Today, I had an interesting experience. Something which I’m going to backtrack a little and talk about from a different sort of light than what one might expect.

First off, as folks know, I go to UCF and there’s a wonderful fountain that I’ve been going to in the middle of campus since August 2001. I’ve met many friends around the fountain and even formed my first band, Mindflux there. Yes, we italicized just the “M” whenever we wrote it. And yes, that’s me with all of that crazy hair, and I never took down that old webpage. Insane. Even still, I like going to the fountain because its relaxing and I meet a lot of interesting folks there. Be it rain or shine or even 40 degrees out, if I have an hour to kill, I’ll do it.

On Monday, it was one of those days. I had parked myself out there and nearing the end of my second hour playing, a gentleman came up to me. I’ll call him “Michael” because it’s close enough to his real name without being his real name. Well, the first letter is close enough. Even still, I never had met “Michael” before, and I saw him walking by once. He looked Hispanic/Indian–the country, not Native American–and was dressed very 80’s-esque with the jean jacket and everything. He tells me that he likes what he’s hearing, and that he runs a business. That’s where the conversation gets fuzzy. See, I thought he was telling me he’d sit down and talk to me about his business and this consulting group some other time, and I said sure why not, but apparently he saw it as setting up an appointment to meet for a meeting.

Tuesday and Wednesday, he and I played phone tag some, him more than me but we courteously returned each others cards. Now, I guess I should mention that he had my business card and I had his. I Googled his name, his phone numbers, and even the quote on his card and could come up with nothing for him. And we’re not talking some simple Google search, I’m the sort that I’ll put in any/all tags that I can, and if someone’s online and available to find, well, I’ll find them most of the time. Nothing at all for him. Nothing. Finally, Wednesday night when we set a meeting for Thursday (today) at a local Starbucks right up the road from me, I ask him about company name and other information. I’m a business major, and I understand the importance of coming to the table with everything that I can for efficiency in meetings. In a fairly close paraphrase to what he said “This is just for me and you to talk and see if we can work together, I’ll give you more information tomorrow.”

I don’t like being kept in the dark.

So this morning, I met him at Starbucks. A good walk for me, so I ordered my usual: a quint-venti sugar free vanilla latte with half whole milk and half soy milk. Try saying that one five times fast. Not typing, saying. Its good. Tastes a bit like its burnt, but it’s good, to say the least. Or to me it is, and that’s what matters.

We sit down outside, and he pulls out a brochure. On this brochure first of all has the classic 4 ways to make money (employee, own a store, investment, franchising) and then the classic supply chain model. On another part of the trifold, it has some information listing various big name companies. Companies like Sony, Disney, Office Depot, you get the idea. Big names. The “wow factor.” He tells me how there’s the company’s own line too. Starts talking about how mentors have made millions and retired in a few years, and flips to another part of the fold where it talks about two phases of money-earning.

Now, I should interject a few things here…
1) I’m a business major. Anything and everything he’s describing to me is stuff I learned a year or two back. I’m specifically a management major, and even if my focus is Human Resources, I understand this flow as well as the next person.
2) And you’re especially trying to explain to a guy who worked for Wal*Mart and for Walgreens how the big box retailers can buy in bulk and save money? Doesn’t work.
3) The whole while, I’ve asked the business they’re in, and he hasn’t told me at all. He hasn’t answered the key question that I’ve asked, and expects me to stay with him on this one.
4) And he keeps telling me its not a get rich quick scheme because they don’t exist. Matter of fact, I love the way he answered this one that I’m going to make it into its own paragraph…

You see, when he was starting to talk about how everyone makes money so fast, I didn’t blink at all to that. He asked me “Do you believe it?” My reply was very straight forward: “If Rockefeller, Astor, and Trump could make a lot of money from nothing, I’d believe it’s possible. Ways of it are out there, and just because I haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.” Then, his reply was brilliant and I love it:
“I was born in South America, but I was raised in Iowa. I was offered a job in the Barbados and they told me that there were green monkeys there. I could have not believed them, or I could have gone to see them myself, but whether I believed or not, they were there.”
Yeah. Okay. And I shortened his reply, but that was it. Monkey are millionaires. Or something like that. I see the line he’s drawing, but I just had to not laugh.

