In an attempt to save what was really in the whole of the universe and life a measly amount of money, I recently bypassed the wonderful and tasty boxes of cereal for the bag cereal. Yeah, you know, the bag cereal.

I thought, “Hey, here’s this giant 2 lb bag of cereal, for this low, low price. That should get me through quite a few days. More than that micro box of Life for $4.99, for sure. So what if it has a giant circus elephant on the front? Once I get past utter embarrassment at the checkout line, I’ll be fine. I can have yummy cereal all the time now thanks to this giant bag!”

Ha, yeah, all except for the yummy part. My mom brought me up better than this.

I bought the circus elephant equivalent of Cheerios. I could have gone with “Magic Shapes” or “Fruit Whirls,” but I thought “nah, I’ll stay healthy with ‘Toasted Oats.’” Oh my God they were the grossest thing ever. You know how Cheerios are like actual, rounded donuts of toasted whole grain oatey goodness? Well, someone let the air out of “Toasted Oats” and forgot to add the goodness. Instead I get fried, soggy wetness, and flat withered discs of sort-of oatey material.

Never, ever again. Cereal is expensive, but so is health care. I’m so sorry body, for putting you through 2 lbs of that stuff. I’ve bought some real Cheerios and some real Lucky Charms so that we can be friends again. Let’s go grab our new friend Mr. 2% Milk and chill together.

* munch-munch-munch *

Mmmmm, talking bees and leprechauns FTW

Between applying for six friggin’ jobs today, I made some major improvements in how I use my MacBook Air. This included adding some programs and doing this and that here and there:

• I used to swear by NetVibes for reading feeds from my favorite websites. I still think it’s pretty nice, but I’ve officially made the switch to Google Reader. The thing is, I’m not really sure why. Maybe it loads faster? Maybe I didn’t need my web stories all grouped neatly by website, but rather like them in one big list. Maybe I didn’t think Google owned enough of my life. I’m sorry, I can’t tell you. But I like it, and I’m sticking to it. So I’ve been using that website for a while, but today I downloaded NetNewsWire, a desktop application for reading news feeds that now syncs with Google Reader. So it’s much prettier than the GR website, and is probably faster. I’m giving it a try.
• I dropped the standard Google Gmail Notifier, which did not support multiple accounts, and replaced it with Gmail Notifr which does support multiple accounts and checks those accounts more often.
• Lacking a Microsoft Office installation, I downloaded the trial for Office 2008. I have 30 days to come up with $1000 or whatever it is to pay for it now.
• Downloaded an excellent application called Burn which is free and does much of what the $100 Roxio Toast does (which is burn DVDs.) Love it.
• I’ve officially switched from Adobe Dreamweaver to Panic’s Coda for web development. Gee, I’ll actually use most of the stuff in Coda!
• It was a couple of weeks ago, but I used GarageSale to post an item to eBay. It was a very nice experience. I’m not sure if it’s worth $35, but if I did more eBaying it might be.
• Paparazzi is a very cool little app that I’ll be using to take screenshots of websites.

I guess that’s about it, but it was a fair amount of researching and downloading and testing different versions of each application to see which I liked best.  Ok, I’m tired of staring at this computer now so I’m going to go fiddle around in the garage like I know what I’m doing.

As some may know the Detroit Pistons are barely recognizable from the team that won the NBA Championship in 2004, almost repeated in 2005, and continued on to an impressive streak of six Conference Finals appearances. The loss of Ben Wallace to free agency and the Chicago Bulls in 2006 and the trade of Chauncey Billups to Denver for Allen Iverson in 2008 (which I approve of, by the way, more later) removed the heart and soul of what was considered the best starting five in the NBA. They were also considered one of the true teams in the league, one that did not rely on any one superstar to get them through to the next level.

In 2009, another member of that starting lineup has been lost to free agency in Rasheed Wallace. Wallace, perhaps the catalyst for the Pistons’ 2004 title run, signed on with the Boston Celtics to likely back up Kevin Garnett off the bench. Antonio McDyess, one of the hardest working players for the Pistons since 2004-05, has left to sign with the San Antonio Spurs. The only two remaining members of the 2003-04 team are Tayshaun Prince and Richard Hamilton.

