Legendary

New Location

2011-06-18T12:17:00.000-07:00

All content will be posted on www.bradleyschacht.com from now on. Hope to see you there!

What to do...

2011-03-13T20:24:00.000-07:00

The jogging thing is going to have to be reset. Some travel with work got in the way and I need to adjust some of the expectations that I had to be more in line with my day to day life. Not that I can't make it a priority to jog 5 times a week, but if I go play tennis for three and a half hours I don't want to turn around and jog another mile. Guess I could, but I don't think I am that motivated really.

I have some ideas in my head. Not sure what to do about them. Making some notes to follow up on them later. Some of them may come to fruition, some of them may never become more than an idea. Create something new? Change a preconception of our day to day lives? What drives people to adopt something they have never heard of before? What makes something appealing, not only to try but to keep you coming back? I don't know, now I'm starting to sound like a philosopher. That is definitely not the goal. Oh well, time to go lay in bed and see what pops in my head and write them down.

Jogging Journey: 02/23/2011

2011-02-23T20:43:00.001-08:00

Jogging Journey: 02/23/2011

Just a simple post tonight as I'm typing this from my phone laying in bed going to try to get to sleep. Wow that was a really bad sentence, oh well. I played basketball at lunch today with some of the guys from the office. That was much fun and we played for about 45 minutes or so. I already had plans to play tennis after work with Daniel so we did that too. Kyle joined in tennis which was cool, he hasn't played in a while, but once he learns to serve he is going to be really good. Hopefully we can start doing tennis days more regularly again.

I needed to have something to show for my Nike+ log. Unfortunately I cant just click a button that says I played basketball and tennis today and have it say, ok that's cool no worries Brad. So in order to fix this, I went for a short jog while Daniel and Kyle were playing a match. Just did a little deal around the baseball fields and the tennis courts. It ended up being between .3 and .4 miles by the time I was done. Couldn't do all of it since I had to play tennis too! After tennis I went home and was going to meet Kyle for dinner. I knew there was plenty of time from when he left to the time where he would be back out for me to finish my jogging for the day.

So I got my headphones and did an abbreviated jog. Just around the interior roads, so about half the usual distance. Nike says I only did like .28 miles but the actual is around .45 or so. Of course I again forgot to calibrate it before I saved the run so it is showing a little less than actual. Oh well. The number for today are almost identical to yesterday. Here's the summary:

Distance: .74 Miles
Time: 8:08
Pace: 10'49" per mile
Calories: 98

Jogging Journey: 02/22/2011

2011-02-22T19:49:00.000-08:00

Jogging Journey: 02/22/2011

One of the things I got for Christmas this year was the little Nike+ thing that goes on your shoe. I have been wanting to start using the Nike+ stuff on my phone for quite a while just never actually went out and got the little deal-guy-thing-mabob. I figured I always have my phone with me when I jog, why not track my progress.

This is going to be entry one in an ongoing series (hopefully) about my jogging. Before you start reading this please note several things that I will now mention. I am not a big jogger. I have been very inconsistent with it over the past year. I will job for a couple days in a row and then not do it for a month, do it for 3 days a week for 2 months and then not do it for a while again. So needless to say, I am not the person who can go out and jog miles at a time. I probably would be able to if I did this consistently but I don't. Hopefully that will change starting today.

Now for the real stuff, it may or may not be interesting, but hey, you can always choose to not read these posts.

I set up my account on NikePlus.com. Had one on there before but I figured I would want a fresh start so I deleted everything that was in there. It was all scattered over the past two months anyway so the data would have been useless. The website is pretty cool, I wish I could have come up with some nifty idea like that for people to use. Maybe one day I will have that million dollar idea, heck why think small, make it a billion dollar idea. I digress.

Got my account all set up to use English units and the date format for my graphs and details pages the way I wanted it. There is a coo little chart that graphs speed on the Y axis and distance on the X so you can see where you were going faster than other places. I need to start slower so that I don't fall off at the end.

I didn't realize it until after I submitted the run from my phone to the Nike+ page but I can't go back and calibrate the sensor. I will have to do it tomorrow. Come to find out it logged my run at about .15 miles shorter than what it actually is. That's going to mess up my average, but it will even out over time so no biggie. I'm not going for marathon man or anything like that so the little trips around the loop of the street will do for now. Hopefully one day I will be able to go out and do the whole neighborhood in one run. That's a ways off though since that is about 4 miles and I can barely do one without feeling like I am going to need to re-inflate my lungs.

The website is pretty cool. In addition to just tracking my runs it will allow me to set goals and track my runs against those as well. I set up a goal for all the little options in the next 30 days: 20 runs (Run More Often), 20 miles (Run Farther), 4000 Calories (Burn Calories, also I'm not sure if that is a real low, real high or just right number. Time will tell) and finally 5 runs under a 9 minute mile average (Run Faster). If I can consistently do this I don't see any reason why I can't hit all those. There is a little wiggle room built into the whole thing. I want to go out 6 times a week so I think I can realistically do 5 and hit my 20 runs.

The other thing I set up was Coach Program. It just compares my stuff that I do each day by overlaying it on a graphical interface that shows the program goals. I did an easy one called Walk to Run. It is supposed to be for beginners in the running game, and that is me for sure. Long and the short it is a 12 week program that will hopefully end me at a 25 minute time without stopping. It is varying speeds and distance throughout. So today I was supposed to walk for 15 minutes and do .62 miles. I'm not going to walk for 15 minutes because I would get bored so I just jogged my route.

I am going to at least try to meet my goal for the program each day and then if it only calls for a smaller distance than my loop, like today, then I will do more. Maybe I will post some images of the site and everything as I go along. The numbers for my distance and time will vary depending on what the program has for me to do. I did some reading too about switching paces up a little which this tells me to do too. So sometimes I will walk for 5 minutes, jog for 1 and repeat while other times I may walk for 2, jog for 2. You just never know. Plus the little discrepancies between the actual and calculated distances, but I'm not going for pro here so this will definitely do for me. Make note of that last sentence in case I ever decide to go run pro or something. That would be kinda ironic. Also ironic because I'm lazy.

Distance: .75 Miles
Time: 8:08
Pace: 10'44" per mile
Calories: 100

Just a Quick Update

2011-02-22T19:38:00.000-08:00

So, another year has come and gone and I am a little older which means it was ski trip time again. It was supposed to be Chris, Daniel, Derrick and I. Then Chris wasn't going. Then Bre was joining (Derrick's wife). Then they were coming but only for a day. Then they weren't coming. Long and the short of it, Daniel and I had a fun time skiing. It ended up being just the two of us for the ski trip this year, but it was a great time. We watched the Super Bowl at my place with Derrick and then got up bright and early. Well, it wasn't bright, but it was early... as in 3AM. Got the last couple things packed up into the car and drove off to West Virginia at about 3:30.

The drive wasn't bad. We each did about 6 hours. I drove up to the South Carolina-North Carolina border at which point we switched. Then it was on to Snowshoe. Arrival was around 4 after stopping for lunch and a small dinner snack type item at the bottom of the mountain.

We then skiied for three days, Tuesday-Thursday. It was super cold which was a miracle since the coldest it had been there all year was about 35 and the week before it was in the mid 40's. Temperatures were approximately since it has been a couple weeks 5(-4 with wind), 3(-3 with wind) and 9(-10 with wind). Needless to say, it was chilly and night time wasn't any warmer. The conditions were amazing due to it snowing all day on Tuesday and almost all day Wednesday. The only time I feel this year was when Daniel came up behind me in line for the lift while I was STANDING STILL and hit me. At which point he turned around and said "dude you fell down" and the guy next to me said "looked like that hurt". To which I replied kindly in my head "hey stupid guy why don't you move on or shut up". Either way, it was a great set of runs. We did all the greens and blues and then ventured down one of the blacks in the middle of the mountain that I had done last year. I got some good air coming off the hill at the bottom of that one. Much fun, much fun.

