My new inspirational line.

I am sure you are all familiar with those inspirational photos/wall decor things. The ones with a picture of a light house, or an eagle with some word underneath like attitude, freedom or forgiveness followed some inspirational quote. In that same tradition I am coming up with my own line of inspirational decor. Here is my first, what do you think. (The picture is from Angel.)

Just Desserts.

Last night I was driving home from work. It was almost 11pm so it was dark and late so there weren't very many other cars out. I'm driving along obeying the speed limit (honestly) when this car speeds up behind me with his high beams on, blinding and annoying me. He's behind me for about 3 minutes when we get to a part when there is a second lane in our direction, he speeds on by me like I was standing still. I remember thinking that if there are any cops out there he's going to get pulled over and hoping that he would. (There are often cops on that road at night.)

About a mile or so down the road I see the distinct flash of police lights and knew may wish had come true. Sure enough he had been pulled over. I just smiled and waved as I drove past. Sometimes its the simple things in life that can bring a little ray of sunshine into your otherwise dreary day.

One reason why I hate shopping, or life in the No Go lane.

My boss gave me a gift card for Red Lobster for Christmas. Since this was one of the few days off I had in a while we decided to use it. Lunch was great, I got Salmon (yum), and since we where in the big shopping area I asked my wife if their was any place we wanted to go which took us to her favorite store, Target.
We shopped around for a while, or really looked around as we have no money to be buying much, Which my wife never let me forget as she would complain how we did not have enough money to buy everything she wanted, which was about everything there. We did decide to buy a little candy for us to snack on later. We proceeded to the check out which had only two lanes open, I picked the one that seemed the shortest and quickest. This gets me to the part I hate, I always manage to pick the wrong one.
First their is the elder lady who takes ten minutes to write out a check. Then there is the lady with three kids, each kid got money for Christmas. That means that the one person was really four, three of them children, all paying in cash and I believe one of them had a couple of dollars in change that had to be counted out. When they finally finished it was our turn. With our few bags of candy and my handy debt card it took all of one minute for us to check out and pay.
I think stores should add a new lane, one designed for the chronically slow, overly large or multiple order, people . Right next to the express line, they can call the it the No Go lane, with the instructions of 10 minutes or more.

2009, a very big year.

Its a new year, like you didn't already know, and whenever a new year comes around people all over reevaluate there lives and make resolutions in an effort to somehow improve upon who they are (Weight loss being the most common). While I can appreciate the attempt people make to improve, most fail. If you'd like I can tell you why, but that is another blog another time. Any way I usually pass on the whole New Year's resolution thing. I usually say it's because I'm already perfect and therefore have no need to make any resolutions, but in reality it's because I prefer to do something else.

First habits don't change, form or go away overnight. They require hard work, discipline and time, you can't just decided that you want to be one way then wake up the next morning and TA-DA it's happened. I just try to be better than I was the day before. So for New Year I prefer to do something a little different. I set a goal or two, something I want to accomplish or get done by years end. No, diets or exercise, no "spend more time with my family" or anything like that. I like specific and concrete goals that are easy to mesh out, measure and work toward.

This year its rather easy, I want to graduate from college. But secondly and probably more importantly I don't to working at Fazoli's anymore (with one exception). That means that I want to working some other job or be attending grad school. (If I am attending Radford or Tech, I might consider working part time still at Fazoli's). With the exception of my Marriage back in '07 this could possibly turn out to be the most important year of my life. A lot could happen that determines my future and how my life turns out graduating from college, and either going to Grad school or finding a real job. Much is certainly hanging on what happens during 2009.

10 places to visit before I die.

I am getting ready to take a little road trip up to Maryland to visit some family up there which got me thinking, what are the top ten places I'd like to visit in my lifetime. These are in no particular order has it is hard for me to choose between some of them. This list also includes special events I would love to be able to attend someday.

1) Teotihuacan, Mexico. Capital and cultural center for the Aztec nation. Climb the Temple of the Sun, visit the sites, speak some Spanish.
2) Machu Picchu, Peru. Climb the Andes, visit this ancient vacationing sit of the Incas/
3) San Diego Comic Con. A.K.A. Nerd Mecca, nerdvana..... The celebrities, the costumes, the advanced screenings, the sneak peaks, the comic books.
4) New Zealand. Filming location for LOTR, Hercules and Xena. Home of Peter Jackson.
5) Japan. Visit Tokyo, see Mt. Fuji, tour feudal Japanese sights, buy a sword. Hello Kitty for Tracy and some cheap anime for me.
6) Egypt. Sail the Nile, see pyramids and the valley of the kings, raise a mummy from the dead start an apocalypse.
7) African Safari, Lions and Tigers and Elephants oh my!
8) The Holy Land. Walk where Christ walked, visit the garden and the hill Golgotha. Pray
9) Athens, Greece. See the Parthenon and the Acropolis and maybe reenact scenes from 300. "This is Sparta!" errr Athens
10)Olympics. Where ever they may be. Summer would be preferred but winter would be nice too. (figure skating for Tracy, Speed Skating for me). Track and Field, Gymnastics, B-ball, skiing, ......

How about you gentle viewers? What are some of the places you would like to visit in your lifetime?

Quick Grade Report

I am very happy to report a great semester. I got 4 A's and 1 B, that's a 3.795 GPA for the semester. That gives me about a 3.5 GPA for my major and............ a 2.375 overall. I have two semesters that I am paying the price for; spring 04 and spring 05, plus my less than stellar first year.

Hopes, Dreams, Tests, and Mediocrity

As many know I want to go into to counseling and the easiest way to do that is to get into grad school and earn a Master's in that field. So today I took a step toward realizing that goal, I took the GRE. However the question is did I REALLY take a step toward it? Thanks to modern technology I was able to take a computer based test which means that the verbal and quantitative portions were instantly scored and given (the analytical writing section still has to be reviewed and graded). I did just about as well as I did on my SATs which I am afraid isn't going to be good enough. I scored 570 verbal, and 600 quantitative. Not horrible, but not what I was hoping for.
I was counting on my GRE to held make up for; let us say, a less than perfect GPA. A GPA I am working hard to improve, but could prove too little to late. Now I haven't given up hope, I will still apply because you never know what might happen.
I feel like I am smarter than what my test scores say but maybe I just have to resign myself to mediocrity. Maybe I just got unlucky with the questions, maybe I just wasn't prepared. There are many possible reasons for scoring how I did, but for now I will just have to see what happens.