I like new clothes

well, I did laundry today 'cause I ran out of clean clothes to wear which led me to the realization that I really need more than one pair of comfy pants that I can wear outside. this led to the trip to kohl's. of course, I like to multitask so I figured, hey, since I was already out getting clothes, I should probably stop by best buy and world market while I'm at it. long story short, I bought a new set of earphones, the new lifehouse cd, mango syrup, two pairs of cargo pants/shorts, and two t-shirts. I think that'll curb my urge to buy things for a little while. plans for the rest of the day include ironing clothes and possibly tidying up a bit.

today has been a productive day

well, today has been a very productive day. not so much getting stuff done but planning for my future sort of stuff. work went fine. I was the last closer so I didn't get home till about 7:30 PM because I had to stock and count tonight. then I had dinner (mmmm...nachos with taco meat...) and then studied physics for the MCAT. it's amazing how much more this stuff makes sense now than it did when I was taking the class in college. after about two hours of that, I got burnt out on physics so I was messing around on my computer and I checked a site I hadn't been to in about four years or so - the AACOM home page (the osteopathic medicine home page) so I messed around on there for awhile. osteopathic doctors basically do the same thing MDs do except they treat the whole person instead of just illnesses. DOs (doctor of osteopathic medicine) tend to be more primary care physicians/ pediatrics (the fields I'm interested in) anyways. anywhos, the site had a link to DO schools in the US and I found one in Kirksville, Missouri that looks really promising. it's four hours away from Lawrence so it's fairly close and I have all the pre-reqs for it as far as I know so it's definitely a possibility for me. here's a link to their website if you're interested. I also visited the Kirksville page and the city looks pretty nice. the city only has about 17,000 people so it'd be a nice small town. apparently the campus is three miles away from Thousand Hills State Park which also looks very nice. wells that's it for now. I'm getting tired now so off to bed I go.

slow day, quiet night

well, work went VERY well yesterday. it was slow most of the day until about four (when we sent everybody but myself and another guy home, of course). then it started getting semi-busy. sticks went pretty well, didn't have too many errors. I was even able to stick one of the donors I hadn't been able to before (which was a very good thing because I was the most experience phlebotomist at the center that was still there). got home at about 7:00. andrea came over and we made soft-shelled tacos and had strawberry daiquiries. all in all, a pretty quiet night.

well, it's better than a sharp stick in the eye

quick recap of today: I got my wet suit in today and I got kicked in the nose. I'll let you figure out which one I enjoyed more (it starts with a "w" and ends with an "etsuit").

I want a maggot

wow. it's been almost a week since I last posted. let's see...what's happened since then...scuba classes are now over. well, at least the knowledge-based portion of it. andrea and I still have to do four open water dives before we get certified to dive. yesterday, I went to a friend's graduation. she graduated from med school. at her open house, another friend of our's showed up with her 20-month-old daughter. she was soooooo kawaii!!! I got to give her a piggy-back ride and she weighed almost nothing! it was unbelievable. well, I think that's it for now. I go shower now and get ready to find things to do on my day off. oh yeah, I also updated stuff for the photo scavenger hunt yesterday so if you haven't been there in awhile, you may want to check it out.

bar code art

I was surfing for blogs again and I came across maysamblog.blogspot.com he had a link to barcodeart.com. basically, it's the site of a guy who made images out of bar codes. kinda interesting. take a look if you've got the time.

to follow up on my previous post; beware the emu 

oh what a mess we make when we involve bird seeds and potting soil

well, I was feeling pretty summer-y yesterday so I thought I'd go out and get some stuff for an herb garden. while there, I realized I had to get some filters for my aquarium which brought me down the pet aisle where, as luck would have it, they keep the bird seed. "I like watching birds," I thought to myself. logically, "Therefore, I should buy birdseeds followed." so I walked out of walmart with not only stuff for my herb garden but a bag of bird seeds, a bird feeder, a finch feeder thingy, and a hummingbird feeder and sugar water. when we got home, I was in charge of potting the herbs and andrea was in charge of filling the bird feeder. now prior to getting home with walmart stuff, my apartment had been spotless 'cause my mom was up (she cleaned it, not me.) after andrea and I were done with our chores, it looked like an emu broke into the apartment and attacked the birdfeeder and kicked over the herbs while it was here. that's how bad it was. so now, I get to clean all of that up today as well as reading for my scuba class tomorrow. so off I go to do those things. beware the emu.