All the while, though. Still no company name. And this makes me skeptic and wonder what I’m really sitting here for and through. See, I want to know what I’m walking into. Believe me, if I were to see a sign on a wall for a meeting to discuss the political power of the South in the upcoming election with free donuts and coffee, I wouldn’t want to just go to the meeting without seeing the group that was behind it. I mean, that’s a very ambiguous meeting right there. I could be walking into a rally for the Democratic or Republican parties or into a KKK rally. Power has many meanings, just as not being told what this business was had many meetings for me. And something wasn’t sitting right with me, but “Michael” I felt wasn’t a Klan member. He mentioned going to church, and again, from his appearance I’d imagine that he’d be just as outcast as this friendly Jewish writer is.

On the pamplet, though, I did notice what looked like to be a company name: “I-commerce.” I kept telling myself “I need to remember that, I need to remember that” throughout the meeting, hoping that the second I got away, I could hopefully Google an answer.

That second came faster than I thought. As we closed out the “information” part of the meeting and he kept insisting on the connection that he felt between us–something I couldn’t rationalize because he knew more about me than I knew about him and he wouldn’t relinquish the one thing I kept asking of him–he mentioned that the next step would be a meeting across town. Me, being without a car, mentioned immediately that I wouldn’t be able to get out there. He asked if I was between cars, if I would be getting one soon, and when I said no to both of them and answered proudly of myself that I’ve lived this long without one and wouldn’t be getting one anytime soon, he completely shut down and called everything over. In a kind fashion, telling me that if things change, call him up. But even still, he shut down. You know how it is when you’re talking to someone and you can tell they completely shut down and aren’t listening and don’t care anymore? Exactly.

We shake hands, and I’m laughing inside with a slight smile on my face. It was the dealbreaker and I found it without wanting to find it. I pull out my phone and Google it like “icommerce.” I come across a company name: Quixtar.

Now, I should be fair because nothing that was described to me was named Quixtar, but from all that I was shown, it reads like everything I’ve read about Quixtar since my meeting with “Michael.” Similar mentor programs, similar product lines and sales base. And it just doesn’t sit right with me. It’s legit, but you have to do a lot more than what was being implied to me. And its so close to being a pyramid scheme with the way the profits are collected that it’s under investigation still. Even with a clean Better Business Bureau record. And a lot of companies are like that.

So, I call back up “Michael” and thank him for the meeting and express that I’m sorry that my carlessness is “the dealbreaker.” He doesn’t want to use those words and says that if things change, let him know, and was polite, but didn’t really want to talk, I could tell.

And that’s where you have it, folks. You could say that I was stupid from the get-go for meeting up with someone when I had no idea what I was getting into in the first place, but at the same time, I was curious and this cat wasn’t killed for that curiousity. To a degree, you can find out more from some small investigative work like that, and I wanted my own answers.

That, and don’t keep me in the dark. Unless it’s about what you’re getting me for my birthday, because, you know that one’s coming up on January 31st…

And to “Michael” or any member of the I-Commerce or Quixtar whom might come across this:
This is the last line and I bolded it and underlined it for you. I know I was not clearly stated a company name, and I’m not meaning to implicate any company who wasn’t really involved.
This whole post is not an attack against your corporation/company/entity/way of being. You guys do your thing and it works for you, but the way I was handled in the shrouds of mystery didn’t work for me and you left me to my own conclusions because “Michael” couldn’t answer the simple question I kept asking.
“Michael,” I think you’re a nice guy, and I’m sorry that I wasn’t a good recruit for your company, and I wish you the best there.

Well folks, back again. To my friends over on my LJ aggregation, my apologies for the friends list swarm you faced. I had no idea that would happen, but I guess because it finally got synced and the feed read right after all of the tries yesterday, well, it went berzerker.

