought you were when the other person shot. This makes for ridiculous kills and frustrating matches. Anyways, we used to play this game a lot and enjoyed it quite a bit and even went to Canada and Texas to play in a couple tournaments. We never accomplished anything super spectacular in terms of finishes but we were always among the best in the United States while we were in practice (2003-2004) but now it is quite the different story.

I don't have the patience for the crappiness of the game anymore and there are so many exploits and random inexplicable shots being had that it is more of a "who can pull off the more amazing shot than the other person" in order to win, not cool. Another gripe of mine that has been since the beginning is that sound is absolutely so crucial in this game. Now you might think "well duh" but it gets to the point that if you move without crouching or even run for a split second that people are able to pin point your exact location these days. Now to me this is insane and people will honestly crouch walk or not move for minutes at a time just to avoid detection and to get the upper hand and get a kill. If you have ever played a video game before in your entire life then you know that action is what drives a lot of the fun, either that or the suspense of something. Let's think for a second, how about we wait 2-3 minutes to wait for something to happen only to get rocked and think "wow, what a waste of time." It's like playing counter-strike and getting killed within the first minute and have to wait another 4 minutes just to be able to play again...lame. I like a game where you have to not only outsmart them but outplay them skillwise. Day of Defeat has become more of outwaiting and hoping that your shot registers than anything else...not fun.

Either way I will continue to mess around with my friends and play this game but only because it is a game we all can play and enjoy only because we are playing it together. I would try and suggest another game but of course as is always a problem among a large group of friends, it is hard to find an activity or game that everyone can agree upon to play, ugg. I think this is why it is good to be open minded and be able to appreciate many different things/genres of activities or games. I like to think that I am this way but like many I do have my limits of things I can tolerate. Country music, dancing, being around strong personality people, mushrooms (I know it isn't an activity but I can muscle them down if I have to), soap operas (I don't think I've ever actually sat through an entire one before), and there are many more things you could put on this list.

As you can see your mind talks about what it wants to and completely neglects the subject of the post, heh. Anyways, I feel better now and most likely the majority who will read this will think "hmm, that was interesting up until he started talking about day of victory or something like that" which is understandable. Just for kicks I'll post an old screenshot of a match that I played in and did exceptionally well.

I am [C.A.P]Reubenec for your information






As you can see I was able to pull off a 2:1 ratio in both halves of this match which is actually quite hard in this game. As of late I am having scores that are close to 12-24, so sad. Although I did have one half in a scrim against old cal-invite players where I went 26-24 so I haven't completely lost all of my skill :).

Новости (News)

Since I don't have a lot that I feel like putting on here for my journal that I would love everyone to read I decided to take some pics of some recent stuff that I bought or did (plus a shot with me actually in it...cause people are more interesting than just scenery).

Pardon the quality since I don't have a digital camera except for the one that is integrated into my phone. It is a 2 Megapixel camera so you can't expect much but they do the job just fine I think.

Here is a picture of the new shoes I bought since I nastified the shoes I have been wearing for the past year and a half for almost everything (darn freshly mowed wet grass + ultimate frisbee = nastified). I tried them on and after like 5 seconds I was like "yeah, I'm getting these." They only cost me $40 which is not bad considering I am used to paying much more for high quality shoes. I'm still looking for another pair of shoes that I can wear casually but for now these will do until I find the pair I'm looking for. Kohls, by the way, is where I bought them and I would recommend that store to anyone since that is also where I caught my jacket from for only $60, what a steal.

These are the clippers I got for any hair trimming needs. I could never really trim my sideburns so I thought that I would get these since they cover all the aspects of cutting hair. This Wahl brand is supposed to very high quality and I played around with them today and they seem very nice. The only problem is that all the stuff that comes with it (guide combs and brushes etc.) just sit in there with nothing holding them in place so it can bounce around if you were to shake it or turn it upside down. Overall it does its job and will hopefully last.

There you go, a picture with me actually in it. I had to throw some kind of sign just for kicks :)

This last picture is more for me since I washed my car this past saturday I believe. The rims were absolutely disgusting so I did my annual washing of my car so it would look presentable again. As you can tell the driveway is still soaked from all the water I used, so no it didn't rain.

As for the volleyball thing that went from Tuesday night to Wednesday night, it was enjoyable but long and draining. Being able to stay at Nate and Kari's place was fun and comfortable but the whole experience was more of a learning experience than anything else. Let's just say it is pretty obvious that when you are on a double date and you can hardly get your date to directly talk to you that you should just call it good and say that it wasn't судьа (fate/destiny) that you both met. Her sister on the other hand is a whole different story but that could be mucked up now as well. I will just leave it at that.

