Sayanora, Snowy Ohio

I’m headed to San Diego next weekend! In all reality, I should probably post this on Wednesday night, because I don’t leave until Thursday morning, but a little positive anticipation on a Monday never hurt anyone.

SteveD & his beautiful bride will meet me out there, and we shall party like it was 2003. In fact, we’re going to start a new band called “The Barong Experience“. Seriously though, we’ll be attending a wedding, and it’s shaping up to be pretty awesome…descriptive, I know.

Before I leave, however, I will have to endure another 6 inches of snow tonight & a cat who’s going crazy because it gets cold digging in the snow when you’re trying to cover up your “kitty business”. It also frustrates me when he stands by the door looking like he wants to go outside, so I open up the door, he realizes that it’s freaking 11 degrees outside, and he contemplates in his little kitty brain the pros & cons of going outside – all while every last bit of heat is getting sucked out of my house. Fantastic.

I slept most of the day yesterday. It was a beautiful thing. Although, since I’m not an experienced napper, I realized something; Make sure you put your phone on silent when you’re trying to sleep. Otherwise, it’s the equivalent of having an alarm clock go off every 15 minutes during your nap, which is no good.

Easter Rising played a show on Saturday night. It was a lot of fun. I think I asserted myself as the best bass player in the venue that night…I know that sounds pretentious & self-serving, but I can’t even call myself the best bass player on this blog. I’ve got BillE & DanB to deal with – gotta get it while I can.

Nerdiest part of the Superbowl party I attended? When me & a couple others started reading each other different tweets about the game. Twitter is amazingly & awesomely stupid, and I love it.

I believe that about 6 or 7 bagels died at my hands last night because that bagel dip was phenomenal. Thank you Brian.

I lost my winter hat & I’m nearly bald. I’m constantly cold. This must be what it feels like to be a woman.

Original phrase of the weekend: “Epistemological suckiness”

I’ve realized that I lead a more interesting life than most…at least in comparison to my coworkers.

Most of my sentences start with “I”. Terrible writing technique…and so conceited. Geez.

That’s all for now.

SNOWBAL WARMING

SteveD here!  I apologize for my mysterious absence over the last month and a half from writing wonderful life insights.  I recently accepted a new job at a sweet company called Three Pillar Global, and unlike my last job I’m treating this one a bit more seriously.  If you’ve been staying up late at nights and losing sleep wondering if I was a victim of swine flu, working undercover with the CIA, attacked by a bear, or writing for a competitor blog like http://www.catswithblogs.org/ you may be right and you may be wrong.  Those are still very real possibilities, so please don’t stop your restless mind games on my whereabouts.

Today is a special day in Northern Virginia.  Today our local community wages war on the snowfall record of 1922 with hopes of surpassing 28 inches of cold whiteness.  What does this mean to me?  It means I get to work from home and listen to Owl City while dreamily staring out my wintery window in a fashionable emo gaze.  It also means I get to be a part of local history.  It’s already been a monumental year as the year of the swine flu (as Lucas pointed out previously), the year of out of control government spending, and now it’s the year of insane snow!  I feel that it ties in perfectly with our culture of excess and maybe the snow is simply here as a grand and masterful allegory of American society .  Maybe the snow is simply a slap in the face to the global warming junkies.  After all, there has never been a winter in Washington DC with two massive snow storms in the same year since as long as we have paid people to tell us about the weather.   Or maybe, just maybe, it means that warm air associated with an extratropical cyclone flowing up and over the cold air surrounding part of the cyclone. The air being lifted, combined with the abundant water vapor available in the warm air mass, causes cloud water to keep forming. This cloud water is collected by falling ice particles, which grow as the super-cooled cloud water freezes. The ice particles in the clouds grow and combine to become so large that upward flowing air the clouds can no longer support them, and they fall to the ground. The more water vapor there is available to the cloud, and the stronger the updrafts that cause this water vapor to condense into cloud water or ice particles, the more likely it is that snow will form within the cloud.

Who really knows for sure though??  It could mean anything.

Where Do You Want To Be In 5 Years?

This is a question that has baffled me for what seems like forever. When my dad was a kid, he knew he wanted to do something in construction, so well, he did it. He’s still doing it. I have friends who grew up wanting to be university professors and doctors and lawyers and even priests, and they’re taking steps toward making their dreams and plans happen.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about where I want my life to be in 5 years, and what it will be like at 31 years old. Will I be married? What kind of profession will I be in? Will I have finally paid off those mountains of debt incurred through my “college experience”?

The truth is, 5 years ago, I had very different plans for my life than the way it’s turned out so far. 5 years ago, I had big dreams of a career as a professional musician. I was in a band that was going somewhere, bandmates with the same long term goals, and the desire and drive to make it all happen. Somewhere along the line, things changed and our priorities shifted. Nearly 3 years ago, one of my worst nightmares came true; I got an office job.

The past 3 years have had their share of ups and downs, but I’ve come to realize that my vocation is within the business world. This vocation is fulfilled through working with people for a common goal to first of all pay the bills, but more importantly, have a positive impact on the world around us. The daily grind of seemingly pointless and often mundane work can breed contempt for the corporate world and those in positions of power. The truth is, all work is a vocation and an extremely important avenue for living out the Catholic faith in a meaningful way.

Circling back to the beginning of my post, I’ve come to the realization that even though I have no idea what I “want” to do career-wise, God has a plan. I think that a large part of God’s plan for me lies in my own realization that I am not Him. In looking back at how nearly every single one of my fantastic plans or ideas on where I want to be has failed, I’ve decided to give up. This doesn’t mean that I’m giving up trying to set goals and certain “checkpoints” for myself, but that I’m giving up on worrying about them and how they affect my future self and situation.