Anyway, that's the ski trip and here we are.

Boom. Roasted.

So Much For My Weekend

2010-09-03T18:13:00.000-07:00

Well, the plan was to head out to St. Simon's Island up in good ol' Georgia and have a nice little Saturday. Go visit the lighthouse, walk around, play at the park (yes, I like to play in parks and yes I'm 22), maybe climb a tree at said park and if timer permits head over to the big island next to that one the name of which alludes me at the moment. Sunday is no football day since the NFL starts next week. Thank goodness the pre-season is over! I'm so tired of watching the Jaguars front line get run over by other teams second string. Starting next week, I can watch other team's first string run over our offensive line. Can't wait for the season opener where Tim Tebow will not be playing as he is not the starting quarterback. Eventually the people of Jacksonville that don't really know how football works will forget about that fact that we did not draft him. I can't wait for that day, I think it will probably take about 3 years for all of that to calm down.

Back to the whole point of the beginning of this blog. I woke up this morning not feeling so good. My throat is really scratchy and my sinuses are having some issues. Although that last part seems to be coming and going from time to time. This has caused me to rethink the weekend plans. At the moment I am sitting on my couch watching some good ol' NCIS with the feline. She is not attacking tonight, instead she is minding her own business and playing nicely. She is occasionally coming over to make sure that I am doing ok and to say hello. Unfortunately at the moment it looks like the Braves are going to be loosing tonight. I need the Phillies to loose tonight as well then so that we can maintain our lead in the NL East. Enjoy your weekend everyone!

P.S. Sorry Devin, I will not be at the company gathering tomorrow even though I am not going up to the Island for the day.

Peace out homies.

I blog, thanks for the concern

2010-07-17T22:36:00.000-07:00

To everyone who has issues with my blog not being updated. Here is an update. I blog all the time, I can't help it if you don't understand what it says. There are plenty of books out there you can read to learn it. Yes, I bought a house on an unrelated note. If you want proof that I have been blogging: www.bidn.com/blogs/bradschacht

A House for Brad

2009-07-14T20:41:00.000-07:00

So, in just under 16 hours I will begin the long daunting task of confronting a stack of paperwork that will ultimately end in me giving up a lot of money and in return being the owner of a brand new-ish (not so new-ish just thought that sounded fun) home!!

Everything is set, just have to go get my cashiers check for closing and make sure I'm good a rested to sign my name a billion times. Hopefully everything goes smoothly. Excited!!

Will update later today.

Welcome to the real world

2009-07-11T21:25:00.001-07:00

Does anyone really use cash out there anymore. It has been so long
since I took out cash to make a purchase. Well, my good friend daniel
has always been the ONE person in our little group that was the cash
person. Everyone else uses debit cards for purchases. After many times
of making fun of him, he decided to actually use his bank account and
get a debit card. I had the honor of being there for the first
purchase with his brand new check card! My first question when he took
it out, "did you remember to activate it." to which I got a snarky "i
even put money in the account.". Oh well... Good job man!

Twitter

2009-06-21T10:43:00.000-07:00

I am very much an avid Twitter-er (can you add er to the end of a word like that??) and apparently they are across the pond as well. By the looks of it, people enjoy Tweeting so much that even in the event of a fire people would pull out their mobile devices to say "I'm just here at the building fire enjoying. Laser tag later anyone? retweet if you want to." It mentions the fire brigade which is why I assume this is over in England or Europe or where ever they say that. So, would you twitter about the fire as you leave the building? I can't say I wouldn't now that I think about it. Really would depend on how serious it was, Tweet on the way, or tweet outside.

Alternate comments:
Discover a fire. Just walking through the hall and oh, look a fire in the corner, let me tweet about it.
Attack the fire? Really!?!
There is an explanation of what a fire alarm is. "(continuous ringing bell)" WOW!

Fight Club

2009-06-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

There is a great movie out there called Fight Club. I found this little graph that concerned me a little bit. In an effort to correct this I shall now educate you all on the rules of fight club.

1st RULE: You do not talk about FIGHT CLUB.
2nd RULE: You DO NOT talk about FIGHT CLUB.
3rd RULE: If someone says "stop" or goes limp, taps out the fight is over.
4th RULE: Only two guys to a fight.
5th RULE: One fight at a time.
6th RULE: No shirts, no shoes.
7th RULE: Fights will go on as long as they have to.
8th RULE: If this is your first night at FIGHT CLUB, you HAVE to fight.

Watch the movie. It is awesome. Be sure to remember the rules... you may just one day end up in a Fight Club. Obviously you will never be able to tell anyone about it though.

Birthdays, Baby Boy, Contract

2009-06-14T22:16:00.000-07:00

This has been a very birthday filled week. It started last Saturday with the 2 year anniversary of Journey Church. Had a great weekend there as we started a new series called One Prayer. We have joined a ton of other churches all over the world in this series as we all go through the same or similar topics and see the amazing things that can happen. Currently there are 1836 churches participating in this. Last year there were a over 600 church planted and thousands of people accepted Christ as a result. Then we came across my Mom's birthday on Monday, which we celebrated on Sunday night at Ichiro; delicious. Wednesday was Devin's birthday which brought some good news: on to baby boy portion.

Devin and Erin are having a boy if you haven't already heard. It's exciting stuff. Head over to Erin's Blog to take a look at the sonogram. It is a really cool little video, which I just happen to have edited. :)

I got this news as I was on my way to sign some papers. I am in the process of buying a house and I went to sign the contract for the initial offer on the house (this is the contract part). After some back and forth over the next few days we finally settled on details and a price. Today was the inspection which went very well. Only a few things that need to be fixed, no biggie. Tomorrow I go to get the financing finalized. I am super duper excited and a little nervous all at the same time. I have never lived by myself and it is a lot of responsibility, but I can't wait to get in there. Hopefully everything will continue to go smoothly through the rest of the process and this will be the house I end up with. I shall keep you posted.

Enjoy the day everyone!!

Happy birthday Mom and Devin!

Nerd time

2009-06-02T18:01:00.000-07:00

If you know me, I am a bit of a nerd. No comments from my sister please on that subject. You will also know that I am not the largest fan of Windows, although it does have its advantages. This is mostly for Devin and everyone out there who I tell, please please please please please download Firefox and use that instead of Internet Explorer. I love Firefox, I even use it on my Mac over Safari. I found this little pie chart of all the great uses for Internet Explorer to further illustrate my point. (Devin you would be the reason that little green sliver is on there)

I took a sabbatical

2009-05-30T22:45:00.000-07:00

It seems as though I have taken a sabbatical from the blog. Come on, lets be honest though, it is really hard to be awesome in my everyday life then to come home and be awesome in blog format. Like I said though, I am rested and re-awesomed. I know what your thinking, and it's true, "Brad, you can never run out of awesome." Oh how correct you are.

Well, here is the rekick off story. I was walking around downtown with my bro, Daniel, and came across something that I have not seen in quite some time. These items used to be commonplace, but I get confused when I see them now. It was right next the the little museum that chills by the fountain. My thought is that it is really a part of that. You know, a relic from the past. I don't know when the last time I saw one of these used. I'm not even sure what it is used for anymore, no less how I would go about engaging it in operation units.

Thoughts??

