Lesson for today.

Helmets help.  Whether you are one of those people that refer to the use of a helmet as gay and childish, it is true.  Was at Trollhaugen today with Blizzards and decided that for my very last run I would try a backside 360 of a little natural groove turned kicker by my snowboard brothers.  Everything seemed fine in the air but in the end I came to realize that I had under rotated and ended up catching my edge.

I hit snow hard, really hard.  Worse off, I hit my head hard…really hard.   Helmet was on and it absorbed a majority of the blow, yet it was still hard enough for me to take 3 extra strength advil upon my return to Minneapolis just to get the throbbing to stop.  Don’t really want to think about that it would have been like without my helmet.  They say concussions are at the top of the injury list for snowboarding; I now believe them.

Lesson for today: buy a helmet, and wear it.

more to come…

 

I should probably update; ummm……yeah.

I know I know, don’t yell at your computer monitors because I am already aware of the fact that it has been a looooooooong time since I have posted anything about the random happenings in my life.  I am not really sure why I have not gotten around to posting but needless to say I think I am going to blame it on a urinary track infection; no I didn’t have one, but I am blaming it on that anyways.

So, basically everything is continuing as it usually does.  If you read my last blog you probably are well aware that I was in contemplation of taking a job with the Minnesota Timberwolves.  Updates on that would pretty much dwindle down to…yeah, I am not stupid; I took the job.  So far it has been pretty laxed.  The first day on the job consisted of watching the game from our court-side seats (somewhat false, our actual seats were in the 6th row but I was able to chill down at court-side whenever I pleased so I am just going with that, plus it sounds much more badass).  Afterwards I got to chill in NBA City (it’s a restaurant) and interview some of the cast members of One Tree Hill.  I am not a fan at all, never really watched it to be truthful; but just being able to say that gets you respect in terms of da ladies.

So my job at the moment basically can be summed up in watching the game from kick ass seats, all the while filming what I think would be sweet to make a highlight clip of; then, filming post game interviews with naked 6′ 8″ big people in the T-wolves locker room (that is overexagerated, but it has happened).  After that is all done I will eventually edit the stuff I shot, and make it all nice and pretty for the website.  Also Scott, my “boss”, is going to start giving me some pictures that our in house photographer takes of the games and making wallpapers for people’s computer that has the upcoming home games for each consecutive month; it should be pretty sweet.

Besides all of that, my distraction level from the real world of stress and work has just skyrocketed ever since the 19th of November when I was able to call Marvin my own.  For those of you totally clueless, Marvin is the name of Jason Reed’s new Nintendo Wii, and yes that’s right I just referred to myself in the third person….and I am damn proud of it.  I will admit to the world right now that I was very confident coming into this purchase that it would be awesome, but at the same time I was very skeptical about how long it would hold my interest.  I am proud to announce that after my very first strike in Wii Bowling, this thing kicks major ass and is going to be attached to my hands for quite some time to come.

The saddest part about the whole thing is that I have become addicted to the wrong game.  Most people would assume that Zelda was the first game in my Wii and has not been removed since the day of purchase.  Oddly enough that is a false statement and I am hear to tell you all that bowling on the Wii kicks so much ass that I am pretty sure it is reason enough to buy such a great system.  It has gotten so bad that I will report I have even gotten to the point of bowling so many games trying to increase my pro score that my right shoulder has taken the most beating since the great Baywatch Marathon of 98 (you knew it was coming and if I didn’t say it one of you would have put it in the comments, I just saved your fingers the strain of typing).  Haha, kidding of course; but yeah…the Wii = awesome.

Thanksgiving was sweet, and it is always cool to hang out with my family.  Everyone was really excited to hear about my new job and such so I got to say the same paragraph explaining what I would be doing about 12 different times.  Other than that it was basically your standard Thanksgiving, it is the aftermath that is really fun.