The trade of Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson put the 2008-09 season in the trash for the Pistons. Billups was more than just a good player and point guard, he was a leader and a veteran who took care of the ball, ran the offense and kept his players in check. After reading about him, he sounds more like a player/coach than just a player, and his influence was not lost on the Denver Nuggets who stormed to 2nd place in the competitive Western Conference and faced the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals (they had previously not made it out of the first round with their current “superstar,” Carmelo Anthony.)

While everyone blames the loss of the 2008-09 season — 39-43 record, their first sub-50-win season since 2000-01, barely making the Playoffs and getting swept in the first round after 6 consecutive conference finals appearances — on the loss of Billups, I believe it was a necessary move. Ever since their back-to-back NBA Finals appearances, the Pistons could not get over the hump of the Eastern Conference Finals. They lost to Miami, Cleveland and Boston after posting impressive regular season records and storming through the first two rounds of the Playoffs. The team was becoming stale, and perhaps the players heads were getting a little too big as well. They could not agree to work with coach Flip Saunders, and you could tell he did not command their respect. An experiment that was successful early on had run its course.

So something needed to be done, and to make any sort of change the team needed money. Trading for Iverson’s expiring contract gave them that needed cash, and in theory would give them a superstar for 2008-09 to keep the success going. While Iverson turned out to be a bad fit for the Pistons, he’s off the books now and team President Joe Dumars has gone shopping.

He brought home free agents Ben Gordon from Chicago and Charlie Villanueva from Milwaukee. He also drafted small forward Austin Daye, who may be ready to back up Tayshaun Prince already. First year coach Michael Curry was fired and replaced with, oh, first year coach John Kuester, an assistant coach from Cleveland (who previously was with the Pistons under Larry Brown during 2003-05.)

The problem here is that the only big man on the team is Kwame Brown at 6′ 11″. Villanueva at 6′ 10″ will be undersized at power forward, and Brown is unreliable. It has been reported that Dumars is seeking to sign either Drew Gooden from San Antonio or Glen “Big Baby” Davis from Boston. Either of these guys is a bad move, in my opinion. Gooden is an idiot and “Big Baby” is a lumbering workhorse but there’s something not right about him. There are rumors that a recently released Ben Wallace could sign back with the Pistons, but those are just rumors at this point, and after a few years of injuries he would merely be a back up.

It’s becoming (especially if Gooden or Davis signs) a team that I’m just not that interested in seeing anymore. Billups and Wallace (and Wallace) were some of my favorite players to watch because of their abilities and attitudes. I found myself watching as many Denver games last season as Pistons games, if not more (definitely more in the Playoffs!) I’m not a fan of Boston but will watch more of them because of Rasheed. I like the Spurs especially now that Antonio McDyess and Richard Jefferson have signed there (I’ve always liked Tim Duncan.)

Of course I’ll continue to watch, support and follow the Pistons, but their identity as a team is becoming foggy. I hope they can get back on the path of success or at least continue the tradition of hard work and playing the right way as a team like they have before.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve written anything on here, so I thought I would catch you all up to how things are going.

Usually I like to keep things light on this website; by posting things like funny links or funny stories or what-not. But like most humans, I have serious thoughts too, and those serious thoughts are actually what fill my head most of the time (whoodathunkit?)

It’s been almost a year since breaking up with my ex-girlfriend of 3+ years (1 year on the 20th of this month, with the date remembered so vividly because it was the Sunday after the Dark Knight premiere.) After a year I am still confident that it was the right decision, and after seeing how well she has moved on too, that is reinforced. We remain friends and still communicate from time to time via email. She could have very well hated me forever after the few months she went through after the break-up, so I am glad we are able to look back on and appreciate the time we spent together and to grow from it.

Over the last year I have not dated anyone else, but that’s not for a lack of trying. I tried the match.com, I tried the eharmony (well, ok, just the free communication weekend. Not long enough to really try it out,) I attempted communication with a few of my classmates over my last two semesters of school. I made some good friends, which is awesome, but no romantic interludes. Which is really fine, I’m not really in the need to date constantly. But I am looking, despite what I tell people and myself.

A friend from my hometown moved near to where I live now and we started hanging out mostly through our shared love of volleyball. We even very briefly considered more than that but quickly realized it was not for us.

I do have two interests at the moment, but both are out of reach. One I’ve never really hung out with, and the other is practically in another world. But they’re both beautiful people and I hope to at least get to know them more in the future if anything.

