A long time

It's been a while since I've posted in here, so there's some ground to cover.

To start with, let's begin with my continuing efforts to rehabilitate my ability to actually take people to interesting places as the alpha dog, instead of as the sidekick that I'm used to being. Many of you might remember this more as my attempts to break Danielle out of her shell; however, I've chosen to redefine the goal. Simply put, I've noticed that many people are interesting even when they're not being actively encouraged to be so. I've decided to take it upon myself to attempt to adopt this ability into my personality, something which does not come naturally. Normally, I'm better at being the #2 guy - I can do just about anything that anyone else wants to do, and oftentimes, I can get it done better, faster, louder, whatever, you name it. Trouble is, I usually have to have someone get the ball rolling for me.

Well, no longer. I'm turning a new leaf, and though it's difficult, I think I'm making progress.

Consider the following...

In the past two weeks, I took Danielle out to the comedy club in the Hilton, went to a couple of parties with her hosted by her friends (should've been more proactive here - even Danielle admitted they were pretty lame), and took her to Flowing Tide where we took some steps toward establishing what kind of alcohol she likes. Turns out she's really into orange-flavored stuff. Cool!

There is still a long road ahead, however. She still has not been drunk in a true group setting, I still haven't taken her to a halfway decent party yet... the list goes on. But, give me time. I'm getting there.

Part of the problem is the level of guidance I've received in these matters over the years. I thought about attempting to pretend that I was with Sarah, and behaving accordingly... however, I don't think binge drinking and getting really high while driving to Boca is Danielle's idea of a good time, and frankly, I'd much rather not have a DUI on my record. Going to Boomtown and dancing with 40-year-old women again is right out. Going clubbing could work - Danielle has expressed a surprising level of willingness and flexibility towards going to normal clubs, even if they play some music she might not be normally into. I think this is something which may be encouraged, if not actively supported. Best of all, this gets me out of my shell in the process of getting her out of hers... in time, this will all work out magnificently.

Meanwhile, on the work front, I may soon be taking the first of four tests to get my MCSA. With any luck, it'll be the beginning of the long road of becoming a certified technician. Good times.

On a completely unrelated note, I am NOT the Muffin Man.

Oh, if you have some strong intestinal fortitude, perhaps try Stinkymeat.net. Just don't say I didn't warn you.

Back from the East

Saw my son last weekend; this was a very, very good thing. I don't get to see him anywhere near enough. His mother's making noise about having him stay with me for a month while she goes out of town... I'm not sure if she'll actually go through with it, but if it comes to that, well, I'll have my son for a month. I could think of worse things. *grin*

I've come to two inescapable conclusions:

1. I should try to talk my work into letting me get an Apple certification or two. I mean, c'mon - some of our clients have Macs. Why not branch out a little? Besides, Mac people LOVE blowing money on stuff - that's why they have Macs! (Okay, okay - I'm a Mac person too, and I know that, in the long run, it's a hell of a lot cheaper and a lot more satisfying to go with Mac over just about anything else, but I still gotta say it. Besides, Mac users are usually preppy, pretentious, snobbish people that are more than willing to spend money on status. This works great if you work for them because, hey, you're maintaining their status! Sweet.)

2. I am starving. I'm running off of a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and a can of Mountain Dew, both of which I had this morning. Trouble is, it's almost 6 p.m. now, and I had both of those by 8 a.m. This whole feast or famine thing has got to go... though it is fun actually being a computer geek and doing something on computers that forces you to ignore your natural bodily functions. Good times.

As an interesting aside, I helped my ex with her Myspace photos over the weekend. If you can think of anything more disturbing than trying to help your ex get into "good" poses so she can impress someone else, well... I'll be honest, I don't like looking at her with my eyes, much less a camera! Good lord. Now I remember why I started drinking in the first place.

That's all for now. The White Sox are up two games to none, which means that, ultimately, the Cubs must REALLY suck.

