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.