P.S. The aforementioned bro, Daniel, has entered the blogging community. Hopefully he will do better than the one post that Derrick made. My apologies. Welcome Daniel, sorry I didn't get this up there sooner!!

Music 'Not So' Monday

2009-04-30T21:31:00.000-07:00

It's a special edition of Music Not So Monday here on the good ol' blog. Each week I will share a song that I enjoy. Maybe there is a message behind it that I liked. It could just be a great song musically, not necessarily lyrically. Either way, I will share a new song with you each week. Let me know if you like it, and share with me some of your favorites!

This week - Three Cheers for Five Years by Mayday Parade

A band from right here in Florida, Mayday has been a favorite from the time I heard this song. Great CD and an even better band live! It's just one of those songs that has a memory attached to it. Enjoy.

(This isn't an official music video. It just has the song playing.)

I swear that you don't have to go
I thought we could wait for the fireworks
I thought we could wait for the snow
To wash over Georgia and kill the hurt
I thought I could live in your arms
And spend every moment I had with you
Stay up all night with the stars
Confess all the faith that I had in you
To late, I'm sure and lonely
Another night, another dream wasted on you
Just be here now against me
You know the words so sing along for me baby
For heaven's sake I know you're sorry
But you won't stop crying
This anniversary may never be the same
Inside I hope you know I'm dying
With my heart beside me
In shattered pieces that may never be replaced
And if I died right now you'd never be the same

I thought with a month of apart
Together would find us an opening
And moonlight would provide the spark
And that I would stumble across the key
Or break down the door to your heart
Forever could see us not you and me
And you'd help me out of the dark
And I'd give my heart as an offering

And I will always remember you as you are right now to me
And I will always remember now
Sleep alone tonight with no one here just by your side
How does he feel, how does he kiss
How does he taste while he's on your lips
I can't forget you
I know you want me to want you
I want to
But I can't forgive you
So when this is over don't blow your composure baby
I can't forgive you
I know you want me to want you I want to

Wow. That is all I can say

2009-04-29T18:51:00.000-07:00

I love pizza. This was totally designed for someone like me! I sure hope this actually happens someday. I would buy stock in whatever company markets this.

Cats and Boxes

2009-04-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

A while back while I was over at Devin and Erin's house I was shown a video by Angela and Dustin called Ninja Cat. It is really funny if you haven't seen it.

Well, Saturday morning I was on Digg.com and found the link to this video posted on YouTube. It is also funny. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

The ATM Machine

2009-04-23T22:09:00.000-07:00

Last week Devin and Erin were headed to the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville (great name by the way!) to meet up with a couple of their friends. So I did the little high school brother thing and tagged along to the Suns game. Just so happened that it was the Thursday Night Throwdown deal-guy where they do $1 beers or some garbage like that. The game was good, but the atmosphere was not so much. I don't think I have heard so many "F" words tossed out at one time, or sen so many people all drinking and acting like high school kids in one place before.

None the less, the point of the blog post. Sister just happens to be a teller for a semi well known bank in America (see what I did there??). A little education in case you don't already know. ATM happens to stand for something. Any guesses? Automated Teller Machine. So when you say ATM machine, you are saying automated teller machine machine. Sound a little strange. Well this drives Erin crazy. It is one thing for an unknowing customer to say it. I would expect it actually, but a company that puts out signs for an ATM should know. Erin agrees.

Is that a face of disgust or what? Erin, can you please deposit this, the ATM machine is not working right now. As I recall, that has a story behind it too.

2009-04-20T11:05:00.000-07:00

It's Music Monday here on the good ol' blog. Each week I will share a song that I enjoy. Maybe there is a message behind it that I liked. It could just be a great song musically, not necessarily lyrically. Either way, I will share a new song with you each week. Let me know if you like it, and share with me some of your favorites!

This week - Distraction by Angels & Airwaves

Love the band, love the song, love the entire CD. It's one of those albums where you can listen to it quietly and it's good chill music, but you listen to it loud and its a good CD to "Rock out" to. Hope you guys enjoy this one. It's one of my favorite songs.

Here is the lyrics, sorry, no music video for this one.
(At the bottom there is an unofficial video someone just put some video clips together, but it has the song playing for you to hear it.)

"I'll be your distraction
I'll be your distraction

There's a field near by, with words written in stone
"My love will not die; please let it be known"
This place is dead, it echoes through town
There isn't one voice. I haven't heard a sound

The planes flew in; their bombs did too
The city fell flat; the fires they grew
When the smoke comes in, it'll color this town
But I'll still have you, so I'll say it out loud

I'll be your distraction
I'll be your distraction

The friendship we made, is a waste of our time
There's no one left here, to show a future that's kind
It's a world of hate, gone incredibly wrong
We cared too late; we just followed along

And the boys went down, with a gun in their hand
Their weapon of choice, their knees in the sand
If that field near by, was still there to be used,
Would you ever have known, those words were for you?

I'll be your distraction
I'll be your distraction

I'll be, I'll be yours
I'll be, I'll be yours
I'll be, I'll be yours
I'll be, I'll be yours"

Music Monday

2009-04-13T07:25:00.000-07:00

Here's another pity there's another chance
Try to learn a lesson but you can't.
If we can burn a city in futures and in past,
without a change our lives will never last.
Cause' we're going fast.

You can sit beside me when the world comes down, if it doesn't matter
then just turn around.
We don't need our bags and we can just leave town.
You can sit beside me when the world comes down.

What can we do better, when will we know how? A man says from a
sidewalk to a crowd.
If we can change the weather, if you wanted to yourself. If you can't
I guess we all need help, yeah, I need help.

(repeat chorus)

We say
We do
The lies
The truth
All I need is next to me.

Mmmmmmmmm we're going fast.

You can sit beside me when the world comes down, if it doesn't matter
then just turn around.
You be the queen and I'll be your clown,
You can sit beside me when the world comes down.

Music Monday

2009-04-06T18:02:00.000-07:00

In the process of consideration of a running blog posting is Music Monday. Gary took Movie Monday idea a long time ago, so I can't so much do that.

This week features a band that will probably show up a lot: Relient K! They are a fantastically amazing band that I've gotten the privilege of seeing quite a few times. Matt Thiessen had got to be one of the best lyricist out there. I mean come on, who else can work "proverbial" and "reverberating" not just into songs, but into the same song?!? Answer: no one.

Many of the songs that are featured here will have no meaning other than that I like the song because it sounds cool or I just like the band. This week has a good message behind it. The song is Who I Am Hates Who I've Been. Take a listen and find your own meaning. We all have times in our lives where we do stupid things. Some people do go so far as to ruin their lives with things like drugs. Others simply don't follow as closely to God as we should. Regardless what that is, big or small, you always look back and say, man I shouldn't have done "insert your deal here". That is what I get from this song. It talks about the sad state that his heart is in and how he looks back to see where he went wrong. The good part is he sees that "is no place to try and live my life." Following this Matt talks about how he sees his life now and the way he was living before and decides that he never wants to be like that again and proceeds to apologize for it.

I haven't always been super duper close with God, of course my fault. You think, Oh well I will read my Bible tomorrow morning and skip today. Well that keeps going day after day and you start to say, well it wont hurt if I don't go to church every week. I've never been that person that goes and screws my life up or done stupid stuff, thankfully my mom raised me much better than that (on that note, thank you mother for doing good). Thankfully it never took me messing up big time to realize that I need to get closer to God. Most recently I just haven't been getting to church. I keep up with Pastor Eric on Twitter and he tells me that they miss me at church and all which is an awesome encouragement. Then I went to church for the first time in a little while. As I was walking up Pastor Eric yells at me across the parking lot and say something to the effect of "Who is that? I thought he was just a Twitter legend." I got up to him said, "No, I'm real" after which he gives me a hug and says glad to see ya man, we've really missed you, awesome to have you back. Needless to say, I knew at that moment that I had been missing something amazing in my life by not being there. We had an awesome service which I shall talk about later. I stopped by on my way out and said hey to Bryan (another pastor at the church), and he too said "wow man, its been a while, glad to see you here, how have you been?" I don't know that Bryan even knows my name, but we know each other enough for him to notice that I haven't been there apparently. It was really cool being back at church, and for me the "not being involved at my church person" is the person I hope I never become again.