worth 100

I was searching the internet and I came on this site: worth100.com. basically, they take pictures and digitally enhance them. below are two examples from their site.


flying beagle 


space 

John Bolton, Survivor - Plus, the cowardice of Lincoln Chafee. By Fred Kaplan

"It takes enormous self-deception to believe that John Bolton is truly qualified much less the 'best man' for this job. He has long held the United Nations in contempt. He has disparaged the legitimacy of international law (the basis for enforcing U.N. resolutions). As an undersecretary of state in Bush's first term, he repeatedly sought the removal of intelligence analysts who dared to disagree with him. He was such a loose cannon that Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of state, forbade him to say anything in public without prior approval. A half-dozen officials, most of them Republicans who served in this administration, say that Bolton would make in the words of Colin Powell's chief of staff'an abysmal ambassador.'
Voinovich said today that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice assured him that Bolton would be firmly supervised in his new job. Voinovich wondered, 'Why in the world would you want to send somebody up to the U.N. that has to be supervised?'"

John Bolton, Survivor - Plus, the cowardice of Lincoln Chafee. By Fred Kaplan

I mistakenly thought it was a story about Michael Bolton and Survivor so I read it. now that I have, I'm wonderin' if John Bolton is the best guy for the job. I don't know much about the subject so basically all the info I have is from this article. leave a comment if you know more either in favor of or against the guy.

holy crap!

well, I just got an email from the electric company telling me that my bill was ready to be viewed online so I thought I'd go check it out. expecting to see a bill in the $50- $70 range, I logged on and not only was it not even close to what I guessed, it was WAY less. my electric bill for last month was $30.25 which is strange to me 'cause I'm pretty much doing the same thing I've done the past several months when my electric bill was higher. I think I'm even using more electricity. I keep my computer on almost all day now and only turn it off at night and I turn the lights on in my aquarium every day now instead of every few days. the only thing I can think of is that I'm watching a little less tv but even so, that doesn't account for the $20 difference between this month's bill and last month's. not that I'm complaining of course. lower bills are always a good thing. just an unexpected surprise, I guess.

I can't believe I ate the whole thing

well, after my Qdoba Mole Chicken Burrito I was still kinda hungry (it was more of a fourth of a burrito. I ate most of it yesterday) so I decided to hop into the kitchen and find out what I still had in the fridge. as luck would have it, I had home made crab dip and honey baked ham. so I thought to myself, self, what could you do with that. a light bulb went on (or burnt out, I can't ever tell which) and sandwich popped up. so I grabbed two slices of wheat bread, three slices of the ham, spread the crab dip on one piece of bread, and added four fresh basil leaves to kick it up a notch (sorry Emeril if you're reading this). the strange thing is that it doesn't taste too bad. I might have to try this again sometime. what strange food combinations have you come up with (and eaten)?

quick post

it's been pretty slow at work today so we get an hour off for lunch. during my lunch break, I finished my Qdoba Mole Chicken Burrito (excellente) and looked at the site for the new Donkey Konga game and I've gotta say I'm kinda disappointed in it. the songs are pretty boring. nothing exciting like the infamouse Rock Lobster and the songs they do have are, once again, not done by the original bands. I think that's the thing that's hurting Donkey Konga the most. if they make a third one, they should use songs by the oringal bands like playstation does for Taiko Drummers.

how to write a non-bad blog

well, I've spent the last half hour pushing the "next blog" button on my screen and have yet to find one that I find interesting. one-fourth of the ones I've come across are ads and another fourth is in a foreign language. the other half just don't appeal to me. and even though I do not necessarily know how to write a good blog, I DO know how to avoid writing a bad one. so, in the interest of me finding more entertaining blogs , I have endeavored to write a list of things to do and not to do. if you have any others, feel free to leave them in the comments section and I'll add to the list.

1. do NOT write about celebrities. in my half hour of searching for blogs, I came across ten or so blogs dedicated solely to either movie stars or sports figures. this is bordering on stalking, people.

2. keep the entries short. people have a short attention span and are lazy. if they have to scroll to finish the article, chances are, they won't.

3. write about things you think about. it's ok to add occassional articles about what you did with your day but most people reading your blog won't know you and, thus, don't care how your day went.

4. add relevant photos. nothing breaks up the monotony of a cluster of words better than a well-placed photo. there are several programs out there for this. I personally use hello but I have friends that use flickr as well. there are many programs out there so try them out and use the one that works best for you.

