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.