Anyway, that is my story for the week. This will usually be just a song and a little sentence or two, not some little feel good story about church. Just wanted to share. Hope you like the song. Relient K - Who I Am Hates Who I've Been
Here is the music video

I watched the proverbial sunrise
Coming up over the Pacific and
You might think I'm losing my mind,
But I will shy away from the specifics...

'cause I don't want you to know where I am
'cause then you'll see my heart
In the saddest state it's ever been.

This is no place to try and live my life.

[Pre-Chorus]
Stop right there. That's exactly where I lost it.
See that line. Well I never should have crossed it.
Stop right there. Well I never should have said
That it's the very moment that
I wish that I could take back.

[Chorus]
I'm sorry for the person I became.
I'm sorry that it took so long for me to change.
I'm ready to be sure I never become that way again
'cause who I am hates who I've been.
Who I am hates who I've been.

I talk to absolutely no one.
Couldn't keep to myself enough.
And the things bottled inside have finally begun
To create so much pressure that I'll soon blow up.

I heard the reverberating footsteps
Synching up to the beating of my heart,
And I was positive that unless I got myself together,
I would watch me fall apart.

And I can't let that happen again
'cause then you'll see my heart
In the saddest state it's ever been.

This is no place to try and live my life.

[Pre-Chorus x2]
[Chorus]

Who I am hates who I've been
And who I am will take the second chance you gave me.
Who I am hates who I've been
'cause who I've been only ever made me...

So sorry for the person I became.
So sorry that it took so long for me to change.
I'm ready to be sure I never become that way again
'cause who I am hates who I've been.
Who I am hates who I've been.

Well, he's what I've done

2009-03-31T22:36:00.000-07:00

Let me go ahead and get the pressing issue that everyone is wondering about out of the way. Yes, I got to the store in time to solve the toothpaste issue. Secondly, went to the store the other day and got some food units, more on that later though.

The whole stock market deal hasn't been really awesome lately if you had money in it. However, it is ripe if you happen to have the money to invest. Everything is cheap right now, except Family Dollar, gee I wonder why. So I have a little bit of money in stocks right now. I don't have a lot of money to begin with so it isnt much, but I am hoping one day when I'm old/older my like 200 shares that I have will be worth more than the like $2.some I paid for them. The whole thing is really addicting though. I find myself checking on them way too much for only having a few. I could definitely see myself getting more into this in the future. It is kinda fun, while I haven't lost money anyway.

Starting Monday I shall be crazy excited, well I already am. I will no longer have to drive to Lake City for work as of Friday!! That is my last day there and Monday I start as store manager of the Blanding and Wells store, where I was hired actually. Interesting, I know. I am really looking forward to not having to work EVERY FRIDAY AND SATURDAY. Also fantastical is going from a hour and ten minute drive to a five minute drive.

Cool things are happening at Journey Church. We are doing a grocery give away for needy families this weekend at all the services on Saturday night and Sunday morning. First Coast News actually came out and interviewed Pastor Eric about the whole thing. I didnt get to watch the news cause I was working, but there was supposed to be a story on the news about it. I know there was an issue with the tape being broken and Pastor Eric wrote about it and concluded that The Devil Must Be Mad. Can't say enough great things about this church. I think that we do more community outreach at Journey than any other church I have been at. Since we moved to the new location on Blanding the growth has been amazing! If you don't have a church home come check us out. www.JourneyChurch.org

Oh yeah, last thing. I changed the blog up a little and made it brighter. Got tired of the plain black all the time. Hope you like. When I get done with this website that I am working on maybe I will go play around with the HTML in here and change things up on my own. Who knows. That could potentially be a lot of fun. Man, I am a nerd aren't I. Erin, notice the lack of a question mark on that last sentence, also no commenting required. Guess this little comment works into both of our blogs. If you haven't already go check out my awesome sister's blog. She needs to update.

I think I am out of things to say for now. The Office is not new this week, which makes me sad, but I get two episodes in two weeks which makes me happy. Still not cool this week NBC.

Ok, now I'm out.

Next time on the blog: Twitter

Second post in a day!!!

2009-03-26T11:56:00.000-07:00

This will be post number two today in an effort to keep everyone up on my life.

If I do not intervene in the situation I will be out of toothpaste by the end of the day tomorrow.

Really??

2009-03-26T10:57:00.000-07:00

So it has been a little more than a day since my last blog posting. Ok, maybe a little longer than that. With regards to the West Virginia updates: in my defense I did say "OK, so here is how this is hopefully going to work out..." Let us begin by noting the word hopefully in that sentence. Alright that is just an excuse I admit, but I have no excuses for the reason that I have not posted at all in the past like three weeks. Let me respond to a few comments to being with.

1. Angela and Erin. Yes it has been a long time, my apologies. Erin, yes you are bad at this updating thing too so I don't want to hear it.
2. Devin. The poo has been going well. I have really only gotten junk mail lately (I'm still waiting for the day when I'm cool and important enough to get real mail, I do however get some good emails) and side note, I haven't checked my mail today, if there is anything good I will do a second post tonight. As far as my missing shoe goes I did have a slight debacle with that the other day, and it was actually two missing shoes. Couldn't find them and then I found them. Great story right?!?! Thought so. They were under the blanket that I had kicked off the end of my bed in case you were wondering.

I believe that covers the comments left over from the last post about me not posting. I will try to do better next time.

On to things. Been a pretty uneventful couple of weeks. Just a lot of working. Had a visit with my RDO that went really well, and I can't wait to not have to drive to Lake City for work anymore here in a couple of weeks. Work talk completed.

Last weekend I did something pretty random. Daniel, Derrick and myself had talked about going to Six Flags but nothing came of it because Derrick and I had to work Saturday. Well come the end of the day Thursday I had already worked my 40+ hours and decided that I was going to take Saturday off. I was working mid-shift anyway so it didn't really matter. Daniel and I went to get some dinner/lunch food units around 3:30 Friday afternoon and then he came over to the apartment a few hours later at 7:30. We played some Rainbow Six Vegas 2 on the Box and decided that we had the day off tomorrow and were going to revive the Six Flags idea. Called up the roommate unit to check his 20 and 3 min later he walked into the apartment. Passed the idea by him and 30 min later we were in Daniel's car on the way to Atlanta. We decided to drive close to Atlanta and find a cheap hotel. We settled on a place that was $45 and to be honest I thought I was going to die. Did you ever see the movie Vacancy? Horrible movie but the room felt kinda like that. There wasn't even an alarm clock in this room and it had an actual KEY for the door. Very scary. Sleep ensued and we got up at 8:30 and left for the Flags. Upon arrival we discovered less people than I thought there would be. The lines weren't that long and we waited less than 40 min for pretty much everything. The final ride of the day was superman. The coaster had broken down earlier and they said it was running one car so it was a 2.5 hour wait. It was the only one we hadn't done so we waited. WELL WORTH IT! Awesome coaster, I love the part where you go upside down and you are laying on your back. Although my phone almost came out of my pocket at that point and I would have cried if that happened. Needless to say, I had my hand on it the rest of the ride. We then returned home for sleep. I slept most of the way home as I was not really feeling good to begin with, but you cant pass up a Six Flags trip. I forgot to mention, best part of the trip was on the wooden roller coaster when Daniel decided to keep his Florida Gators hat on and lost it going down the first hill. It was awesome. Hit the person behind him but they thought it was funny that the Gators fan lost his hat to the mud. We laughed at him for a while. So did the Tennessee fan that was sitting with him. He He.