Oh, thanks for letting me stay at your guys' place (Nate & Kari) and for the food and shopping around. I really did sleep better than you think (like a log actually). Hopefully Audrey will stop saying "No Derek" now that I've left since I apparently wore out my welcome within the first day, ugg. I seriously cannot read that girl sometimes. One moment she is playing around with me and the next she wants to hit me or shove me away when I swear I haven't done anything wrong, oh well. At least she acts like she likes me half of the time :). Oh the fun. Less than two weeks I believe until the Net Net arrives!! Woo!

Air Alert

I've been messing around with this new workout program that is supposed to increase your verticle jump by 8 to 14 inches after 15 weeks. I've just started the second week of the program where instead of having a day of rest in between workouts you have to do three consecutive days in a row. All I can say is that even before getting to the second day the reps, and sets that they are making you do are killer on your legs. It is a good thing that they have you warm up, stretch, get plenty of sleep, and eat plenty of nutricious foods because if you didn't do these things I would be immensely sore right now.

For some reason I'm feeling pretty good after the workout I did today but before I even began I was so tired and was slow to even get started at the beginning but once I began it was just fine. The reason behind all of this is so that I can have some better hops by the time the summer ends since I've always had a goal of dunking on a 10' hoop and not just one handed. Some other benefits that I would like to gain from it all is overall increased strength in my legs for better sprinting and being able to perform better in all aspects of sports. Playing volleyball would be way cooler if I didn't have to get as much of a running start to be able to spike it at a good angle as well as being able to consistently have a better view of the court to spike to since I would be able to get up higher. There are some other things that would be interesting such as being able to do a backflip without flopping on ones head and probably others that I just can't think of.

Anyways this will be short but man will it be cool if I can follow through with this to the end and get some real results. It is not every day you see a 6' white guy two hand dunk a basketball.

For a really cool dunk fest that features a 5'10" guy who's got major hops you should check out this link. If he can do it and make it look easy, why shouldn't I be able to at least get up there. I mean heck, I can already touch the rim with two hands but I just can't grab it. Another 8 inches would allow me to at least two hand dunk and more if done one handed.

Entrepreneurship Fun

I feel like at least mentioning the class that I'm finishing up today since it was a very unique experience that was frustrating but somehow managed. So this entrepreneurship class that was just barely introduced to the Business core program was forced on me this past term. This course thought it would be funny to make 4 people work together off a crazy idea that we came up with at the beginning of the term and form an entire business plan around it. This strategy is a very hit or miss strategy since often the absolutely unrealistic ideas get picked and worked on. Although there are some groups that have plausible ideas that students have come up with and even plan on making a reality. My group, that was formed at the last moment because the group I had initially joined up with collapsed..., was composed of 2 polynesians and a 2 white guys (myself included). One polynesian was a guy who was decently smart and knew what he was doing and the other polynesian was a girl who was a marketing major but seemed stuck on laughing and having fun which was good and bad at the same time (I'll give her credit that she got her work done and was basically our leader). The last guy was quite the interesting character. He always seemed half stoned, half unaware of how slow he really was (mentally). Now he was a very nice guy and tried to do his part but it was like we had a child on our team that needed constant care. This guy by the way was a good friend of the two polynesians so I was the odd man out in the group (they were friendly though). The way I could best describe this guy though is to quote him from what he said when he was doing some work on iPod specifications. He was in the library with us and he says "Man, this is really hard stuff. I just don't know how to look for this stuff. Are you guys getting this too?" Now in my head I was thinking "Are you kidding?" but luckily I kept a straight face but in my head I wanted to laugh but thought that wouldn't be very nice since he is sincerely trying.

Anyways we got a couple of assignments per week to finish out each part of the business plan and I found it very frustrating when these guys wouldn't come to class to realize that you can't do the break-even analysis for a company when you don't even know the COGS (Cost of Goods Sold). The reason this bothers me is that I had to do the break-even analysis part and the ROI (return on investment, which requires you to know the initial investment) but each required numbers from other parts of the plan to be able to progress. I was forced to essentially make up those numbers on my own so I could do my own part since they never did their part, ugg. This happened routinely but I just tolerated it and thankfully I will be done with this on Tuesday.