The thing about my courses that I like is that every single class has a group, pretty much. I’ve already said that, I know, but even still, it started to sink more in last night when we picked them out in one of the classes. See, last Thursday, two of the folks in one of my classes recognized me from other classes. So we decided then and there that any classes we were in, we’d try to get into the same teams, just to lessen the number of folks we had to worry about over the semester for each of us. So in three of my classes, I have one member the same, and in two of those, I have two team member cross-overs. Can’t complain right there.

I’m all about teams. I enjoy teams. Matter of fact, I have one of two roles that I almost always take when I’m in teams:
[1] Dictatorial to a Degree - Yup, supreme command and control, making sure that everything is running smoothly and going from point to point and being on everyone. I like to be in that control because I feel like then I can make sure that things go smoothly. And because I have a high standard of the end result, well, it’ll make sure that as a whole everyone will grade well.
[2] Wallflower - The guy who you never see, gets everything in on time, and takes little to no leadership role.

Extreme leadership positions, I know. It’s something that I’m working on because neither extreme really is an ideal position to be in. Slowly, I’m relinquishing the reigns. The ride is just as nice most of the time, if you ask me. So readers, the question of the hour is … What leadership role(s) do you take in group settings?

And again, if you need to register to comment, click here and make an account. And if it doesn’t send you a password, drop me an e-mail, and I’ll see to it that you get one.

I’d write more, but I got a call from a friend, so I’m going to meet them on campus… When I come back later, a discussion of observation and reading the fine print even when you’re given none.

So folks, after all of the issues yesterday, here I am, back online, and back live. A few quick uploads to this directory or that one, an import or two, and whammo, here I am.

If you’d priorly registered to be a user here, you’ll need to re-register, sadly, because those users didn’t carry over. Even still, things worked well for the switch over. I believe the syndication feed on LiveJournal still works, but we’ll find out soon enough…

I have to give my new host major major props. Folks, seriously, if you’re looking for webhosting, check out SearchItUp.com. I e-mailed them with each and every issue, including an unforseen billing issue that popped up, and they took care of it on the spot without any problems. Seriously. I registered my hosting at about 1:30pm yesterday, got my confirmation e-mails by 11:50pm, they talked me through my nameserver switch-over–something that I know is easy, but seeing eHost was my domain service too, well, I had problems with knowing where to go to set my nameservers. And then, I was just waiting for the propagation at 2am, went to sleep, had the billing issues at 7am which were resolved by 9am with a quick e-mail, and then my service was online not even an hour after that. And because most of their e-mails back to me were within 20-30 minutes of when I sent in a question, well, I was completely surprised at the great service. And they told me they’re even faster when you actually open a support ticket. Not bad at all. Major props from me.

Let’s see… I have a good story to tell, but I’m waiting till I get something in the mail first to tell my tale. Other than that, I was excited to hear that Seven Mary Three’s day and night driving will be pre-leaked on iTunes within the next few weeks. This means that all of the pre-orders of the CD will be shipped earlier than February 19th, and I’ll end up getting an early birthday gift (January 31st) if everything works out well. Beautiful. I’m addicted to the samples that I’ve heard to this point, and I’m just itching to have that album in my hands. Simply amazing.

That’s all I’ve got, folks. Thank you for your patience in working with me, and I’ll be back to me sooner than you’d imagine…

Another day, another problem, eh?

Today, my sister was kind enough to tell me that apparently our sites were down for a few hours. If you’re just now joining me here on this, I appreciate you checking in and reading, and soon, I’ll be struggling to aggregate everything over to my new host. Okay, not struggling, but if there’s some down-time, you know why.

Things should be switched over tonight, I’d imagine. Thankfully cPanel and WordPress both allow easy backup and restore of their content, so if I did everything right, I’ll be online and you guys won’t even have noticed the difference.

And I’ve got a good story or two for when I get back. I know I keep saying that, but I promise that I do. Honest.