UPDATE: Danielle (g/f) just called; she's picking up pizza right now and, by the time I get up there, it will be ready for mass consumage. She is quite possibly the best girlfriend ever. I'm also quite possibly saying that because I'm starving and am two steps away from devouring my left leg. Either that, or it's because she's the best girlfriend ever. Maybe both. Who cares? She's buying me pizza!

Odd dream

I don't remember a whole lot about this dream, so please bear with me.

Last night, I had a rather odd dream that really stuck with me. It started with me staring at some desert mountains, which my brain told me were between myself and Virginia City. It wasn't Geiger Grade, though; there weren't anywhere near enough buildings, the mountains were too green, and I'm not even sure they were the right shape. Anyways, somehow, it went from there to me being in this large apartment complex, but something was wrong. Everyone was gone from the city; I'm not sure what city it was, but I'm assuming it was here. Something had happened that caused everyone to evacuate, and everything was a mess. There wasn't power in most of the buildings anymore, everything looked like it was falling apart, and it seemed that some sort of natural disaster had happened, like an earthquake or something (no, not a flood - even my subconscious isn't that trendy). However, there was power in the apartment I was in, which wasn't very large. There were also a couple of people staying with me; I'm not sure, but I think one of them was my mom. Anyways, after a while, I noticed that people were starting to come into town from the east; to the west was the rest of the town, which was in progressively worse shape the farther you went. In fact, as far as I knew in my dream, my apartment was the westernmost point with electricity in town, which was a source of pride for me since, at night, that meant I was the last light until total darkness. Most of the people coming into town from the east were there to see what had happened in the town, and most of them were in cars; there were some people walking towards the east, however. As an aside, during the day, nobody was traveling anywhere; the people began to slowly arrive at sunset, and then it became something of a flood during the dark, though very few cars passed my apartment; all I saw were lots of cars driving around to the east, getting close to my apartment, but never passing it.

I have no idea what it means, but maybe it's important. Maybe it's not. Either way, it was definitely interesting, and worth reporting.

I hate it when the rubber breaks.

Yesterday, when I got off work, I discovered that my tire was flat. It turned out there was a razor poking in it. So, I went to put the spare on, only to find that the stock 1990 Chevy Lumina lug wrench, though very handy in its ratcheting ability, was unable to get a decent hold of the lug nuts due to some incredibly poor craftsmanship on the part of the wrench. Fortunately, the coworker who was on site with me at the time had a functional wrench, which we were able to use to change the tire, put on the spare, and all that. It was still annoying, however.

But not as annoying as today. I wake up a good half hour early so that I can pick up my repaired tire from the shop that I dropped it off at last night. It wasn't fixed - okay, no biggie, I'll pick it up during lunch. I get there during lunch and, lo and behold, instead of it being ready to put on, it turns out they had a mixup and put on a new tire on there! Whoops. So, I end up sitting in the shop for a good half hour while they pull my tire out of the trash, repair it, and put it back where it belongs. Very annoying, and it cut into my lunch time severely.

I've come to the conclusion that my current job is my calling. I spent so many years learning how to program, but what have I been doing in my spare time? I almost never program anything in my spare time. What do I do? I play around - I try to run various OS'es on my computer, play with the different programs, set up QuickTime streaming servers so I can listen to my music at work, stuff like that. In other words, I do exactly what I'm getting paid to do now when left to my own devices, which means that I'm clearly doing what I need to do. Even so, my programming background will definitely help out; they need someone to learn how to properly program a database, and I love tinkering with stuff like that. So, my seven years of college (okay, five with a two year break) will still pay off in the long run, just not the way I originally intended. Besides, if Yvette does what she says she might, I'll get a good excuse to play with a Mac server, which kicks ass in so many different ways.