I guess one of my problems is that I fall for good people. And good people usually start out as friends. I meet good people in good situations, through good friends, or something similar. And I feel I am at a disadvantage when meeting new people or interacting with people that I like because most of my girlfriends had to know me for a while (at least a few months) before realizing “hey, this guy’s alright!” Which, again, is fine. I’m not out looking for a physical relationship at all, I’m not looking for marriage and a family right away. I’m not really sure what I’m looking for, I guess. And since I believe that things happen for a reason, I’m sure there’s a very good reason why I have not found (or at least am not with) the girl of my dreams.

Speaking of which, I was thinking the other day about how people get together, fall in love and get married. Do people about to get married consider that they just happened to be in the same place at the same time, on a world with 6 billion people? How do two people in Smalltown, USA meet and fall in love? Isn’t it more likely that their true match is somewhere else? I understand that it’s impossible to meet every person in the world, and that finding someone you can live with and enjoy is the point, and that you won’t find someone perfect. I completely understand, accept and embrace that. But it makes it hard for me to know where to be, what to look for, what feelings to trust and who to follow.

For example, ok, so I know this person that I am smitten by, and I mean whenever they walk in the room I get nervous and totally aware of how I am acting and what impression I’m making (this actually applies to each of my 2 interests, but ok.) And I am friends with this person and have a good relationship with them. They are a good person and someone that I could see myself being with and having a great time with. We met pretty much by chance, either in a class together or via mutual friends. It would be great to be friends with this person for the rest of my life, and to do so would make me a successful man. However, if I am interested and attracted to them, do I pass up this chance at being with a good person? I’m not saying I fall in love with all of my good, female friends. Not at all. I have many attractive, well-rounded female friends that are good people (and both are and aren’t married!) that I have no interest in at all in a romantic way (especially the married ones!) But these few that I am referring to here, do I take the chance, roll the dice and see if maybe there’s a spark? Or do I play it safe, allow the chips to fall where they fall, and let fate take control? I’m aggressive by nature in that respect, so it’s hard for me to just let things happen as they will. I feel like I need to take the reigns and work toward my fate. What do you think?

Aside from all of that drama, I am currently job searching after being graduated from college for going on 3 months. Getting by on freelance web projects was fun for a while, until I realized I was just paying bills, I wasn’t progressing my life at all. To do that I need to get out of where I am at. I am thinking that Chicago might be where I end up. There’s a handful of things that are calling me over in that direction. I’m not really a big city person, and I’m not sure how I would take to living there, but I think it is an experience that would benefit me. But it all depends on finding a job. I’ll update if/when that happens.

I’m not really sure what the future holds, and who knows where I will be a year from now. That’s ok, since a year prior to this I knew pretty much exactly what I would be doing: going to school. I am so glad to have that out of the way and to be able to move on. I am so fortunate to have the choice and the freedom to do so many different things with my life right now. I’m healthy (for the most part, though I’m wondering if I have Mono…), I’m skilled, I’m educated, I have great friends and family that support me, and I have luxuries that allow me to live comfortably. I don’t count my blessings as often as I should, and I probably complain too often for what I do have in life, but I do realize what I have and am tremendously thankful for it.

As usual, this post is like one of those Family Circus comics where the boy follows the path all over, zig-zagging from one place to the other. I guess that’s how my brain works, or at least how it’s working right now. Thanks for reading.

I attempted to cancel my cable a couple of days ago. With summer and better weather around, I can get rid of some of the indoor luxuries and save some money.

Well, the cable company wasn’t having any of that. I initially wanted to just reduce my service down to limited basic cable (the 10-15 basic network channels.) Well, after throwing a handful of bundling offers (tv, internet and phone) at me, and lowering the price of extended basic 3 times they finally lowered it enough to where I said ok, that’s good enough. Though, after taxes I was only saving $10 and I still had the same service!

I called back the next day and told them I just wanted limited basic. They threw their offers at me again, but I refused each one. When told that limited basic was $19.95 I told them I would rather just cancel the service. So they canceled it.

I went a day with getting only NBC through the antenna when the cable company calls me again. He says it’s “to verify that I am going to cancel my service,” but then launches into the deals. I refuse 3 of them, and he hits me with one more: Limited basic cable for $9.95/month for 12 months. You just can’t go wrong there. And it’s probably good to have some sort of reliable TV for weather and such, right?

Oh those cable companies, they know how to get a guy!