Each and every week, I end up with a pretty laid back schedule, if you ask me. For my classes, they’re all evening, so I can putter away all day at little projects, homework, readings, and other things, and then at night bunker down for the bulk of the coursework and the lectures. So let’s go day by day at what I end up taking…

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Tuesday
MAN4320 - Recruitment and Selection: One of the cores to my Human Resource Management major, this course focuses on the all important job description in terms of finding the person/job fit. You know when you read ads and you see the jobs you’re looking for? This is the course that focuses on how that’s done and what all is looked at. It looks to be fun, and the teacher has a nice laid back approach to how things are done and delivered, but wants us on the ball with it.

Wednesday
MAN4701 - Business Ethics & Society: Another one of those required classes for students to empart on them the societal responsibilities and forces of the surrounding world. As a whole, its not bad and is a lot of historical references and examples. Its one of those classes that you have to slug through and “just get done.” But if you’re a history guy like me, well, it’s golden.

Thursday
MAN4330 - Compensation Administration: Fancy course title, no? Well, this course is all about how you get paid, why you get paid, and what you get paid. Very cool, to say the least. It looks into the value of benefits, how to figure out salaries, how the salaries and industries are relative, and just how to keep everything all in line. Its another one of those steps in the process of hiring, but the whole course focuses on how the salaries work. Nice.

MAN4350 - Training and Development: Yes, I have an afternoon class and an evening class on Thursdays. And this course takes the final part of the hiring and acquirement process of business and new employees. But, its the most important part, seeing we’re focusing on imparting the knowledge of the organization to the “minions” of the organization. Okay, not the “minions,” but I just like that word.

Online Course
GEB3356 - International Business: The lectures for this class are videotaped, so I can watch them on my own time sometime after Tuesday and Thursday afternoons when they’re available online. And it’s fairly informative and fun to watch and follow along with. I can’t describe it, I just enjoy it. But the course is all about how business is in a global focus and how the worldwide market works. I did a bit of reading on this in my own free time a year or so back. I enjoy it. I just do.
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And that’s about it. A fairly diverse offering of classes. It keeps me busy, to say the least. I’ve been doing a lot of reading to stay ahead of the lectures/PowerPoint slides for each class, and with everything involved, well, I’m on the ball. Feeling good about being ahead of myself.

I didn’t really mention that there’s a group project for each class, but I’m a management major and that’s all we do: team building. You can have fun with that. Me? With 5 different classes and 5 different groups of 5 individuals each? Well, it’ll get a bit overwhelming, I think. We’ll see, eh?

It’s a rainy day outside. Days like this are best for staying in and doing nothing.

So today, on my plate:

1) Homework
2) Some upkeep here on the site including my about page, my discography page, and maybe looking into a way to get my albums up here so folks can download them.
3) Play some Wii

No, I don’t own a Wii. My sister has gratiously left hers over here for our use while she’s loaded down on her semester of school work, and seeing she’ll be spending a lot of weekends with us, well, makes sense, I guess. Of course, this is the semester that I’m loaded down myself, so it means that now Sarah has something to do while I’m working on that homework. Hah. Lovely.

I’d also like to wish my youngest reader here a happy 8th birthday. So enjoy your day, Abby!

That’s about it for me today…

Creativity is something interesting. I’ve been seeing the Gwen Stefani HP commercial a lot, and while I’m not a fan of her musically, I really like the message of the commercials and agree with it fully.

“Sometimes its so hard to find what it is I’m trying to say. People might think you can turn creativity on and off, but its not like that. It just kind of comes out, a mash up of all of these things that you collect in your mind. You never know when its going to happen but when it does? It’s like magic. It’s just that simple, and it’s just that hard.”

That quote’s been haunting me as much as this next one, which is from Jefferey Eugenides in a forward to a book that’s a collection of love stories: “Love stories depend upon disappointment, on unequal births and feuding families, on matrimonial boredom and at least one cold heart. Love stories, nearly without exception, give love a bad name.”

Two quotes. Similar, different, and introspective.

That’s all I’ve got for today, really. After a few hours of studying International Business, that’s all my head’s good for: someone else’s words.

I really need to write my about page sometime soon. I’ll get to it. Soon. I hope. But, I’ve already ranted about writing that.