As I said before, I’m doing my best to realize that I am not in control of my own life. I know that God will present me with the opportunities I need to live in accordance with His will, and my job is to take advantage of those opportunities with the skills and desires that make up who I am. Where do I want to be in 5 years? I still have no idea, but I’m not concerned. I’m giving up on planning out my life, and I’m going to let God plan it for me. I just have to do the work.

Mahalo…

Guitar playing laser wolves.  You’re welcome.

Combining two things…

Sometimes combining two things can be bad:

TicketMaster and LiveNation Get Approval As One Giant Ticket Monster

Sometimes they can be fantastic:

Flight 815 Crash Edited In Real Time (Like 24.)

Cheers.

dB

Patrick Madrid…

Knows what’s up…

iPhone social networking that we can all use…

Behold: The magnificent triumph of human intellect and the culmination of years of technological advancement!!  It is without further ado, fair ladies and gentlemen, that I am pleased to announce…  iPOO!!

http://www.ipoonow.com/

Poop-texting will never quite be the same.  Well, for those of us with iPhones at least.

What’s next?

I am a serial hobbyist. I don’t have A.D.D, but I simply get extremely passionate about something new once a month, and have been this way my entire life. The end result of this is that I am not an expert at any one thing, but I enjoy doing lots of things for a given period of time. A successful hobby phase for me can last anywhere from one hour to three months. The best ones come back in the cycle on a regular basis (guitar has a permanent spot on my rotation). It’s also important to know that I don’t get frustrated or feel like a failure when I decide I’m done putting effort into a given hobby (ie I did P90X for 6 weeks and then quit so I could put more effort into eating and drinking. I don’t regret those 6 weeks, and I don’t feel upset with myself for quitting). My mother does NOT understand this.

I would probably have enough money saved up to buy a nice car or put a down payment on a house if I could get back all of the money I have thrown into new interests over the course of my life. When I told my wife yesterday that I wanted to buy a comprehensive 20 DVD set of guitar lessons to get better she asked me if I’d really stick with it. Would it be worth $150, or would it sit in my closet next to the P90X DVD’s? OH SNAP!! …She’s got a point though. There’s a great chance that I would do three weeks of the lessons and then never touch it again.

There are times I wish I was more disciplined to stick with certain things even when I get tired of them. However, at the end of the day I love my wandering personality that has lead me to try so many different things. Life is full of so many opportunities and I want to experience as many of them as I can while I’m here.

***GEEK ALERT***

I’m not normally one to do “serious” or “informative” posts here…I tend to stick with the ridiculous or asinine, but my new toy has provoked a reaction from me. I can’t contain myself.

I received my new HTC Droid Eris from Verizon via FedEx yesterday (I hate FedEx. UPS is the bomb.com…another day), and it was quite exciting. I had to renew my 2 year contract with Verizon, but I got the phone for $30 instead of $100. Yes, I sold my soul again for $70.

Instead of posting a full review of the phone, I’m just going to tell you how awesome it is. Many people pick on my Apple fan-boyishness when it comes to technology. I’ll admit, I’m writing this on my MacBook Pro right now, and I have a certain affinity for Apple’s product line. However, I must admit that my Google fan-boyishness is quickly superceding any loyalty I have for the “Cult of Mac“.

In the 2 days I’ve had my phone, I’ve been extremely impressed with the customizability combined with the functionality & quality. That’s what’s tipped me over the edge as an iPhone apologist. Android’s ability to run programs in the background is extremely helpful, and the 5-megapixel camera is pretty sweet. I haven’t recorded any video yet, but I’ve heard it’s not great.

I could probably go on for days about how sweet this phone is, and where the iPhone is lacking, but I’ll just stop here & leave you hanging (because I know you’re just holding on to every word).

Now, if only Android had the push email like Blackberry…

</geekiness>

Friday Links!

BNET is one of my favorite websites about business. Their post “7 Ways to Build a Loyal Team“ showed up in my Google Reader this morning, and I figured I’d show some love. It kinda reminds me of a ground level implementation of Good to Great.

Rob Zombie is directing an episode of CSI. Whoop de do.

Doogie Howser is on Hulu now…and I can’t get enough of that awesome theme song.

Red Cross tweeted that there’s already been over $35 million dollars donated for relief efforts in Haiti. (via @danbozek)

Anytime I need to learn how to do something or need to figure out where I stand on an issue, Kige Ramsey is always there for me. This particular episode helped me immensely. Thank God for Kige.

The Pomegranates are a sweet band from Cincinnati, and you’ve probably never heard of them. Until now…

You may have heard of the Heartless Bastards. They’re kinda-sorta from Cincinnati too…and they’re awesome.

Ok, so if you have a mac, and you like stalking people on Facebook, or just want to have save all the pics that showcase your good side,  you need to check out PhotoBook. You can save any pics in a Facebook album to iPhoto & keep them all to yourself. Bwahahahaha!

24 SEASON 8!!! (Don’t call me on Sunday or Monday nights this week)

Some people are clueless. Count me in as one of the “blind religious fanatics”. I could go on a huge rant right now about how stupid people are…but I won’t. Lots of people are stupid. I’m not stupid, just weak.

How am I battling my weakness? Be A Man! This book is awesome.

If you’re really nice to me, and you give me a good reason, I might give you an invite to Google Voice. I have 2 left.

Enjoy some Emmitt Smith. Words can’t describe (no pun intended)…

Enjoy your weekend everybody. I’m gonna go to a farm & do some MAN WORK!