For my last full day in Boulder, CO my cousin Bart and I headed out to his mountain cabin to spend the day there. The weather began cloudy and rainy, and it even hailed on us as we stopped for lunch at a Mexican joint on the way up. Later I learned that this system of hail was the same that produced tornados about 10 miles away from Boulder! Yikes.

At the cabin Bart did a little a bit of landscaping and I helped him gather some rocks from the hill to make some walking paths and borders around the cabin. This made both of our backs hurt so we didn’t do this for long.

Read the rest of this entry »

Saturday I went with my cousin Bart to a Habitat for Humanity build that he was looking at working on. I thought it was a great idea and a very good way to spend a day.

The house was a two-story house built on lot in a trailer park, which was kind of strange. Nontheless we went to work. I began by helping finish the drywall on the stairway, then went on to help get a bolt loose from the corner of the house that needed repairing. After sawzalling a hole in the side of the house for the dryer vent, it was lunchtime. Chick-fil-a provided some pretty tasty sandwiches. After lunch I helped finish the roof on the shed in the back yard, and finished up the day by siding the back of it.

On the job for Habitat for Humanity

After the build Bart and I returned home and headed to the pool and hot tub in his condo area. It was very hot and sunny in Boulder so it felt great to take a dip.

Later we visited the mega church that Bart attends, and viewed a nice service. A dinner of fajitas later and it was a day.

Sunday, another mountain hike!

Friday was kind of a hang out and explore sort of day again. I rode the ol’ bike into town and did some shopping and eating for a few hours. I also rode through the University of Colorado campus which is very nice with many brick buildings. Though it was very hilly and not too bike friendly (at least for a flatlander.)

Colorado University at Boulder

Later on Bart and I made up some tacos for dinner, then ventures into town to check out the bar scene a little bit.

We first stopped at some Texas-style bar where the waitresses all wore bandanas for shirts. Yes, that’s it, just a bandana tied in back. It was quite distracting, I must say. We watched some people fall off the mehanical bull and then took off. Next we cheked out a band at an Irish bar and caught a rendition of “No Quarter,” a great Led Zeppelin song by a very not great band. They definitely thought they were better than they were.

This convinced us we were tired and also tired of the bar scene, so we went home. A couple bites of some Ben & Jerry’s later, and it was bedtime.

Tomorrow we’re volunteering for Habitat for Humanity! Very cool.

The second half of Thursday consisted of a continued bike ride around the city of Boulder. I saw much of downtown, and rode for a while along the river bike path, which was very cool as the river was fast with some rapids and there were lots if good sights of the mountains right there at the foothills.

The bike path into town

The river next to the bike route

After getting sprinkled on a little on the way home, I hit my cousin’s condo pool and hot tub for a bit. I loves me some swimming so that was very refreshing. Later I took a walk around the block until my cousin got home.

My cousin has an old cabin up in the mountains that he has refurbished so we decided to grab a pizza and head up there to check it out. It’s absolutely beautiful up there, with the winding roads and rolling hills and trees forever. However, Bart (my cousin) proceeded to tell me horror stories about mountain lion attacks which made our upcoming hikethrough the forest all that much more exciting.

After taking a quick tour of the cabin, we headed up into the woods. Bart wanted to ty and clear amy deadfall from a trail he usually mountain bikes on. We headed right into the belly of the beast, straight up he mountain over treacherous terrain and loose footholds until we came upon and old aquaduct that is pretty level and makes for a nice path. Armed with only some snips and a hand saw, we were watching the tops of trees and any rock platforms for the lions to pounce. There were quite a few opportunities for some great photos which I will share later (typing this from my iPhone due to limited web connectivity here.) we eventually made it back, lucky or unlucky enough to see any bears or mountain lions, depending on perspective. It was great hike and really the only one I’ve ever taken.

In the gorge

Some of the small mountains and hills around the cabin area

We were quite tired from the day so we came back to the condo to shut it down. Friday consists of another bike ride into town, and more exploring!

Began the day by sleeping in until 10, except in CO time that was 8am! It was pretty chilly out at about 54 degrees, so I killed some time by watching “Airport,” an old Dean Martin movie.

After cleaning up, I borrowed my cousins bike and trekked a few miles (5 maybe?) in to downtown Boulder. There’s a no-cars-allowed street mall there and I have been shopping. I found a bandana at the army surplus to cover my badly sunburned head.

Downtown Boulder - Pearl St.

Right now I am eating an Italian Stallion from Lindsay’s Boulder Deli. Fun times so far!

PS – the mountains are awesome looking