So of course as many of you ATLD readers  probably know, I am an avid Black Friday shopper, and this year was none different.  I planned on sitting outside of the Northtown Bestbuy as usual to grab as many good deals as possible.  I invited my buddy Dave from school who also brought his brother Dan and their friend Eli (I think that is it and if you ever read this and I totally screwed up your name I apologize).  In the end it was the three of us, my brotha from another motha, J Fo, Christy, and Andrew.  We approached our final destination around 1:00am, 4 hours before doors open.

Now on any other normal Black Friday, arriving at this time would place us no more than 30th in line; however, since Satan decided to pay a visit and bring 50 degree weather, a few more people decided to come wait for some of the season’s best deals.  This put us around the damn corner and directly in front of the front doors of Steve and Barrys; ~200th in line.  We thought we were screwed because the item that we were there for the most suggested that they didn’t have very many of them.

We waited with the rest of the crowd, which was doing all kinds of different things to keep themselves busy.  Me and J Fo decided to grab his board and go around to mall entrance 6 to skate whatever type of smooth ground we could find.  Upon doing this I discovered that I really have lost a lot of my ability as a skater; which makes me very sad.  I was once able to land a heelflip no problem, and now I have trouble even getting a full rotation under my feet.  I guess I deserve it for stepping away from it for so long and it only gives me something to work for come next spring and summer.

This part of my story has already gone on for long enough, and I am sure what people remain are thinking about removing such a great blog from their bookmarks page because it is becoming too dull and dragged on.  So to make the rest of it short and sweet, we ended up getting the monitors by cutting in line with the help of our great friend Ashleigh, and i am happy to announce that I am looking at one such monitor in all its sexiness as I type this message that you read now.  w00t!

In closing, I realize that I need to update this thing a bit more often.  I really think my lack of wanting to write in this is due to the fact that I have English II currently.  I have never been the biggest fan of writing for a class, yet I am forced to do it anyway.  So by the time I finish my assignments for school, my writing abilities have been totally drained for any kind of an update on the ATLD blog.

LAN on the 16th of December bitches, I better see you all there!

More to come…

 

I wonder if Timberwolves taste good…

In recent news, today Jason found himself up in the ADs office talking to the Nybster (Dana Nybo). My original intention during the visit was to ensure to Dana that I was going to have my resume done by the end of the day so I could send it off to AAN (American Association of Neurology). Upon saying this he asked if I would be interested in something a bit closer to school and probably more interesting.

From there, Dana introduced to me the opportunity he had just come across from Scott, a student who graduated from IMD last quarter. Not long afterwards Scott found himself sitting in a manager’s chair at the Timberwolves administration office, with a suiting title of Interactive Relations Manager. Not only that but after some short discussion about how there was too much work for one person to handle, he also got appointed the task of finding an intern to help out. Cue me…

It wasn’t long after I was made aware of this that I found myself sitting in the Timberwolves conference room shaking hands with Scott and his partner in crime Mike. I found out that I would be doing a lot of the web video content and my tasks would include filming during the games, doing some post work on the clips and then uploading them to the website ASAP.

So with that go the perks of working for such an organization. I would be on the floor for every single home game with access to both practices and post game in the locker room running camera for interviews. On top of that I get 2 season tickets to hand out to family or friends since I don’t need them as I get in free. w00t w00t!

Yet there are cons that come with this as well. I don’t really have a solid schedule that I can stick to, because I would work at every home game and whenever they really call me up. Secondly this is not at the moment a paying position, which would kind of screw me over seeing as how money is important if you want to live. Yet at the same time a reference like that on a graduate resume would own everyones face that happened to gaze upon it, this much is certain. I would also be forced to quit my job at church, which kind of sucks because that was my only source of income at present; and hanging out with Chance is always a blast, regardless of how dorky we are.

So at the end of the interview I was made aware that the position is totally mine if I would like it, so now comes the weighing game and trying to come up with the best answer. My gut tells me that I should definitely go with it, so I am pretty sure I will; just need to find a new source of income.