Today, Sarah had the day off from work. So instead of me sitting around on my behind for my usual 8 or so hours in front of my computer and working on homework or other random acts of slacking, we did a lot of running around. Stopped by the Florida Mall and went to Sephora for her and then Teavanna for a quick cup of tea. From there, Costco, our favorite chinese restaurant for a lunch special, and off for me to the eye doctors. All in all, a fairly busy day.

But the eye doctors is one stop that I wasn’t looking forward to. See, back in August, I had my last eye exam. Got a years supply of contacts, got new glasses, full clean bill of health, and I was out the door. But in November, the headaches started. I tried taking my contacts out and wearing my glasses a bit more often, but I still had the headaches. So, I told myself I’d go to the optometrists. I finally got around to that today.

For the past 7 years, I’ve been wearing Acuvue 2 contact lenses. I have an astigmatism in my right eye, and the first time I was given contacts, Everytime that I’ve gone in for a yearly exam, I always ask the same question: “Is there anything new or better than the Acuvue 2’s?” I mean, if you ever watch TV or read commercials, you never hear about an Acuvue 3 or Acuvue 4 or anything, but you definitely hear about tons of other brands. Even between three different doctors, I’ve still been wearing the Acuvue 2’s.

Till today.

On mentioning that and mentioning past problem with headaches which had led to bi-focals right before getting contacts–and yes, we’re talking bi-focals when I was like 16-17 years old–the doctor passed me a pair of Bausch & Lomb Purevision MultiFocal lenses. Essentially, I’m wearing the contact version of a progressive/bi-focal lens. It’s definitely… interesting. My eyes are still adjusting after having them in about 6 hours, and I’ll probably take them out in another 20 to 30 minutes just to make sure that my eyes can relax a bit before heading to bed, but so far, my focus on the near in stuff is a lot better.

But at the same time, what’s sort of amusing, is that with these multi-focal lenses, is that when you first get them and how they work, your eyes adjust differently: either you adjust well to reading or distance, and you have to slowly “train” your brain to decypher how you’re seeing things and switching your focuses. So for the past 6 hours, I’ve been a bit fuzzy at reading things at a distance.

I know my optometrist is a cool dude, though. I mean, his instructions for getting used to them were as follows: “Just take a book out to the couch or something tonight and read some, then look up at the TV, and keep doing that for a bit. Tomorrow, read the Sunday paper, and then let me know how your eyes are doing, and if these don’t work, we’ll try something else.”

Very nice. A prescription to read my heart out and watch TV. Just the thing I needed to hear with at least 2 chapters of reading per class that I have. So mark up about 10 chapters to read, and all the time to start on it.

More on my classes later…

So uh, yeah… Not knowing when I’ll be back at a computer, I just thought I’d post some “upkeep” stuff here for my friendly readers: like all ten of you.

1) Figured out my problems with the webpage the other day and I can say the word “board” as much as I’d like. Apparently, it’s something in the “mod_security” file on the server end. I love eHost. They took care of me in no time flat.

2) For the folks who are reading on LJ and want to comment on the actual posts, or random readers on my site that I might not know about that have wanted to comment, you can make your username/accounts here. And if it doesn’t e-mail you a password, contact me through some means here and I’ll fix it. Rob had that issue earlier, and I figured that one out in no time flat.

3) I changed one small thing that you won’t see unless you’re reading the entries directly on my page directly, and that’s the fact that it says the author’s name with the category and post info. Why does that make a difference? Well, my wife Sarah is also an authorized writer on here. And if we ever go on vacation, who knows, I might make my sister an authorized writer to post stories or something in my absence, despite her weird gnome obsession…

You never know. Or do you? Hah.

That’s all. For now.

People talk about the whole “having a case of the mondays” in the classic sense of Office Space. I think that its an honest serious true thing that people have. I think that we’re all allowed that week or so here or there where you really “just don’t feel yourself.” And the best thing in that time is when you can reach out and grab a friend’s hand and just sit down and talk.