5. it helps to be funny when you post. and try not to be a stereotype kind of person, try to have depth with your thoughts. (Ookami Snow)

the storm of the century

Yesterday, at approximately 9:00 PM, a storm rolled into Lawrence, KS. The pastel pink sky was quickly replaced by menacing dark clouds as the wind began to pick up and the sky opened up with its torrential downpour. One eye-witness commented, "At one point, I thought I saw a cow get airborne." Tests later revealed that the eye-witness was heavily intoxicated and under the influence of several drugs. Damages from the storm are expected to be approximately in the 50 to 100 cents range depending on how many cans of pop were blown over by the wind. Casualties are expected to be in the 40 to 60 range depending on how many butterflies were unwillingly tossed into walls or car windshields by the wind. At approximately 9:30 PM, the storm rolled out of Lawrence, KS, leaving the city, once again, relatively quiet and peaceful. On a sidenote, police now have a warrant for the arrest of wind; believed to be responsible for the death of between 40 and 60 butterflies and the needless spilling of much soda pop. The suspect is to be considered armless but still dangerous. If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of this individual, please notify your local authorities.

pot luck

yesterday, andrea and I had a pot luck dinner at my place with some of our friends. the food was pretty good. I made a taco pot pie. other people brought cake, cinammon rolls, brocolli salad, and other wonderous edibles. that's about the most exciting thing that's happened since the last post so I'll go and try to do something more exciting and post-worthy now.

life would be more fun as a musical

well, I just got done doing my daily check up on blogs and while I was reading frivolity's blog she had a link to impromptu musicals. being curious, I clicked on the link and there was this video of this guy just busting out in song in the middle of what I'm assuming is a college library. I think it'd be a fun thing to do sometime so if I bust out in song around you, that video'll be why. I think shannon should make that one of his missions. mission #x: bust out into song for at least 30 seconds. there must be at least two strangers in the area at the time you break out into song and you must include choreography. if you're interested, you can find more videos by the group here

oh happyyyyyy day

I really, really enjoy my adult class that I teach. it is filled with mature adults that enjoy being there. I like talking with them and teaching them. it doesn't feel like they are forced to be there like it does with my other class. we even have people that hang out after class and talk so that's a sign of a good class. we basically worked on the very basic stuff today. the class was filled with mostly brown belts so we worked on stuff that white belts should know except we broke it down and went even deeper (like making sure your wrist isn't bent on a knife hand block). then, after class, I stayed and broke boards (we're working on our board breaking patch now and I thought the best way to get others to work on it was to do it with them. I'm a big believer in not making my students do things I wouldn't do.) I broke my board with a palm strike today so if you see me walking around with an ice pack, it's because I'm working on the patch. now that class is done, I'm gonna watch the Phantom of the Opera (oh happy day!!!!! :B even though I know some of yous don't like it. although it's not as good as moulin rouge either) and have stuffed manicotti for dinner with a glass of mojito. all in all, I nice relaxing night.

scubalicious

well, yesterday was my first scuba class and, obviously, I survived it. kinda fun. swallowed a lot of the pool. choked a couple of times but overall, not too bad. we worked on recovering our regulators, clearing them out, clearing our masks out, equalizing pressure, and things like that. and then all day today, as I was driving to and back from work, I'd notice people with the scuba logo on their license plates. weird, huh? well, I go get ready for tae kwon do now.

update

to recap yesterday. woke up at 8:00 AM, went to the 9:00 AM mass. got home. played God of War for a little bit. Pickle called and we talked on the phone for about two hours (always nice to hear from friends :) ). in case you were wondering, it was snowing in Minnesota at about 1:00 PM yesterday. went grocery shopping. got stuff to make fajitas for dinner tonight (yea! I get to use my pirate apron!). Andrea came over. went out to dinner. came home. watched TV. was asleep by 11:00 PM (we were tired). exciting, huh?

of sound waves, asymptotes, and the reverse butterfly effect

I had always assumed that once something was said, the soundwave travels until it loses energy and eventually fades away but what if it doesn't? what if soundwaves behave more like asymptotes in that they lose energy and are always approaching zero but never quite reach it? what if this eternally decreasing soundwave reaches the other side of the world where it is gentle enough to help a butterly in it's flight? would it then be a reverse butterfly effect? just some questions to ponder.