Home opener is in 6 days, I better get moving.

More to come…

 

So much to say, with little time to say it.

Don’t have much time for this blog entry as it is Sunday night and in just a short few minutes I will be traveling down to Minneapolis to help Erin and Joe re-film their movie on account that the first time all of the footage was too dark to use. I will try to make the best of my time…

So school this week has gone well I think. I still have to do some PHP tonight that I am somewhat totally clueless on but I got some examples from my main man Jerry Kramer and that should help my attempts in the highest degree. I finished off my Authoring assignment and everyone seemed to enjoy it, especially when I edited the frame rate and bumped it up to 30 from 12 to make my animations appear even smoother. English I have to say I am feeling mighty proud because of the latest paper that we are writing. Peer critiques were Thursday and unfortunately it wasn’t much of a critique because no one could find anything wrong with my paper. I am not putting myself on a pedestal here, but I will flat out tell you that I knew it was good…I just didn’t think it was that good. I decided to go to my sisters, the teachers of the family (they say there is at least one in each) and they too couldn’t find anything wrong with its structure or grammatical clarity of my writing; so I guess that means I struck a portion of writers’ luck and it should pay off.

Hung out with friends this weekend, some events better than others; yet it was all cool. I don’t have time to get into many details but I guess that just gives me something to write about for tomorrow. I also realized that for a college student, $75 dollars a week for house sitting is way too little; yet I have already agreed and been paid so it looks like that will not be changed. Sucky.

I got to go, more to come…

 

So Cold I Froze my “Wii”-ener off.

A gloriously expensive weekend this has been.  To start off, Friday morning I arose to the scream of my alarm clock and got my tired ass out of bed and dressed to go sit out side the Lino Lakes Gamestop for my Nintento Wii preorder.  I arrived to find my place in line 4th from the front; a place which garunteed I would be able to put some money down on that little white box.  The time leading up to that consisted of driving while listening to some Motion City and eating a hot and tasty Sausage McMuffin from Mcdonalds.

Funny events are awesome, and I experienced one while in line to pick up my food.  Fiddiling with my iPod, I wasn’t witness to the actual event itself; but rather to the aftermath which was just as funny.  A loud tudd followed by a grinding noise drew my attention away from my musical device and I looked up just in time to see the front left tire of a Ford F-150 roll and hop down the street parallel to the drive-through line.  This thing was truckin’ (no pun intended) and came to a rest only after traveling a good 200 yards up the street and nearly colliding with 2 other vehicles.

“HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!” I thought as I saw the guy get out of his truck, smack the hood of his car, and say words that you probably would never want to here your grandmother say.  The best part of the whole experience was the fact that he had a Percision Tune Auto Care uniform on….I don’t think I will be going to them for my next tire rotation; that much is certain.

Aside from that the wait for my Wii wasn’t too eventful.  The woman that was first in line had been waiting there since 6:00 in the damn morning, and she was only picking it up for her kid.  That my friends, is dedication.  If I asked my mother to go stand in 40 degree weather for 4 hours to make sure I got a video game, she would probably smack me in the head for being so stupid, then laugh at the result.

I traded in 3 games along with my pre-order of a Wii, extra controller, and Zelda: Twilight Princess.  I was disgusted to find out that I got a grand total of $6.50 for all three of them; not including the 10 dollar credit which you receive when you trade in three games at a time.  I was cool with it though since they probably had more use to me as coasters then they did as interactive entertainment.  I got Jordan as my Wii pimp of the day and after some chit chat and a swipe of the VISA, I walked out of there with a receipt and high hopes that a white controller would be in my hands in as little time as 36 days.

The next large spending sequence of the weekend came around 4:30 as I pulled up to a piece of shit Honda Accord in the Super America parking lot off of Brooklyn Blvd.  I felt like a drug deal was going on, or better yet some type of illegal firearm purchases.  This dude was straight up wanna be gangsta and I could tell it from the start.  He opened up the back of his car and revealed to me, “The Goods.” <– Actual Quote.