That was my random weekend. Since then I have worked twice, cleaned the apartment and fixed my network to run faster. A little nerd talk here real quick. I switched my router from Gateway to Bridged mode so that it is no longer a DHCP server. This helped my network speeds out a lot because my modem has a built in DHCP server and it is now assigning all IP addresses. The router is now simply a connection to the modem. Period. Loving the added speeds even if it is small. Also, I have two hard drives that are networked through my router totaling 2TB of storage. I have a bunch of media files stored on them and I had it connected with SMB. I switched the connection protocols for them from SMB to AFP and the difference is huge! I used to not be able to watch a movie off the drive and be surfing the web or doing anything else at the same time. With the new setup I was actually uploading a 4GB file while watching an episode of Bones from the same hard drive. It is freaking cool! Love it. Well that about rounds out the 'Nerd Alert: Computer Corner' for this week. Check back next week at 8pm/7central for the next episode.

Hopefully this will satisfy my posting for the next day or so. I shall next time be talking about stocks. I'm really liking this stock thing.

Later homies.
B-rad, out.

West Virginia NonUpdates

2009-02-26T20:25:00.000-08:00

Ok, so here is how this is hopefully going to work out...

Since the internet has not made it to all of West Virginia (and the parts that have it barely have it) I am going to pretend that my ski trip is going on next week. What this means is that I will post what we did each day as though we did it next week not last week. I can see how this may be confusing for some of you, so please ask a friend to explain the concept. They will understand. Due to this we are going to pretend also that I did not make the post from my phone on the way up there Sunday night. Just act as though that occurs next Sunday. Questions please let me know.

PICS AND VIDEO TO COME!!!!
I'm so excited, its like I get to go skiing all over again!

The Cat

2009-02-21T16:54:00.000-08:00

While my sister was living at home the cat used to annoy her. Not that Erin was annoyed by the cat, but she (Asher) would wake her up constantly wanting outside at early hours of the morning when mom or myself had let her back in before we left the house. Asher used to even sleep next to Erin at night. Holding Asher was not out of the question for sister either. This was all common, as should to be expected in the Erin-Asher relationship. Things went terribly wrong when she got married and moved out of the house though. The cat would no longer have anything to do with her. In order to hold Asher a chase would have to occur. You can see the disgust in her eyes as Derrick holds the little fuzz ball.

Oh yeah, I have moved out as well and the cat loves me still. She actually waits at the door for me to come in when she hears my car pull into the driveway.

West Virginia stuff to come. I just found those pictures and remembered to put this up.

Day One

2009-02-16T16:15:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pictures of the trip... Trust me I have plenty more. A couple from the ride and a couple from the mountain climbing adventures. Today we went adventuring off trail. I have a short video that I will attempt to upload at the ski lodge tomorrow. Internet here isn't super duper fast so I think it will take a while to upload. Videos are on the way!! Check back soon!!

On the road...

2009-02-15T23:43:00.000-08:00

Well I am in the back seat of the car now. I have migrated from the drivers seat to this current location. Figured I would fill you in on the happenings thus far

I recorded my first video blog and attempted to post it before leaving the apartment but it was an unsuccessful upload. Probably good cause I look retarded in it. Does everyone think they look and sound stupid on camera? None the less, that is why I do editing, don't have to be on camera!! Anyway, I will try to upload it again in WV so you all can see it. The plan is to make a nightly video post featuring a quick rundown of the day's events. Should be fun if all works as planned and be a new feature to my blogging experience. I will absolutely upload pictures of every day for you regardless of the video being ready.

So here is where things stand... On I-26 heading west in SC. Should be here for about another 30ish min then north onward to VA and WV. Stopped at both borders to take retarded pictures. So far no flat tires like last year, thank you Lord!!

Anyway, I better get back to playing on my phone to kill time in the car. Maybe I will get the laptop out here a little later and transfer some of the pictures over an upload a couple for you. It is possible. Otherwise pics will come tomorrow. Until then check my twitter updates to see where we are, I am updating that quite a bit. And if you have an iPhone I found a really cool new twitter app called TwittSomething. I will have to look at the title of it if you want it. It's awesome!

Talk to everyone soon!

Welcome Derrick

2009-02-14T23:41:00.001-08:00

I would just like to toss this out there. My Bro and fellow apartment dweller, Derrick, has finally gotten on his butt (that would be sitting in a chair at the computer or on his new G1 android phone) and created his blog. The goal here is for me to not hear his boring work stories that I have listened to for months upon months now that you people for some reason find so fascinating. Please at least make him feel like you care once in a while so that I don't have to revert to hearing the stories while playing Madden at The Place. I'm kidding of course... I am sure he will have some good stuff on there. Head over and check out what he has to say.

Never the less, glad your a part of this community now man!
This is going to be LEGEN, wait for it...

They are back!!

2009-02-13T23:43:00.000-08:00

For those of you who don't know the significance of the image above let me take a brief moment to explain. MH and TD are initials. Still need further explanation? MH stands for Mark Hoppus and TD stands for Thomas DeLonge! If Travis Barker sang in the band there would be a TB next to that set. If you still don't know what is going on well...

BLINK 182 IS BACK!!!!

They are supposed to be working on a new CD and putting together a Summer 2009 tour! Don't really care how far I have to drive, I am going to get to see my favorite punk rock band of all time! Everyone involved in music has those that they idolize in some way, for me it is Thomas DeLonge and Blink 182. If you ever get a chance, watch the documentary Start the Machine. It tells the story of the end of Blink a few years back and what led up to Angels & Airwaves (amazing band who I also love). Watching that and seeing Angels & Airwaves live gave me a lot more respect for Tom. None the less, BLINK IS BACK!!!

Just a little excited....

2009-02-11T11:33:00.001-08:00

I will be skiing in 132 hours!!

I can't wait, can you tell?!?!

How to know when things are bad...

2009-02-07T11:37:00.000-08:00

One of the best holidays each year, Super Bowl Sunday. Yes I said holiday. Anyway, Daniel and I were on the way to the local Target to gather the beverages for the game when we stumbled across something rather strange. Now I know having sales are a normal part of the retail world, but this one kind of baffled me. You know the economy is having a hard time when you drive by and see this...

And yes, that is a 40% off sale... FOR THE DOLLAR STORE!!

I am ready to go...

2009-01-27T18:58:00.000-08:00

It is annual ski trip time again!!!

A couple of years ago myself and a few close friends took a trip up to wild wonderful West Virginia. That year we decided to make it an annual deal-eo. So each February we now have standing plans to go for a week of fun in the snow. The last two years we have been going to Winterplace. This is all fine and dandy cause it is awesome, but we wanted to try something new. Plans permitting (by plans I mean if we are able to get the little package thing that makes it not crazy expensive) we will be going to Snowshoe this year.

Normally it would be almost four times the price of Winterplace, but pending the outcome of the February special featuring lift tickets and two nights of lodging it will be only about a small sum of cash dollars added to the grand total. The ski trip is surprisingly economical considering we go for a week. The trick is knowing people. In our case people are my roommate and fellow ski tripper Derrick's grandparents. They just happen to live about 40 min away from the ski location.