Man there is so much I could talk about that there just isn't time for. Take for example my Institute graduation, new work out program, and all the time conflicts that encompass going to Salem to play Volleyball. To keep it short I will just say that I was forced to graduate this year from institute and now have to do extra work during the summer to make up for missed classes instead of just graduating next year with no extra work, AWESOME. I want to start a work out program to work on my hops since I have always had a goal to be able to dunk a basketball on a 10' hoop. With the workout that I picked it should be possible by the end of the summer (maybe much earlier). Volleyball....hmmm, very sticky situation that could be either totally worth it or lots of missed opportunities that I had planned on in advance (softball, DoD league, soccer in town). Oh, did I mention it costs $10 to drive to Salem and back, yeah ouch.

Dang it I did it again. It is 12:45am and I have a Russian final at 9:30am today. Thankfully I don't have to do any studying but I'm gonna have to look at my book for 5 minutes before I get in my car to remember just what it is that I'm being tested on and I should be good to go. I know, a little boastful but I'm just stating what I'm probably going to do (thank you Donetsk, Ukraine mission for the mad Russian skills). Hey, there has to be at least a few things in life that you shouldn't have to stress over and thankfully Russian is that way for me now. Sleep...must stop typing.


Random pic from the end of my mission with my crazy awesome finnish companion, Visa Jouttenus.




He could understand any english slang you threw at him, oh, and I got a lot of good quotes from him, he held nothing back. Take for example something he said at District meeting where he said "Ukraine is the armpit of Europe" with complete seriousness, simply priceless.

Realization

This past week was full of amazingly interesting activities (sarcasm there). Not including soccer since that was fun, I had the opportunity to help someone move which wasn't so bad except that it started at 8am... That is way too early for anyone especially myself since it was a saturday morning. Because I'm a retard and don't like to go to bed early I stayed up playing games until 12:30 and realized that if I didn't go to bed real soon I was going to be hurting real bad in the morning. So I got up at 7:00 o'clock and thought to myself "I'm not showering for this because it's too early and I'm already hurting." So I slept in to 7:45 and as you might realize that made absolutely no difference at all. Anyways, I helped these three girls move in to a single apartment (they were all located at different places, WIN!) and by the time it was over I felt super grungy not having shaven and eaten two donuts since that was our reward. Not a good start to a day. Now you might be thinking what the realization is but I'm getting to it as soon as I get through all my random thoughts for this weekend. After finishing the move I went home and had Dad give me a haircut but what I forgot to take into consideration was that I wore a hat that morning since I didn't shower which made my hair greasy and matted to my head, not good for cutting hair. Amazingly Dad powered through the terribleness that was my hair and the frustratingly off and on extension cord that made the clippers get caught in my hair since the clippers would be hiccuping as the power was sporatic until dad grunted with anger and forced the prongs into the socket as far as possible (I was thankful).

After showering and noting that there was only 1 hour till the bbq at camp alpine was to start I thought "this could be very bad if I get stuck there and there isn't anyone I want to talk to or if this dance that is to be happening is full of people I don't want to be around" (I was right on one of those parts unfortunately). I went to the institute for the carpool and we took off to camp alpine and fortunately I had Kevin Costa and Levi Gonzalez to talk to for the first 4 hours while we did service clearing the paths and juggling a soccer ball till our shins started to hurt. Finally dinner came and there were some amazing hamburgers and hotdogs with other delicious foods that I would gladly partake of again. I was forced into some awkward conversations with the graduating seniors that I couldn't really relate to as I ate dinner but I survived and threw the frisbee around with some people that I regularly talk to and enjoy their company. This is where things went sour. During the time I had been talking to Kevin Costa and Levi G. I had mentioned that there was to be a dance after the fireside and both of them apparently didn't know anything about it. They said that most likely they would be taking off before the dance since that wasn't exactly what they had planned on. Ok, so while I was throwing the frisbee around apparently they slipt out the back and took off... What I'm guessing happened was that they didn't want to bother me while I was busy messing around with some other people to inform me that they were taking off. Because of this I was stuck. Now if you don't know I absolutely loathe dances. I go to them for only one purpose and if I don't think it is worth my time I won't be there, plain and simple (you can guess the purpose). So there I was, stuck at camp alpine without a car and no way to get out of a dance that I hadn't planned on attending with no motive for me to be there, ugg.