The good news is, as I get more and more satisfied with my job, I've noticed I've been getting more and more satisfied with my life in general. My car doesn't seem so bad, at least when the tires stay inflated. My apartment... well, I've always liked my little apartment. It's perfect for me. My girlfriend? Heck, she's awesome! It's amazing how a good job ties into everything, which is also kind of scary because, well, what happens when I have a crappy job? Ah well - no worries about that for the moment. Even more importantly, I now know that I have A LOT to learn, so guess what I'll be doing? That's right - learning! Sweet.

You wish you had one of these.



Mine's white, though.

A Reorientation

Ah... this blog used to be my political blog, but then I stopped writing in it. So, it has been remaneuvered into a more personal blog, one for a very small audience. This works out well for me anyways.

So, what kind of stuff shall I go on about here? My girlfriend? My life? My feelings, ambitions, and so forth? I don't know - I do have a Y chromosome, which kind of precludes me from getting too terribly emo and deep here, but I'll attempt to bare my soul without cringing too much. Then again, it's not something I'm terribly gung-ho about advertising, which is why this blog is suddenly unlisted. Ha! Try and search for it! You'll never find me!

My brain tends to wander sometimes. Many people have noticed this; some have asked when it's going to return. Lately, in no small part due to the various personal issues affecting dear ol' Sarah, well, I've been thinking about life, the universe, and my girlfriend lately. After all, I'm 25, my career is starting to go somewhere, Danielle and I have been together for close to a year and a half with only one major incident (my bad on that one), and it's getting close to the time where thoughts often turn towards the future. I can't imagine life without her. Can I imagine life married to her?

The answer is... I don't know. The thought of marrying her doesn't scare me as much as it used to, but I still feel some fear and trepidation about it. I'm not anxious to get married, which means I probably shouldn't, which is why I'm not rushing to do any ring shopping or anything. It works out well on her end, too - she claims that she's okay with that and is in no hurry to get married, either. However, she does occasionally mention things like a honeymoon and so forth, but it's difficult to determine how much of it is because her friends are talking about/are already married and how much of it is a genuine desire on her part to settle down. It doesn't help that she's a little too much like me; she doesn't like to rock the boat, so she'll keep her mouth shut until she can't bear it anymore, which often leads to some interesting but unpleasant consequences. I've been focusing recently on fixing that particular problem in my personality; I'm not sure if she even realizes it's a problem.

Back to the point, I'll be honest. I'm not sure if I want to get married to an aspiring tattoo artist. I mean, I was raised old-school, filled with large dreams that didn't even remotely resemble the lifestyle I was raised in. My family, especially on my mom's side, was proud, but my mom's branch was poor. She was a Young Republican in high school - heck, she was the president of her high school's Young Republican chapter. She went to USC as a Poly Sci major. She wanted to work in the UN, be an ambassador, that kind of thing.

She instead got pregnant with me. Don't think for a minute that she ever let me live that down, either. Well, I take that back; she was okay with me, for the most part. My dad, on the other hand... well, it's no mystery why they got divorced. The only mystery is why and how they put up with each other for so long.

Anyways, in a wonderful case of parental life transferrance, she filled me with all kinds of big dreams. She warned me about condoms by telling me that it's not uncommon for girls to poke holes in them to get themselves pregnant so they can take your money for child support - so, always bring your own. This is the kind of parental advice I was raised on. She also told me, as did her mother, to always think ahead, which is generally good, except that it also included such things as making sure you're with a "proper" woman, one that you wouldn't mind showing off in public, in the newspapers, and so forth. They told me to always make sure I found a woman that I could take to expensive dinners without fear, a woman that I could take to political functions without problem, one that could bear public scrutiny and all that good stuff.

In other words, I was raised to be a preppy.

Instead, I turned out like my dad - too apathetic to even be a hippy, but at least as free spirited as one. I became an atheist... no, an Objectivist. That's not going to fly in politics or anything like that. But, it still would be nice to be with a woman that I can take to nice places, should I ever get the inclination to do so... and that's not quite as uncommon as I try to lead people around me to believe.