The back of his car consisted of… a spare tire, a case of the shittiest “ammunition” (another actual quote) you could buy for a paintball gun, a JT X-Fire mask that he explained to be the best you could buy for the sport, enough trash to fill a small dumpster and 3 snowboards stacked on top of each other; one of which being his friends.

He exclaimed that these were his babies and he was saddened that he had to let them go, yet he had to save up enough money to trade in the piece of shit ride he already owned for one similar in shitiness value.  As he pulled these things out I knew he didn’t give a shit about the art of snowboarding or the boards for that matter.  Asking me what I thought in the common gangsta language of his hood and I couldn’t help but laugh when I suggested that they looked like absolute shit.

Bargaining went down for awhile as I examined the boards for all the things I could call him out on and lower the overall cost of my purchase.  He originally wanted $150 firm for the boards and bindings each, yet after he realized that I knew a thing or two about the quality of snowboard equipment he opened up his “reasonable price” field.  In the end I walked out with two Cruzers, a set of Cartels, Freestyles, and Eponics, and a Michi Albin for $200 bucks; all Burton Equipment.

All three sets of binds are in great condition with the exception of the Cartels which are missing the back hieght adjustment rachets; not a big deal at all since most people don’t bother with them to begin with.  The Albin (158) was unfortunately completely unridable, and the Cruzers (151 and 155) were in some bad shape; yet with the help of some epoxy, all has been made well.

The last series of spending came in the form of the Rochester Ski Swap.  The swap itself was as it suggests, mostly ski equipment; yet there was a small section of paradise set aside for all of the snowboarding brothas out there.  Here I found a Flex 157 Head that had my name written all over it; perfect for park riding.  In similar respect to park riding I also found myself a perfectly sized insulated helmet in like new condition; all I had to do was remove the marker placed in the back that suggested “This Helmet Belongs to Adam G.”.  Good deal.  Next was a new set of Scott goggles that I needed badly.  Goggles for the most part were brought in by one of the local shops from the area which meant they were all brand new at a used price.  I scored some nice looking smoke pair and yet again was on my merry way.

Since Jordan’s board was deemed unridable and best suited as some type of bench; my eye turned towards a semi stiff board that met his hieght and size characteristics. Coming across a new Avalanche, I immediately grew interest and it wasn’t soon afterwards that I was calling Jordan to confirm that it was in fact the board he wanted me to buy.  Score.

The mall followed in similar fashion soon after we departed the swap and it was hear that I came across a Jacket on sale for $80, originally $160 and my new Element hat.  Lunch was cool and I came to realize that Sabarro has really good food that fills you up fast.

So in the end, in the period of two days, I have come into ownership of my Wii pre-order, 5 different boards, and 5 different bindings.  A good weekend for snowboarding; yet a bad weekend for Jason’s check book.

More to come…

 

Oh yeah, and by the way…

Get the new Evanescence album The Open Door. I know some of you can’t stand the thought of hearing Amy Lee’s voice, but for those of you that can, this is their best album yet. Just do me a favor and listen to “The Only One” first.  Hell listen to it now just so you can see how awesome it is. This is probably illegal but I don’t care because it will be on the radio soon enough. Think of it as a form of advertising…

Listen to it here.

 

Payday

Well kind of, here is the low down. So I was at work tonight and it was the typical Wednesday madness. However there was some good things about tonight. First and foremost, I got paid for doing the computer fixes for a family I know. What I wasn’t expecting however was for the payoff to be as large as it was. Granted I told Jim (the dad) that Geek Squad would charge about $170 dollars for what I was doing, so in my mind I thought, “Okay, so maybe since he said he will work off that number I will get $100 bucks max.” When I opened up the envelope and saw an amount of $175.00 written out to my name I was a bit taken back. Yet I knew not to argue since as he handed it to me he suggested I earned it.