*BONUS: They make us food. Breakfast and dinner a few times when we were home for it.*
*ADDED BONUS: They are freaking awesome... just saying*

It would seem as though the trip is getting smaller.
Year 1: Chris, Derrick, myself and two unnamed female units.
Year 2: Chris, Daniel Downard, Derrick and myself. (That's minus one).
Year Current: Daniel Arias (my only high school friend I really cared enough about to still be friends today), Derrick and me. (That's minus another one).

Even though the third person knew from year one when discussed that this would be an annual event, they chose not to make the appropriate preparations. Oh well, Derrick and I will continue the tradition. It isn't all skiing though. Once we removed the female units from the trip, which after year one was the right choice, trust me, we were able to do much more exciting things. Mountain climbing was not so much a part of the first trip...

Last year however we climbed down a very steep mountain down to a river about 600 feet below. There was no trail. Awesome factor: 10
Snowball, kind of ice ball, fight near an old time battlefield. Awesome Factor: 6
Going off trail to get behind a waterfall with risk of woods animals and falling into the loud, very quickly moving river about 3 feet away from our very not flat walking area before making it behind the waterfall to the large iced over area. Awesome Factor: 9
Walking on frozen lake, this will have to be another blog posting of it's own, fun stuff here. Let's just say, not the smartest thing I've ever done, but it was safe-ish. Not even that long or awesome of a story, but anyway, I digress. Awesome factor: 12.573 and yes, I know that is over the scale of 10, but it was fun, my first frozen lake experience. So leave me a alone.

That pretty much sums up the ski trip activities. Skiing, which I will bring stories of in later postings, and mountain adventures. All great times. I can't wait. Only 3 and a half weeks to go!!!

~Was trying to upload a couple pictures, but Blogger.com is being stupid~

President Obama

2009-01-20T22:46:00.000-08:00

As you all must know by this point I am a very strong conservative. By no means do I hide this fact. I oppose a lot of the policies that Obama ran on, and that McCain ran on for that matter too. I do not think that Obama was the right person to lead this country right now, and I voted for McCain.

That being said here is what needs to happen from this point forward.

SUPPORT BARACK OBAMA!!

Do I have your attention for the moment??? I know I have the attention of most conservatives.

Why do I say support him if I so strongly oppose his politics? He is MY president. He was elected to be president of the greatest country in the world and in holding that office deserves your respect. I hope and pray he will have a good presidency, not because I want him in office for another 4 years, but because I want America to succeed. No matter who the president is, he deserves your and my respect. All the character assassination needs to stop immediately. All the stuff about him and Wright and his church and whatever else in his past needs to stop being brought up right now. It is completely unnecessary and useless to bring that stuff up, and frankly, disrespectful.

On a related note, I honestly think it is a good thing we have a black man as president. It shows how far our country has come from the days of the Civil War. People who dwell on his skin color, however, need to realize that his presidency has NOTHING to do with being black.

Do not misconstrue what I am saying. Never did I say you have to agree with him. Not once did I say you have to support his policies. Being able to disagree with our leaders is one of the great things about America. Just because I disagree with him on some issues does not mean I don't have the utmost respect for him. Support your president, it's what Americans do.

If I were to meet Barack Obama I would greet him in the same way I would have greeted George Bush or Ronald Reagan had I been blessed to meet him.

"Mr. President, it is an honor."

My Sister is All Grown Up

2009-01-15T09:39:00.000-08:00

Yesterday my big sister finally joined the blogging community.

Head over and read what she has to say now too. It only took months of me bugging her to finally get her on there. I'm not sure what was said to her to finally get here on there, but I am fairly sure Angela gave the final push. Thanks Angela!!

Be sure to check out Erin's Blog and Angela's Blog.

The Office Returns

2009-01-14T21:50:00.000-08:00

It's back!! I can't freaking wait!!

Stay Together for the Kids

2008-12-26T19:47:00.000-08:00

Blink 182 was usually singing about stupid nonsense, but they did have some serious stuff as well. This one is probably my favorite Blink song, or one of them...

Stay Together for the Kids - Blink 182

Here is the music video link.

"It's hard to wake up
When the shades have been pulled shut
This house is haunted
It's so pathetic
It makes no sense at all.
I'm ripe with things to say
The words rot and fall away.
If a stupid poem could fix this home
I'd read it every day.

So here's your holiday
Hope you enjoy it this time
You gave it all away
It was mine
So when you're dead and gone
Will you remember this night, twenty years now lost.
It's not right

Their anger hurts my ears
Been running strong for seven years
Rather than fix the problems, they never solve them
It makes no sense at all
I see them every day
We get along so why can't they?
If this is what he wants and this is what
she wants
Then why is there so much pain?

So here's your holiday
Hope you enjoy it this time
You gave it all away
It was mine
So when you're dead and gone
Will you remember this night, twenty years now lost
It's not right

So here's your holiday
Hope you enjoy it this time
You gave it all away
It was mine
So when you're dead and gone
Will you remember this night, twenty years now lost
It's not right"

The Gift Revolution

2008-12-03T21:43:00.000-08:00

This isn't exactly my normal posting style, but I wanted to share this with you all.

So it has been a busy week, well last two weeks. The holidays are a bit crazy in the retail world as everyone knows. Thanksgiving week is one of the three busiest weeks for me at Blockbuster, and this year was no exception. It didn't help that it was my first week back from vacation so I was somewhat less than 100% motivated to do things. It was a good week never the less. Didn't get to have Thanksgiving dinner with the family because of work, but I get Christmas day off!!

We started a new message series at Journey Church this week: The Gift Revolution... Let me start this all by talking about church two weeks ago at Oakleaf Christian Fellowship. It was probably one of the best services that I have ever been a part of. It is hard to completely say why, just those services where you know God shows up in a HUGE way. We had been going through a message series about personal and spiritual baggage. This particular week was about what to do when your best just doesn't really SEEM good enough, then realizing that no matter what, it is good enough for God. Anyway, that being said, Pastor Jeff was talking about giving random gifts to people you may not even know in an effort to touch their lives so that God work on them. Now for the rest of the story and how this ties into what happened on Friday night at work...

So I was working on Friday night, of course right?!?! Pastor Eric (Journey Church Pastor) came in and asked us how much a new release movie rental was. We responded and he said ok, here you go, the next two people that come up and rent a new release movie pay for it and give them this card. He then handed me some money and two cards for the new series that we started this past Sunday. It was really cool to see him doing that because we had just talked about that at Oakleaf the week before, see the connection now?? I get this guy that had his movie and I was just like hey, someone wanted to pay for your movie for you tonight. I handed him the card and got the opportunity to talk to him for a couple of min and invite him to Journey. Now I don't know if he ended up coming to church or what but that isn't even the point. It was cool to see how he reacted, like why would someone just want to pay for my movie for me. It is the little things in people's lives that God can take a move in a big way. It was so amazing to be able to be a small part of that. It wasn't my money, it wasn't my idea, but I got to deliver the gift to this guy who may never meet Pastor Eric ever. Who knows, maybe in five years he may be going through something and think back for some reason to that day when a random guy paid for his movie for no particular reason except to bless him in a small way, and that could be the turning point in his life.

We all get caught up in the holiday season about buying gifts for family and friends that we don't even think about the people around us. I turely believe that God can move in great ways through small sacrifices and gifts like buying the next person in line a cup of coffee for no reason except to bless their life in a small way. The point of this all is to say, take some time this holiday and even after the holidays to just do something nice for someone you don't know. Leave five dollars at Starbucks for the next person to get a free cup of coffee, or when you leave pay the bill for the table next to you. It doesn't matter if you give a dollar to someone short on change or spend twenty dollars and pay for that table's lunch. It's not about the size of the gift, its about planting the seed so that God can move in their life and make a difference.

