Thanks to Kelly Karjola…

Well, recently my wife found an old aquantance from my high school on myspace. His name is Kelly Karjola, and he was only at my school for my last year, but will, no doubt, leave a lasting impression. He was known as the “Camera-guy” at our school. He had his video camera out for just about everything we ever did in school. Needless to say, he was not the “MOST POPULAR” guy, since he was always in people’s face with his blasted camera. Looking back, I am sort of glad he always kept on rolling.

Eleven (plus) years later, he is still using his camera, and has stared to archive some of his old footage from highschool. He recently came over to the house and shared a collection of videos he has been reworking. Talk about a time-warp!

He asked me to re-encode them and upload them to YouTube. Here are a couple of those vids…

UPDATE: I AM MOVING MY WEBSITE TO LARGER SERVERS, AND A DEDICATED HOSTING SERVICE. SERVICE MAY BE INTERRUPTED WITHIN THE NEXT FEW DAYS.

Camera Haters

Post Graduation Ceremony 1995

1995 Spring Formal

This makes me feel so old.

How we let it all happen

I recently read a blog post about prisons, and rules and such. The basic premise of the post was that “[people] only have power over us because we essentially allow them to.”

Because of my job, I have an interesting take on this subject. I believe that there are rules for good reasons. However, in an atmosphere such as a jail or prison, rules are tantamount to a cell within a cell. People in jail are already, very limited in movement, and then they find that they are even more limited in actions. Most people decide to allow us to make them do what we want them to, but at times there are people who just don’t really care. In fact there is little we can actually do to get people to follow the rules except by their own acceptance. In extreme cases, we have to use force, or restrain, but there is no real way to get people to stop all offensive/non-sanctioned behavior.

For instance, the girl who came in a couple of days ago that I wrote about, we were unable to get her to be quiet, even though she knew the consequences. One of which was being known as a disruptive person to a pod. In this case, any kind of punishment wouldn’t come from the “system”, but from fellow inmates. Even though the girl knew this, she decided to continue her behavior.

I can only think that she just plain refused to be locked up. Sure, she was in a cell, and even strapped down to a chair, but she wouldn’t let herself be stopped and so was free in some strange way.

It is similar for me. I follow rules to be able to keep my job. I know that the “I-Pod Rule” is dumb, and unfairly punitive. I also know that I have a choice. I decided, when I was hired, to allow the captains to rule my conduct while I am at work. I know that I can bring my i-pod, but the consequences are too great for me.

So, what can I do about this? I can refuse to let them control my attitude. The prevailing attitude of most employees right now is one of discontent; I don’t have to be. I can, in my own way, fight by refusing to become another angry person. I know that I don’t have to approve or like what is going on, but I can decide to change my outlook. No matter what my administration does, I am still in control of me; just like that girl who wouldn’t stop yelling.

I know that in the long run, I need a change, but for now, I can only change me. It’s the only thing I have any control over.

PS.. HERE’S SOMETHING SCREWED UP…

New Job, Anyone?

Seriously. Someone hire me to surf the web or something.

Ok, so nobody is ACTUALLY going to pay me to surf the ‘ol triple W’s, but there must be something better than THIS!
I know what you’re thinking: “STFU (Southern Tenant Farmers Union) about your job already! Quit whining and buck up cowboy!” OK OK OK! There’s just this small hitch still in my giddy-up about it though, and I can’t really think of any way to fix it. Suggestions?

On to other things:
As some of you may already know, our house is for sale. It has been for sale since before it was even finished, so no biggie there. However, we have heard that there is a little old lady from out of town that is “sort of” interested in the house. I am always skeptical when it comes to our house, since we have been on the market for so long. It gets hard to keep a stiff upper lip when you never get any bites, but plenty of nibbles. For those of you not familiar with fishing analogies, a bite would be a person actually making an offer on the house, while a nibble would be one of our abundant “lookers”. In this case, as with them all, only time will tell.
Jeesh, I sound like such a baby. Boo hoo for me, I am so sad. I want my mommy. Well, so what. I am a curmudgeony (?) old man of 30, and I don’t really care. (Ok, I do, but don’t tell anyone)

Llamas or Alpacas? It doesn’t really matter..