The dance started and I quietly sat near the fire and talked with what people I could until many had left to the dance floor while I just kept sitting there and thinking "man this lame. Not only that but I look like a loner and miserable person, dang it." After about a 30-45 minutes I couldn't take it anymore and whipped out my phone and tried texting Scott out of desperation to see if there was any chance for him to get me out of there. Now you might realize that we are at camp alpine and there is literally no signal out there, meaning, whenever the connection decided to come back I would get a response. All the while texting I had over 4 people ask me if I was alright and comment something close to "by the looks of it, you want out of here" and they were right as I told them that I was just fine and that I just didn't want to dance (cheerfully I might add because honestly I wasn't in a bad mood or anything). Amazingly after chatting with a girl for the next half hour since I think she felt bad for me or something Scott came with Alan since Scott didn't want to get lost on the way there which was probably a good idea since Scott once passed the Portland airport and went over the bridge heading to washington while I was in the car with him once, hehe, fun times.

So the realization that may not have been obvious is that I sincerely dislike dances and always associate them with bad experiences (now with one more to add to it). I don't know what it is but jumping around and moving to a beat to enjoy music is not what I envision as fun. All the girating and making a fool of yourself only makes me laugh and that is the only reason why I would dance but since I can't get people to laugh at what I do while feeling comfortable at the same time, there is no point in doing it.

Dang, this was a long post but it was more of a barrage of thoughts that needed to get thrown out after such a draining weekend (I slept 9 hours in the morning and took a 3 hour nap on sunday and was still tired). Hmm, I gotta throw in a picture since pictures almost make the post worthwhile.

This is before I was retarded and shaved my legs just so I could say I had done it and to know what it was like.

And after (notice the whiteness, just wow)

Now that you are totally grossed out, how about something a bit more pleasing.This was after a hike up to the top of bald hill. It's quite the view up there.

Ok, I'm tired and need to go to bed since I have class in 8 1/2 hours, woo!

In the Flow of Things

It has been quite a while since I've been able to find an enjoyable game that I can run through again after CoD4 was seeming to drag on night after night. I must confess that it was still fun to play CoD with the Salem crowd but after a couple prestiges and feeling like I was really accomplishing anything I just wanted some change.

So finally I have a couple games that I am running through right now. One of those oddly is CoD4 but for the PC (a little backwards huh?). This is mainly because I enjoy the control a ton better and can play with my hometown friends. A different game I have been playing since day one of its release is Team Fortress 2. This game is just a blast simply because of the classes that you can choose from and the fact that it relies on team based play while allowing for you as an individual to still make a difference, even if your team sucks, so that you don't get absolutely wrecked. But the main reason why I am posting is because of a newer game for me, yet is actually 2 years old, that I am simply immersed in called Titan's Quest: Immortal Throne. To me it is like the spiritual successor to Diablo 2 which my friends and I have put countless hours into. The leveling system with skills and attributes that you attain as you move up really keep you playing around to find the best setup for your character so that you don't get owned by hordes of mobs and godlike bosses. Like most action RPG games there are items that drop as you take out enemies and that also is a driving force to keep playing but I think the powers that you are imbued with as time goes on is the real factor that keeps you re-playing the game and perhaps even starting new characters.

For most this seems absolutely ridiculous and an outright waste but I can assure you that it is the same as playing a board game with friends or simply hanging out and watching a movie. The only difference is that you don't get to be with your friends in person but at least you can talk to you them as if they were right next to you thanks to an online communication program called Ventrilo. Now I know that for many this makes absolutely no difference to them and that playing video games is for children and that is all there is to it but some people decide to get their social interraction in different ways then others.

It seems I got a little sidetracked but nonetheless this is how I have been and will be spending my time when I am free and don't have other activities occupying my time (sports, church, school).

To finish off this post I want to add a picture that I have loved since day one when I came across it in Ukraine. This was soviet propaganda that was thrown out there since people were drinking too much and not getting enough work done on the job. It is simply priceless to see since it was an official poster from the CCCP (USSR).

Isn't it great! (HET is pronounced Nyet, meaning NO!) What I don't get is what is with that white stuff on the table, the straw, and scraper in his left hand...I must have found a picture that has been tampered with since that is not on the official poster.

It has Begun!

After repeated comments from friends, I'm starting a blog. I think I'm doing this moreso to have a journal that I actually might keep up on instead of doing it because of pressure to not be the only one without a blog.

What would actually be fun would be to write a good chunk of my entries in russian so that I could keep up my practice of the language and learn to better type in it. Since this is my blog and I can do with it what I want and I may just do that from time to time. Most likely I will add words and phrases in russian (with explanations/translations) since they are simpler and I get the meaning of what I wanted to say anyways without going through a painstaking hour or more of pecking out russian characters. We'll see.

I will finally be able to post pictures and make comments on all the little things I notice day to day that I never seem to get to write down. I think I will enjoy this more than I had originally thought. Heck, I've written this much without even thinking and I don't even feel like I've gotten started. I think this is a good sign.