Matthew 17:20 "..if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you."

If it only take faith the size of mustard seed to move mountains, how big of a difference can we make in the lives of the people of Jacksonville by giving small gifts.

Think about it. Small gifts of kindness open the door for God to do great and amazing things. Join me, Journey Church and countless other around the world for the gift revolution this holiday season in an effort to do something small: change the world!

Are you in?

www.TheGiftRevolution.com

And the party is over...

2008-11-25T21:33:00.000-08:00

I had a much needed vacation last week. I started with a trip to Seattle, and ended with depression, I will explain the latter shortly. Please don't be alarmed. Seattle was pretty cool. I always enjoy getting out of Jacksonville and this certainly qualified. Wednesday was my return trip, which went as well as six hours of flying cross country can. It had the normal seat that was way too small, and the random kid who everyone wants to punch in the face because he won't SHUT UP!! But as usual, his mom thought his noises were so cute that she had to let him keep on keeping on. Good thing it wasn't a six a.m. flight, oh wait, it was!

For some reason even when I got home I couldn't get to sleep, so I ended up falling asleep on my couch at about three a.m. Unfortunately Thursday is kind of a blur in my mind. The only thing I know for sure is that there was Office watching. Anywho, Friday was lunch with the sister unit and visitation with the grandparents. It was nice, I really don't go to see them enough as I would like and I owe them everything. They are amazing. Saturday took me to the Town Center where I visited the greatest store in the world: The Apple Store! I am a Mac fan, just tossing that out there.

Then we get to Sunday. Started the day with church. I have to say it was probably one of the best services ever. Music was good, message was great and then we took communion to end. Come join us, every Sunday at 10 a.m. at Oakleaf Christian Fellowship. Good times. Following church was Jaguars football featuring a 1 p.m. kickoff. First play from offense results in a fumble and a Vikings touchdown. Third overall play of the game causes a fumble on kickoff and Vikings go on to score three plays later. Needless to say the game was over in the first ninety seconds. We could have made a comeback, but like every week wejust played the first half. I know everyone is wondering, and the answer is yes; even on loosing days you have to follow all the rules to football game going, which I did. If you need a refresher read the blog entry. Following the game was the traditional Chili's consumption. Have to get my chips and queso on! Guitar Hero followed featuring myself on guitar, Devin on bass, and Erin on the drums. Always a lot of fun, and we unlocked a couple new songs in the process.

Monday I had to get up and go to work. Not cool when you have been off for a week. Kids are for some reason out of school all week. I never got that, we only got Wednesday through Friday. I have come to the conclusion that we are, as a society, getting dumber. As such they should not be extending vacation times, but making them shorter. Case and point to follow. I am the first to admit that I am no english major. I am horrible at the subject, but I for the most part talk correctly. There are those who I have serious doubts about their intelligence though. This kid comes in and decides to describe Hancock, new Will Smith movie. He goes on to tell me that he think Smith does good in "jokative" roles. Let me help you, because I know you are confused, that was joke-a-tive. Jokative. NOT A WORD!! I am all for making up words, but I do not accept this one. Not a good try, go back to school where you belong.

So here I am, watching Chronicle of Narnia (available next Tuesday) blogging. Just thought I would let you know what was going on last week while I wasn't posting here. I will be getting back into the swing this week starting now. On a completely unrelated note, I went to the store for some grocery gathering because there was NO food in the apartment. Upon returning home, I realized the quantity of beverage that we got compared to the quantity of food units. Not what the plan was, but if I could live off beverage, I would be set for a good period of time. Enjoy your thanksgiving day and if you would like to bring me food I will probably not argue with that, I have to work on Thursday.

Plane Blogging is NOT a Good Idea

2008-11-18T18:46:00.000-08:00

Situation: I am on a 6 hour flight from Charlotte to Seattle and I decide I am going to prepare a blog entry to post when I land.

Ahh Crap: So I prepare my blog posting. I spent a good 10 min typing this thing out on my phone. I decide that I want to listen to a different band as I was listening to music on my phone as well. I change the music up from a little acoustic to some New Found Glory and return to the blog.
IT IS GONE!!

Solution: I will now spend time rethinking what I wrote and attempt to recreate what was once my blog posting.

It all occurred at about 35,000 feet. I believe that was the cruising altitude. The time was 10:05 or 7:05, I know I was confused as to which time zone to refer to as I was between them heading for PST. At any rate, I am in Seattle, WA now. Finished my classes last week, and took a week off of work to have a much needed vacation. Devin has a random nerd convention to go to here, so I thought I would tag along for a couple of days and see some sights when he wasn't busy. I have never been out of the time zone, so I was real excited to "get my trip on." It was a good trip thus far. Everything was on time out of Jacksonville and Charlotte.

Security was better than the previous flying times as there was no line. The lady did look at my driver's license then back at my like 4 times before highlighting the you may fly sections of my ticket. Granted I don't so much look the same, but let's be honest, do I look like a person that is going to cause trouble. Anyway, after she decided I was in fact me, I met up with Devin, Brian and Bayer at the plane location, gate B8. Quick easy flight unfortunately in the middle seat to Charlotte. We get off the plane and check on the Jags score and grab a little food before boarding as it would be another 6 hours before we could eat.

Bayer, Devin and I were standing there waiting and Bayer points out that Tony Boselli is walking past us in the airport. Kinda cool. Devin going to find Brian and they begin stalker mode. Bayer and I stand there and say things like, "Oh, that's cool." and "Hey, Boselli just walked by." Devin and Brian cannot be this calm. They proceed to follow him over to his flight, a couple of gates down. Rather than going over and saying something to him, they watch from a distance trying to figure out if they are going to go stumble over words and speak to him, or just stay where they are and give each other high fives. I would say it was similar to a 14 year old girl seeing the Jonas Brothers or something like that. Ok, ok, maybe not that bad, but it was a little funny to Bayer and I. *Side note, they did not say anything to him, they opted for distance*

Flight to Seattle was long. A little less than 6 hours later we landed and found out the Jags lost because we suck. None-the-less, In Seattle. Much Excitement! I realize it has been a while since my last post for those of you who read, thank you, and I will attempt to not let that happen again. It was a very bust week with three classes ending and working, I just didn't have any time. It was either my blog, or pass two of my classes that I had final papers to finish up, and I chose pass two classes (the third was pretty much sealed, I had a passing grade already, just helped out my GPA with an extra letter grade).

That was the trip over here to the other side of the country. I shall post some pictures later in the week so you can see some of the cool stuff that we did over here.

P.S. The pizza has nothing to do with anything. I just like pizza.

Fun Fact Friday

2008-11-07T08:00:00.000-08:00

If your like me then you enjoy random knowledge. I am one of those people who knows a bunch of stuff, but I don't think you would really guess that from normal conversation. I'm not saying I know everything, or I can tell you anything about, well, anything. Do not take this the wrong way. I am not a big intellectual by any means. I am a big math oriented person and I like to think analytically. Ask me about derivatives or to interpret the statistical significance of a number and we are in business. However, that is about where my book smarts end. Math and science. Do not even try to go down the road of English, books, or anything remotely related to language arts; even on history I can only tell you about stuff I am very interested in.

What is the point of me telling you this? A valid question related to my ramblings. ANSWER: I LIKE USELESS KNOWLEDGE BECAUSE IT IS USUALLY COOL! Modern Marvels is a great show, and thanks to Google I could give you facts about New York city for hours.

