You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April, 2007.
Watch: Beirut – Elephant gun
Listen: Feist – The Reminder
Read: Beware of Black Swans
I was inspired to start these little culture lessons by a neighbor I met the other day. He’s doing his graduate research studying the accessibility of information across generations and how that affects generational intelligence and metrics. He’s basically saying that kids today aren’t dumb, they simply have a quicker pathway to data, and are used to using those pathways at a high level. 40 years ago, a high school student would have to study multiple hours a day, searching out many different sources (at multiple locations) to get access to the type of education research tools an average modern day high school student could get to at 2 in the morning. So a 10 page paper on famous court ruling in American History would logically take weeks back in 1960 to research and write. Today you can do it in a few hours while tossing back some Red Bulls. Kids aren’t dumber or smarter. They simple have access to a more nimble information system. This nimbleness means that a large base of information no longer needs to be memorized. He’s then analyzing generations and what would be considered “necessary.” Really fun shit to talk about when tossing back a few drinks. So I decided it was time to invest more money in sharing information on this blog besides dumb stories about my life.
So I’m turning 25 in about 24 hours from now. I guess that means I can rent a car now. I think that’s officially the last “thing” I get until I’m eligible to collect Social Security. Wheeeee. Things are going well, so I really can’t bitch about anything in life, but my birthday still seems hollow somehow. I’ll treat myself to some heavy decorating of my apartment, followed with hosting some friends and drinking.
In other news, I might be able to get up to Lawrence in a few weeks. My old boss is leaving, so I’d like to come to her reception. It’s on a Wednesday, so that sucks as far as my work week goes. One way or another, I promise to get up there for some drinking shenanigans.
I can’t sleep right now. Not because of any substances I’ve put in my body, but because the building next to mine tripped their fire alarm. Let me be plain about this: it’s the entire building. 48 apartments plus a large concrete parking garage. All going off at the same time. Echoing. Into my entire apartment.
But, I did get to meet some nice neighbors, seeing as I did the nice thing and bring all the cold people blankets and snacks. Because I’m a nice guy, damnit, even if I’m sleepy and cranky.
Life has been stupidly busy lately. Just a lot of “wake up, go to work, come home, watch some TV, go to sleep” kind of days. Today’s big adventure is a trip to World Market to shop for furniture and decor, and then off to Central Market to buy groceries. Wooooo. The party never stops. Sadly, I get some joy out of filling my apartment with stuff. I got some new Henckel knives this week, and man do they kick ass. The chef’s knife just slides through an onion like it was butter. So worth the extra money.
In other news, I realized I’m turning 25 in two weeks. How weird is that? This came up when I realized my sister turned 27 last month. A quarter century. Three more to go. Hmmm.
I’m finally settling in to my apartment and my routines. I have to say it’s quite fun. Tonight, I came home from work, took a walk to the shops to get a smoothie, came back, set my DVR to record 24, and then turned on the championship game. At one point, I was watching the game in HD, while on my cell phone as part of a conference call, while my chicken tikka masala was simmering, and paying my energy bill on my laptop. How the hell did people ever get along without technological multitasking?
In other news, I had lunch with my boss today. Randy schedules everybody for lunch and cycles through the company, and it was finally my turn. Rather than going to some fancy restaurant because lunch was on him, I opted for Freebirds because they are just the best damn burritos around. He found this amusing, which I think is a good thing. Turns out he loves Freebirds as much as me. Lunch was good, and it left me with some odd observations. There are some younger people at work that have started to act… what’s a good way to phrase this… exactly like I did 3 or 4 year ago. That “I’m hot shit, get out my way, I want to lead even if it means pissing off everybody around me” kind of attitude. (See, I actually have gotten humbler.) Some of the ways I was beginning to describe them and what kind of growth I wanted to see out of them sounded familiar to me. Then I realized it was exactly how people like Karen, Justin, Margaret, and Drew used to talk to me. So I guess a little thank you goes out to everybody that put up with my shit back then and talked me down so often. You were right. So that was a nice grounding moment.
In other news, fuck that championship game. I didn’t want either team to win. I hate Florida. I hate Ohio State. I was hoping the floor would collapse.
Update: Just did my taxes (my real taxes, not my Bungalow “taxes”) and I’m getting $900 back. Take that government. Time to put that in my severely depleted saving account and let it gain some brothers and sisters. God that sounds more boring than I intended.