Secondly, I realized that Erika, our youth director still had a skate deck in her office that honestly had a lair of dust on it. After she insisted that she wasn’t hanging on to it for sentimental value, I asked if I could take it off her hands and she was more than willing to comply. I was considering getting a board again and getting back into it since I now have buddies to skate with (looking in the direction of J Fo and Kyle) so this was just icing on the cake; only wish it would have happened early than October when I will soon be forced to pay for sessions at our local indoor park. But yes, Kyle I know you will read this so be ready for a boarding buddy (sounds gay but eh, what you gonna do).

Those were the two big things as far as money is concerned tonight. I am still trying madly to get my $250 dollars from Splat for the work they have yet to pay me for. If any of you have realistic suggestions I would be more than happy to hear them, cause I really want my damn money, and seeing that it has been over 6 months and 7 emails I am starting to get a bit frustrated. I also have a $74 dollar check in my back pocket that I have been too lazy to cash along with $150 dollars more in rebates that are somewhere out there in the world of mail. Along with that I got some buddies that owe me da greenz and starting October 14th thru the 29th I will be house sitting for a woman at my church for $75 dollars a week.

So in total, the month of October will be a good month of green, which is exactly what I need it to be since the holiday season is coming up and so is my Wii, and even again so is the snowboarding season. Along with work, I should be looking at…..carry the 1…..$1150 dollars. w00t, friggin’, w00t w00t!

In other news, my resume is complete and I will be turning it over to both Target Corporation and AAN tomorrow (don’t ask me what it stands for cause I don’t know yet, all I know is they have a paying internship for a web developer, which I need). Along the same lines of professionalism, I have really started to force myself to become organized. I have spent the past 2 days getting comfortable with Google Reader and Google Calendar, both free programs from Google that I strongly suggests checking out, cause they both rock. Hopefully I will be able to keep these shenanigans up because I think it could be to my advantage.

Well according to my calendar, I have an online quiz due tomorrow at 9:00am and some concept designs that are due at 3 so I better say my farewells and get to work.

More to come…

 

Words per minute.

Filling out my resume, I figured it would be good to put on there how many words per minute I type; since this new job at Target will be a “secretary” type of work flow before it opens up into bigger better things. I started to search online and found a couple of different places that could give my fingers a workout; only to find that I type faster then what I originally thought, an average of 62 words per minute.

As far as the resume is concerned, I am finding myself at a lose of words. Reading all these different articles about what makes a good resume is long and tiresome. Did you know that a resume should be exactly 1 page, single sided in length with inch margins on all sides?….well I do; and now my dear ATLD readers…so do you. I am trying to be as realistic as possible regarding this whole thing, because I would hate to have some amazing internship and possible postgraduate jobs fall short because I decided to list “PHP” as a fluent language only for them to give me a job concerning it which I completely fuck up. So far the run down consists of my graduate status in high school, current post secondary education progress and cumulative GPA. Program fluency’s in the following: Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, and the Microsoft Office Suite. Programing language fluency’s in HTML and CSS. My freelance work for Christ Lutheran Church and XTS inc., along with any other experience that could only help my case.

Hopefully I can get this job, because that would be tha mad notes putting in over $200 dollars a week, twice the amount I am currently making. In truth, I could care less about the pay increase, its the oppurtunities that this opens up that I am the most excited about.

I should get back to work and also get to sleep early; have to make sure I don’t pull anymore of what happened today and wake up 20 minutes after my first class starts.

More to come…

Side note: My internet is being really weird and slow and it is beginning to piss me off.

 

Baseball is so fucking cool.

Today was the last day of regular season play for many baseball enthusiasts such as myself, which means only one thing; October and the playoffs are upon us. Twins ended their series with the ever so hated White Sox. Starting the game off in the same fashion that the previous two games in this series started, the Sox soon took an early lead of 1-0. This however was the only run they would score the entire night as Mauer came into home off of a Monreau double, which also tied him for the most runs batted in by a native Canadian ever. From there it was history as Hunter smashed a two run homer into the stand, upping his RBIs to 98. The game ended with a sell out crowd and a Twins 5-1 victory.