I’ve been in a little bit of a funk like that myself, and I’ve been trying to reach out and grab a friend’s hand. But everytime that I try, it’s like that suspenseful scene near the end of the movie with the hero hanging over a cliff and he’s scrambling to get a better grip. I’ve been missing every grasp I try for.

And I’ve been trying to write and document things. I think that writing is a key to things in the end. As a whole, we find ourselves sitting in front of our computer screens for our “communication” much more than we should be. Hell, I can tell you alone that I spend probably 5-6 hours of my day in front of a computer screen, and I don’t have to be here. I choose to be here. And I shouldn’t be.

Why do we have to IM or e-mail people when we want to talk to them? Why can’t we shoot them an honest to god phone call? I can’t count the last time I got a good call from a friend instead of an IM. Well, I can. And with those folks, I thank them for it. I try to do the same with my friends, and I’m going to make more of an effort for that.

We’re in the new millenium here and while we’re supposed to be getting more and more advanced, I feel like we’re regressing really in our means of communication and living. We don’t sit down and talk about what we’re doing in our lives, but we find someone’s blog and read up on their lives and get all of the information we want that way. Not cool, I say. Not cool at all.

If anyone wants to make a new years resolution, something I really don’t believe in like I’ve said before, resolve to be a better friend to the folks you know before making new friends. That’s the best we can do…

I’ve got a few writings I’m working on coming up… So uh, to my few readers, thank you for reading, and look forward to posts about how Santa Claus is real, my classes for this semester, and whatever else I can come up.

I’d rather be broke and trying than sit still dying…

Last night, I had my first class of the semester, and I’ll talk more about my classes a little later after I’ve had at least one session in each, but there was something that struck me interesting.

This was one of those classes where the teacher hands out the sheet you fill out about yourself. And when I got to the second question, I stared at my paper.

What are your career goals and aspirations?

Oh sure, I’m only 24–I turn 25 on the 31st of this month, so gifts and money and electric guitars are all appreciated, just kidding–and I’m married and I seem to have some path and direction that I’m going. I feel like I’m heading towards something, but I don’t know what that goal is yet.

I hear about my friends who are graduating and getting their jobs, or the kids who say “Well, I always dreamed I’d go into ________.” That’s all fine and dandy. Growing up, I said the same thing about working for the postal service, being an english teacher, and wanting to be a rock star. While the only option of those that I think would be accurate would be the english teacher, I don’t even really want to be or do that right now. I just don’t feel it. I don’t feel like it’s really what’s in my future and what’s lined up for me.

I don’t know. I just don’t know what I “want to be when I grow up.” If I want to own a restaurant, write a novel, have fifteen grandchildren, or even what I want my job to be. And to be here, where I am, it makes me very much a blank slate.

I picked up my pen, and I slowly filled in the blank:

“I honestly don’t have any. I know that when I graduate, I’ll be lucky to get a job in the sales force or a pre-management training style program making 28-32k a year and working over the next few years to get to a basic managerial position in a very basic cubicle, in a 9-5 position with overtime when necessary. I figure I’ll be writing in my off time from that job.”

I’m 24, and to have that as all I could say? I just feel like I’m missing something. I can’t put my finger on it. I honestly can’t.

But there’s got to be something more to life than this… After 7 straight years of classes and schools, I know that much. I’m just waiting for that “magical click” that’ll reveal to me something that seems to fit right. But for now, I guess I’m content. I’m standing, breathing, and just figuring out things as I go along.

That’s all you can do sometimes. You just keep treading forward, knowing that there’s a finish line somewhere, but knowing that the real content is the journey you’re taking to get to that ultimate end-game…

One update a day, at the least. I can’t promise that, but I’m definitely trying to keep up with it. We’ll see how it lasts.

I have a nice morning routine. Or at least, I think it’s nice.

First of all, my alarm goes off freaking early each day in consideration of what I have to do and where I have to be at what times. With all evening classes, I’m not home till 9ish or so each night, but I’m always up at 7:30/8 in the morning. So long 12 hour days for me, and then some when I get home.