That said, we are kicking off Fun Fact Friday today! Each week we will take a look at a few facts that you will probably never need in your entire life. You never know, you could over hear some people and be able to step in and settle the argument with a "Excuse me, not to be rude, but I heard you talking and I can answer that for you. It IS against the law whale hunt in Oklahoma. Have a nice day." I can see it in your eyes, you are looking forward to Fun Fact Friday already. While most of the facts will not be that random, they will all be useless, and for the most part interesting. I think they are at least.

I have an awesome black cat named Asher, so here we go...

This week on Fun Fact Friday: Cats

Cats sleep an average of 16 to 18 hours a day.

The nose of a cat has unique ridges just like the fingerprint of a human or stripes of a zebra.

Cat's have a heartbeat that is about twice as fast a that of a human.

25% of cat owners blow dry their cat's hair after a bath.
(side note: WTF? Are you freaking kidding me? and Who gives a cat a bath, they are self cleaning!!)

Calico cats are almost all female.

Cats wag their tails when decision making. Once they make a choice, their tail stops its motion.

Sir Isaac Newton created the cat door.

Cats will rarely meow at another cat.

The peripheral vision of a cat is around 285 degrees.

Come back next week for more knowledge. As soon as I decide what the subject will be, I will let you know.

Book Worm Wednesday

2008-11-05T10:00:00.000-08:00

Hello and welcome to the first installment of Book Worm Wednesday where we take a look at all the books I legitimately have read cover to cover. Here in installment one of three* we will dive into the world of Stephen Colbert's "I Am America And So Can You." A great read or listen, I have the audio book which is highly recommended to all, is 240 pages (3 hours, 33 min, 51 seconds for those following along as audio book 'readers') of pure brain stimulation.

Stephen covers everything from old people, to animals, to class warfare, to immigrants. This comedic take on everything political will hook you on page one and leave you craving more in the end. If you so choose to go with the printed version extra goodies are included; things such as stickers and crossword puzzles will keep give you a nice break from reading. If your like me, stickering will be a welcomed change from deciphering the words of a great mind.

Whether you want knowledge or just a fun read, "I Am America And So Can You" is the right book for you. Once you pick it up you will want to read everything, including the back cover. Let me know what you think. Also, be sure to check out Stephen's television show, The Colbert Report on Comedy Central (check your local listings). The show is like his book, but it's really like a mini 30 minute (minus profit breaks or commercials for those who aren't up with the lingo) movie version with an unending list of chapters that keeps growing each day.

Enjoy, and I will see you right back here next week for installment two of three.

Same time.
Same place.
New book.

*For those of you who are wondering, I believe the count of books I have legitimately read is about three. You may ask, "Well Brad, didn't you have to do book reports in school?" To this I answer: "www.sparknotes.com" Before that I just skipped parts of the story. I can remember sitting in class in third grade, Mrs. Pavick's class or however that lady's name was spelled, reading my book for my report. Read ten pages, skip two. Read seven pages, skip four. I know, I know, I shouldn't have, but I get bored easily. Seems to have worked out alright so far.

Jaguars Football

2008-11-02T13:03:00.000-08:00

Well another game has come and gone. Seems like the same problems every week. This was supposed to be the turning point for the team. Three straight victories over three easy teams. This did not happen, we have now lost to two of the EASY teams. The Bengals are no longer win less. Leave it up to Jacksonville to give the team that hasn't won since they play the Dolphins LAST SEASON. What has happened to our team!? We were awesome, we were going to be one of the teams to beat in order to get to the playoffs; which it now seams everyone is doing with relative ease.

I know I talked in a post last week about game educate, but something needs to be said about watching games at home. Just because you are not at the game does not mean that you cannot get into it. By all means, you should be in the game if you are at home. They need your support when the game is away as well. I was over at a friend's house watching the game, in HD by the way which is awesome I am very jealous, and apparently got a big too emotional for the females that showed up around the third quarter. Football is a way of life, therefore emotion is involved. It is devastating when your team looses and even more so when they loose to a win less team!

Please ladies, just a little note to you... Let the guys have football time, and just understand that the game can cause some mixed emotions. Then after the game, being down is possible if we happen to loose. Rest assured, the depression will pass.

Let's see if we can turn this around next week please Jags.

Football Games

2008-10-27T23:58:00.001-07:00

What is better than sitting at home on a Sunday afternoon with your Root Beer watching a football game? Answer: Being at a football with your $5 Mountain Dew! Well that is where I try to be if the Jaguars decide they are going to have a home game. It's lots of fun whether they win or loose. You get to go hang out with your friends and sometimes get into scuffles with other fans. There are, however, rules to going to a football game:

1. You must cheer at the appropriate moments, this includes but is not limited to the following sub list

touchdowns
field goals
4th down conversions
3rd down stops on defense
Big John Henderson making a tackle
opposing team has a fan get kicked out of the stadium
Peyton Manning getting hit followed by a good hardy cry while he lays on the ground attempting to get a roughing the passer call (this is applicable when they show highlights from around the league as well)

2. You must help move the chains. Contrary to popular belief in Jacksonville the chains are moved only by the crowd. This helps save payroll so we can pay Matt Jones. He has to afford that crack somehow.

3. Standing during big plays is a must, offensive or defensive. If you don't please just stay home, you are useless to us. Same goes for those who are too cool to move the chains.

4. Do NOT, under any circumstances dance to the crazy music played at the game. You look crazy and embarrass the entire group. It isn't a rave or a hoedown. Save that stuff for a high school homecoming dance. Actually, it isn't even good there, just forget that you think you look awesome doing it and never try to dance again. If you need further proof of why dancing is off limits please see my Facebook page for a picture of what those people look like. (WARNING: it is a picture of me, I look awesome, you will NOT!)

5. If standing and cheering annoys the lesser fans you are obligated to continue standing and cheering even if you no longer feel like it or decide you need a break. This one does have a reason behind it, please inquire if you must know the story.

6. Yell at the opposing team's fans even if you are loosing. They are going to say something if they win regardless of how nice you are, that's just how they are when they win in your house. This way if you have a come from behind victory, which is all we have in Jacksonville, you can yell back something clever like, "that's how we roll." be sure to follow that with some sort of jaguar roar or yell loudly to show that you are superior and if necessary make comments that your sister has a better arm than their quarterback, which is true if Leftwich is in the game, although not discounting my sister to be better than some other quarterback.

7. Finally, be awesome. You only get the chance to enjoy a football game 8 or 10 times a year. Make it worth the sweat and get some nachos, the place out to around section 215 is much better than the one by 223 where they have crazy triangle chips. What's the deal guys?!? And they are crazy colors if the triangles aren't enough of a reason to go elsewhere.

Those are the basics. Next week put on your game-ness and go do things right. Please note that it takes a pro to accomplish all of this, especially number 7, being awesome is much more difficult than it sounds. So don't get frustrated if it takes a while to get them all.

Game on.

I am NOT a cat!!

2008-10-18T21:41:00.000-07:00

I am not going to say that it is beyond me to compare people to animals. A girl that is, unfortunately, unattractive could be called a horse. In extreme circumstances, a mule. At one point a new category was created with currently only one occupant that has an enormous nose, pterodactyl.

Recently however, I was told that I was a cat. This was not an explanation of me likened unto a cute furry creature, or a cunning hunter. No. This person said I was literally a cat because I had never met her and thought I was fictional.

This is false, let it be known, I am not a cat. I am a living human being, anything other than this is untrue and is defamation of character. I will sue.

It's going to be legendary!

2008-10-17T22:24:00.000-07:00

This marks the day when I shall speak, however often I feel is necessary, to the world.

I can tell you it is gong to be legendary!