This however wasn’t the best part of the day as far as baseball was concerned for us Minnesota fans. There was an equal amount of cheer from the plays being made on the astro-turf of the Metrodome as there was from the scoreboard showing game updates from around the country. Our main concern today was to have Detriot lose to the Royals (something that shouldn’t happen) and have a victory over the Sox to up us into first place by a game. This would mean that we wouldn’t have to face the Yankees in the first round of the playoffs, and that we get home field advantage for the first to series of play.

Things weren’t looking very good as Detroit came and took a lead early on, but it all changed in the 8th as Kansas City came in and scored in not only the tying run, but went one further to put them into the lead. This was soon responded by a Detroit solo homerun to tie the game at 8 a piece. From there regular play subsided and extra innings began. All hope appeared to be lost in the 10th when Detroit filled up the bases with only 1 out at their heels. However, the Royals weren’t having any of that as their extra innings relief caught the second out batter looking and the inning ending out batter swinging….an 11th inning would be among us.

Back at the Metrodome, you wouldn’t have even imagined that the Twins game was over as 40,000 fans stayed in their seats and watched the progress on the Detroit game over the jumbo screen. Never in my life would I have thought to hear so many people chant “Lets go Royals” to a team that was 400 miles away. This was what baseball was all about. Even the Twins players came back to the field to cheer with the fans that were now making the noise at a Vikings game look like a mere whisper. Early in the 11th, Royals drove two runs in; giving them the lead and applying the pressure onto the Detroit lineup as they watched the impossible happen.

In a matter of 1 walk, a base hit, and 3 outs later; the Twins had once again reason to break out the beer and champagne as they watched themselves become the AL Central Division Champions.

GG, Twins, GG.

Expect some post season parties at my crib throughout the month of October, right up to the Twins series game that will crown them the best in baseball.

More to come…

 

3:30am

It is currently the time suggested in the title of this post, and I am up still waiting for files to copy over so I can finally go to sleep.  These files are the backup files that I was asked to take off the Gregorich computer before reformating the drive into NTFS so it was running in the XP native file format as opposed to FAT32 which was abandoned with the passing of the Windows Millineum OS.

I suddenly get the feeling that something I have done or didn’t do isn’t up to par with that it should be.  It just seems like this repair job has gone unfinished and I will return it only for them to call me back up and be like, “wtf?”.  So right now I am trying my best to figure out what seems to be lacking in terms of a job well done.  Base programs have been installed, such as Ad-aware, iTunes 6.0.5 (because I have come the realization that iTunes 7.0.1 sucks total balls in reference to the amount of memory and processing power it takes to run), Acrobat Reader 7, VLC Media Player, Firefox, winRAR, and other similar programs that every good PC should have to operate efficently.  All major Windows updates are loaded and Service Pack 2 is kicking ass and taking names.

The only thing I haven’t really been able to do is resync all of the itunes music for each user’s individual player.  Mainly because lots of the songs were downloaded from Limewire which is where the base of the computer’sproblems started from (honestly people, don’t use Limewire…be smart, torrent your files).  Also because I have never dealt with a recovery job with so many different user accounts.  I am so use to doing computers with one account, so all the music files end up in one “My Music” folder; now I have music spread across 5 folders that all are suppose to connect to one iTunes account…it doesn’t work.

Ok my files are done copying, so I should get back to work.  Tonight was fun, Olive Garden, friends, and kickass movies with even more kickass bass for my entertainment system to work with.  I wasn’t able to make it to Tony’s party, hopefully it rocked; but I get the sense that I wouldn’t have had much fun since I would have been the only one there not drinking.  Church calls early in the morning for working the sound table, and working with echo levels would probably be rather difficult hung over.

More to come.