My mornings are fairly nicely paced. I get up as mentioned above, iron clothes if need be, pack Sarah’s lunch, make her breakfast, walk her down to the car all before 9am. When I get back upstairs, I cook up a quick breakfast and turn on shows from my DVR from the night before: Countdown with Keith Olbermann, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and The Colbert Report. Yes, I get all of my daily news from said slanted news sources. And because I know they’re slanted sources, well, I fill in the holes and I can laugh and enjoy my news and not feel like I’m being lectured by a Wolf Blitzer, Larry King, or Brian Williams. Well, I shouldn’t say Brian Williams, because I actually like him, but you get the drift. But, a new show has taken my interest too: American Gladiators. I watched that sucker last night. Fun little romp, I’ll have to keep up with it. That’s the advantage of the DVR: just record them and watch them when I have the minute or hour or few.

So when I’m done with the news and my breakfast has settled for that hour and a half of news, I take my memory/focus supplements and daily vitamins and all, and then find myself slacking behind a computer again with a CD or two. Today’s selection happens to be Stroke 9’s Rip It Off. An alright album, better than their last one. I just didn’t like The Last of the International Playboys, but that’s just me.

After all of this musical slacking, I’ll eventually get to the shower and head out. Depending on how early I leave for campus, I might bring my guitar with me if I know I don’t have much bookwork or reading or anything to do, just to be a bit more relaxed, and I’ll take an hour by the UCF Fountain, playing my heart out. I’ll miss that place when I graduate. Been doing that since August 2001 when I first came to UCF…

From there, I’ve got classes, and then a late night home when I’m out by 8:50. I don’t know if any of my teachers will plan on letting us go around 8:30, but a lot of late night classes, the teachers let students out a little early because they don’t want to be heading home so late themselves. I don’t really mind one way or the other. Then, it’s to the shuttle and home, or just a 40 minute walk home, if the weather is nice and I’m really feeling like the exercise and the rambling road.

And that wraps up a typical day for me. Sometimes I’ll meet people on campus for coffee, sometimes not. Sometimes I’ll not have classes, or I’ll have a class that begins a little earlier than 6pm, so I do less slacking before the shower, but somedays I don’t. So not bad all around, I guess. Its really a laid back life when I don’t have homework, but when I do? Yeah, not fun.

Then again, who ever really liked homework?

Tonight, I wanted something different for dinner. And for folks who might just be clueing in on my life, I dabble in the culinary arts. Alright, I more wade in the kiddie pool, but that’s really knocking a lot of the dishes that come out of my kitchen.

The exception to that rule was tonight when I had a good idea for something that I’m going to have to refine and make better. But it’s a good start…

Butternut Squash Ravioli

Filling:
15 oz Ricotta Cheese
15 oz Butternut Squash Pureé
4 oz shredded pre-packaged mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese topping
2 eggs
salt and pepper to taste

Shell/Noodle:
4 eggs
4 cups of flour
1 cup water
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup oil

Note: This recipe accounts for a LOT of leftovers, so you’ll be making meals for a week with this sucker.

1] Mix together all of the ingredients of the filling and place in the fridge.
2] Mix the oil, salt, and eggs together in a bowl. I prefer to use my stand mixer. Then add some flour and start mixing together. Add the water gradually as needed, alternating with the flour till it comes together to sticky dough, but not too sticky.
3] Start a pot of water boiling on the stove.
4] Flour out a surface and roll out some dough on it. Roll it thin enough (1/8th to 1/4th of an inch), then cut into manageable rectangles. Place a spoonful of filling on one side, then fold over the other side, and press sides together with a fork.
5] Drop into the boiling water and let cook for about 5-6 minutes, then remove and enjoy.

Now, like I said, it makes a lot of this one. I’ve got a good 25oz or so of filling sitting in my fridge and another equal sized container of dough as well. And with that, I was able to make 9 big ravioli. It needs a bit more zing or something, so I think I’m going to put some goat cheese in them and cook with a bit more salt next time (maybe a salt water boil instead, with a bit of olive oil to prevent sticking), but I’d say this reciple will yield you at least 30-40 ravioli before you need to make more noodle for it.