Instead, I'm going out with a girl that has a giant tattoo on her back and wants to put more on people professionally. I'm going out with a girl that hates large crowds, social gatherings, and is about as naturally outgoing as an engineer. In other words, I'm with a woman that I can barely take to Carrow's, who barely tolerates going to parties unless they're being hosted by people she knows VERY well, and who will never, EVER be comfortable in any sort of bar-type situation. Don't get me wrong - she'll dress up once in a while, and she's willing to eat at fairly nice places once in a while... but she feels bad about ordering more than $10 worth of food because she "doesn't eat enough to justify it." This isn't normally a bad thing - I'm not rich. In fact, it's kind of refreshing. But, as time goes on and I get more successful, this could be a bit of an issue.

So, here I am. Now, don't get me wrong. I love her deeply. She's been kind, caring, sweet... we almost never argue, and when we do, it's almost over before it's even started. We have many similar interests, and how many girls out there would be cool with going to a dusty dinosaur fossil exhibit in the middle of nowhere with myself and my best friend? Now, how many would be cool with DRIVING myself and my best friend there in HER CAR? Well, I'm with her. I just sometimes wonder if, well... I sometimes wonder what'll happen when I want to do something a little more... social? I don't know.

More on this next time.

Question 1

I've decided it's time to post something substantial here, so I'm going to try and cover the various questions (all eight of them) on the ballot this year in Nevada, give my thoughts on them, and see where it goes from there. One resource that helped out incredibly was the Easy Voter Guide, which included the text of the sample questions, the candidates, and most anything else you might need to make an informed decision this election.

So, to start with, Question 1:

(Directly from the above linked site):

What Question #1 would do:

Require the State Legislature to approve the funding for K–12 public schools before funding any other part of the state budget. If approved by the voters in 2004 and 2006, this would become part of the State Constitution.

To give some historical perspective on this question, it's a public referendum that's been going around, and this is the first time it's hit, which means that it has to be approved twice before it goes into effect (hence the 2004 and 2006 clause). It's a direct result of the special session that happened a year ago, when Gov. Guinn wanted to pass his budget, yet was unable to get the 2/3rd support he needed from both houses to raise taxes. This led to a court decision, which paved the way for new taxes to be passed, that overturned the 2/3rds requirement by stating, in part of the majority opinion written by Chief Justice Deborah Agosti:

"If the procedural two-thirds revenue vote requirement in effect denies the public its expectation of access to public education, then the two-thirds requirement must yield to the specific substantive educational right."
- Las Vegas Review-Journal, July 11, 2003

I mention this because it proves, to me at least, that Question 1 is simply not necessary. The Nevada Supreme Court has already stated that public education must be funded. Consequently, there's no need to require the Legislature to fund education first since, according to the courts, it would be against the Nevada Constitution to fail to fund education. If anything, it's a knee-jerk reaction to a situation that, ultimately, was handled the way it should have been - with plenty of debate, discussion of the issues, and some compromise.

Therefore, my vote on Question 1 will be "No."

However, I'd like to hear from the rest of you on this - what do you think about it, and why?

Also, to those of you from Reno, like myself, who may be wondering why I'm linking to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, it's because, unlike the Reno Gazette-Journal, the LVRJ lets me search through their entire archive without going through the Washoe County Library system, among other things. In terms of time saved and so forth, that's a huge bonus right there. I will still try to get access to the RGJ archives when I get a chance, but until then, I'm going to go with the resources available to me, and the easiest one is, unfortunately, the LVRJ.

Thus it begins...

Here we go...

Time for me to do one of those cliche "Welcome to my blog!" posts here.

For those of you that might randomly and accidentally stumble across this blog, or were perhaps guided to this blog by yours truly, I'm basically going to write about whatever strikes my fancy. A lot of the time, that will be politics. Sometimes it'll be sports. Sometimes, it'll be local happenings in Reno, my home town. It simply depends on what will hit my mood.

Since I recently received my sample ballot in the mail, here's a warning - first up will probably be me covering the issues in that sample ballot.