   Recently, I saw the new movie “Snakes on a Plane“, and it was exactly what I was expecting. It was the kind of movie you go to see in order to make fun of it, but it’s ok, because that is the exact reason this movie was made. A friend of mine, Aaron, took me to see it for **FREE**, and as we all know, free is always nice. The basic plot of the movie is that a kid sees a murder in Hawaii, Samuel Jackson’s character has to get him to Los Angeles to testify. Enroute to L.A., the plane is overrun with super-violent snakes in an attempt to bring the plane down, or kill the witness with a snake bite. Panic ensues, and the rest is pretty much what you expect it to be. All in all, enjoyable.
   The real hilarity didn’t actually start, however, until we were on our way back to my house. While driving down Ocean Beach Highway, we saw a deer in the middle of the street. Just sauntering along, like it was in a game preserve. Weird huh?
   Not really half as weird as seeing three alpacas or llamas in the middle of Pacific Avenue! Aaron and I stopped and actually herded them back into their pen/yard. At first, Aaron went and tried to rouse the homeowners, but they were not to be bothered. While he was doing that, I tried to get the animals to come to me by snapping my fingers. (ya, I usually snap at animals to get them to come to me, so what!) Unusually,the snapping didn’t work at all. In fact, they seemed to really hate it, and started off down the road, away from their pens and Aaron. So I had to run in a wide arc around them (they didn’t like me at all now) and I started snapping my fingers in order to get them to move closer to Aaron. IT ACTUALLY WORKED!!
   The animals were re-secured in the pens, so we ran back to the car and got out of there before we were caught and mistaken for “Alpaca Rustlers”. (Insert “old timey” cowboy voice) They hang them types around these parts, I hear. 
   So, all is well that ends without going to Jail, I always say, and it’s always nice to do nice things and not be noticed. Of course, since I am blogging about the incident, you could say that I am now not anonymous anymore, but there are only about 10 people who even know about this blog, let alone know both me and this blog. I am as anonymous as I ever will be. hehe

CSS

   So I decided to redo my CSS so that seeing my header image wasn’t just relegated to those who used FIREFOX as their browser. Now, even if you use Internet explorer, you should be able to see my page banner.
   If you don’t know what css is, it’s just the underlying code that is used on most web sites these days. It is a simple set of rules to tell your browser where and how to display my site to you.
   Tell me what you think if you haven’t seen this before.

(Can you tell me what word I use the most to start a post… I am sort of paranoid about it. Do I sound stupid?)

Hey Ya – (Cover)

This is an amazing cover of a mildly popular song. However it sounds NOTHING like the original. I think that is a good thing. You decide.

 

To download the MP3 of this song, “right Click” here and “save target as..”.

 E-mail me if that doesn’t work. I can get it for you I think.

Camping with the Specks

RIFFE LAKE

    So this last weekend, Jamie and I went camping with Heather and Chris Speck. I had to take a couple of days off, but it was SO very much worth it.

I would liken it changing out batteries and suddenly realizing just how out of power the old ones were. I feel recharged.

   We went to Riffe Lake Campground. It is a little hole in the wall campground that is close to a more well-known campground called Mossyrock Park. While the park is better manicured and more geared towards the RV, the Campground is much nicer for the  ”tenter”, providing semi-secluded sites.

   I was unable to sleep the day we went up, and since I am on graveyard, it made for a tired day. We all just sort of lumbered around for the rest of the night until it was bed-time. That night, Jamie and I found out that we weren’t made for sleeping on the ground anymore. We had padding, but w e both still slept horribly. Most notably for me was the snoring coming from my spouse. I ended up giving up on sleep, and got up at about 5am. I was still tired, but sleep was just impossible. Poor me, right?

   Needless to say, Jamie and I decided to do something about our sleeping arrangements. We needed a better sleeping arrangement. So, after everyone woke up and after everyone had breakfast and a shower (except for me), we went to town in search of COTS. We ended up spending about 50 smackaroos, but we figured that the COTS would last a long time. We knew that we would actually use them, so we looked at it as more of an investment instead of a simple purchase. We slept SO much better that night. It was night and day.

    The rides to and from town were nice. We all climbed into my jeep that had the top off, and so it was nice and airy (read windy). We all enjoyed it, and after we got back to the camp site, we all took a nap. (Sheesh, it sounds like we are all elderly huh?)

      We all just sort of hung around for the rest of our time there. It was nice and relaxing. We all seemed to enjoy our time. In fact, if we are able, we are going to join them at that same Campground for LABOR DAY. That is, IF I am going to get forced off for the holiday from my work. Most of me wants to go, but it’s also kind of hard to pass up an easy day of overtime pay for no extra work. We will see.