And seeing I’ll be able to make it fresh each day this week, well, not bad at all…

That’s all I’ve got.

Music drives my life so much more than I could ever describe. Honestly. Put on a strong album and I’m good to go. This morning, I’ve got some Kill the Alarm blasting out on my iTunes. After that? I think I’m going to spin the samples from Seven Mary Three’s dayandnightdriving. A good rocking morning.

So today, I’ve got nothing, really. For me, my first class technically will be “ready” online around 4pm tomorrow after the lecture video is uploaded, so I might just head to campus early before my 6pm class. I did write down all of my classes with the course sections so I can head to campus in an hour and grab the books, like I said yesterday. That’ll be good.

And of course, just as I’m going to get up and get something, Wooster sits down in my lap. It’s alright, what I was going to get were the next thing I was going to talk about, but yeah, seeing I can just google the Lush website and link them anyways, I can do it that way. Damn cat. Ah, who am I kidding, he’s a cute shit.

So Lush. Where do I begin with my love affair for your organic body product goodness of doom? For those folks who haven’t ever used Lush products, srsly, you need to find one near you. I’m not some metro male who’s so gung-ho about complete body care because I’ll go a few days without showering sometimes, or even go a week plus without shaving. But hey, I like the rugged stubble look. Sarah doesn’t. Ah well, sacrifices? Not the way she’d see or say it! Hah!

But Lush’s products are great. All natural, and it leaves you feeling un-irritated when you get out of the shower. My personal favorite is the Sandstone soap. Well, that and the Cynthia Sylvia Stout shampoo. The soap is great with how it works like a body scrub and a soap in one, and the scent really helps me wake up in the morning, and with the shampoo, it helps me smooth out my curls and frizz a bit. Well, the frizz, not the curls.

The curls and frizz I’ve always wanted straightened. Back in high school when I worked for Walgreens, I must have seriously tried every single straightening product that I could find. Seriously. No matter what I did, my hair was still frizzy and full of body. Even when I got a chemical straightening before prom. Yeah, I did that. I should pull up the pictures from that night if I could find them at home. Best thing ever was my best friend, Dave Hall, who was a huge fan of Garth Brooks and all country music. His dad told him, and I quote, “There’s no way in hell you’re going to prom with your cowboy hat and boots!” So a week or so before that? He brought them to my house with the strict instructions that they be waiting for him in the limo. I’ve got pictures of him pulling a Garth, hanging out the window of the limo, waving to cars in New Port Richey. Ah, memories…

Oh yeah, so hair. Well, best solution for my frizz is a little spray bottle I keep by my sink of Infusium 23. From the shower and using conditioner and such, I attack this little pump sprayer like Oliver Twist attacking a second bowl of gruel. That’s what gives me my signature Jew-fro look.

Uh… I’ve got nothing else…

When you have a taxing day like yesterday, well, its good to have some “downtime” afterwards. Today was one of those days. You know, a “burger, fries, and milkshake” day with some “chocolate chip cookies and milk” to follow? Yeah, something of that sort.

And amidst that and cuddling with Wooster and Cassie, the wife and I watched The Nanny Diaries. Cute little movie. Nicely done. Paul Giamatti plays the asshole role all too nicely, though… Makes you wonder about the guy.

Or not.

Anyways, tomorrow marks day 1 of a new semester. Well, for everyone else, not for me. That’s Tuesday. With all evening classes and a Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday schedule, I’ve elected tomorrow as my day to head to campus and get my books for the semester so I don’t have to brave the bookstore on a Tuesday when all of the kids with Tuesday/Thursday classes are there. Besides, I plan on doing it early in the morning to give me the whole day for other things.

Other things… other things… All of this last break, I told myself on December 7th that I’d do so much. That I’d record this album and that album, and read this book and that book, and that I’d see this person and that person. I did nothing. There’s some pleasant unaccomplished accomplishment in that… Still, though, I did get to see a lot of bad movies. I mean, come on, what better way to spend my break than watching Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and Waterworld.

Oh yeah. That’s right. I could have been writing and recording. Ah well…