g.o.a.t.

I thought this was a pretty cool article and ad. Although I'm not a big follower of the NBA and haven't watched too many games, the movements and images are instantly recognizable.

Random Thought

Where do ice cream trucks go in the winter?

I was just wondering because we live right by a park and during the summer, without fail, you'll hear the songs of an ice cream truck every day. I haven't heard them in awhile. Do they migrate south for the winter like birds? Are ice cream truck drivers nomads?

I wonder how lucrative such a business is. I remember in grade school we'd sell ice cream on Fridays, similar to ones you'd find on an ice cream truck. I was privy to the accounting information and knew that it cost like ten cents per ice cream but we sold it for fifty cents. Haha. I remember some days there would be a batch of melted ones and we usually just threw those out. Being the shrewd business man I am, I suggested we sell them for 25 cents each. We'd still make a profit. Ahhh. The cutthroat world of an ice cream salesman.

Cheap Communication

You know what's pretty cool in my book? The Internet. What's great about it, besides the fact that I can waste an obscene amount of time doing nothing (like this blog), is that it's a great tool for work. Actually, without it, I wouldn't be able to work from home.

One subset of that tool, VOIP, has proven to be a great money-saver. If you've used Skype then you know what I'm talking about. The idea of using your computer as a phone never really appealed to me because a real phone just seemed more practical. But now using something like Yahoo! Messenger is almost a necessity for the particular project I'm working on. I'm working with another programmer based in the UK. Going over code sometimes takes hours. What's great about it, too, is that it's an instant messenger so he can send me code snippets for more clarification whenever we go over something.

I know I could use AIM to do the same thing but it's not as prevalent outside of the US. There's also Google Talk which I wouldn't mind using but it's feature set isn't as robust (but the Google Talk integrated with Gmail is pretty cool).

Going off on a tangent - I can't wait for Google to release a Calendar program that would integrate with Gmail. I was starting to use my Microsoft Outlook more and I still do, but synching up my desktop and laptop isn't an easy task.

And I'll stop with the geekiness now. Just thought I'd share.

Employed!

A strange thing happened yesterday. I joined a company payroll.

The whole process has been pretty sudden. Over the last week or two I've been in contact with a consulting firm looking to bring on some more resources. My cousin-in-law recommended me to this position and with his endorsement I was able to get an initial phone interview as well as a technical interview. Total phone interview time? Thirty minutes. Total interview time in person? Zero minutes. Employment offers? One.

I'm not complaining, though. It seems like a great chance to learn a lot and I'm really looking forward to this opportunity. When I was younger I knew I wanted to be rich. It might take me ten years but at least I'm making my first steps. Haha.

Introspection

So it's about an hour before I board my plane and I'm sitting here in the Tampa Airport terminal, my laptop connected to an outlet providing the power to the outlet of thoughts as I contemplate how this year's gone for me with one more full day left in the fifth year of the third millennium anno domini (or Common Era for those who don't recognize the whole Almighty thing). Rarely do I wear the watch my parents gave me for my graduation from college but I decided to start in order to try to look a little more professional (nevermind that the people I worked with all thought I was older already). I always wondered if it was real or real fake and someone here said an easy way to tell was whether (tangent: the weather here is pretty damn nice for a late December day) the second hand moved smoothly or it ticked at every second. And that's how I'll describe how my year went. It was real.

I guess that doesn't really make sense but the way I look at it is that it kind of just went by as a blur. I tried thinking back and the whole year kind of melds into one. This differs from last year where I can point to a couple of different events here and there that are more or less significant (e.g. Officially done with school, New Orleans, Summer, Europe, Mexico). Maybe another analogy might be something like, last year was bullet points as opposed to this year's paragraph.

I don't really think it's a bad thing. Perhaps it's just a sign of aging. I read an article about how as you age, time seems to move more quickly. One theory is that because things don't change as often, we don't notice things as much. And I guess this year remained pretty status quo for me. I went back and looked through my blogs and I couldn't find many (there's probably a good number of reasons).

The biggest change has been my occassional business trips. But for the most part, I'm at home. Maybe things are just getting a little more real. I'm slowly assimilating into the real world; I'm going from home-body, jobless, college graduate to a professional, but very slowly. It feels like there should be something more to this year for me but when I look back at it, I don't know how I'd describe it. But then again, I don't know how I'd describe the year before last, or the year before that. Maybe last year was my last kick-ass year. Man. How depressing.

New Year's resolution: Make 2006 a kick-ass year with a bullet.

And lose some damn weight you fat ass.

"Booya"

I know most of these are stupid but I get a kick out of some of them. Some even warrant a guffaw out loud and I think, "I'm an idiot for thinking these are funny." I was going to save some of these and use them to describe various friends but that would just be stealing. So here they are:

The Top Thirty Random Vin Diesel Facts. And the inspiration for the title of this particular post: The Top Thirty Random Chuck Norris Facts. As a plus for the Chuck Norris ones, here's some funny videos from Conan O'Brien's show and "Walker: Texas Ranger".

Musophobia (aka Murophobia)

While I wouldn't want anyone to question my manliness, it has recently come to my attention that I may have a fear of mice. I don't know that my fear can be classified as a real phobia but, I do know that it takes quite a bit of courage for me to confront mice (mind you, ones of the Bluetooth and optical laser variety I am quite comfortable with). Although in a pet store I may be able to handle one, the wild mus musculus is another story.

I've spent the last week and a half at my parents' new house in Roseville, CA helping my dad paint various rooms and making sure the landscapers are doing their job. Late one night earlier in the week, my brother and I heard scratching noises coming from the walls and assumed a mouse was there. We didn't see it but knew there had to be something in the walls. Rather than get normal mousetraps you see in cartoons, my parents decided to buy glue traps. Basically, they're pads that a mouse will run onto but won't be able to leave. We laid the traps late last week.

Everyone left on Sunday while I stayed behind. Before my dad left, he made sure to tell me, "If a mouse is caught, don't leave it for us to clean up." I was good until I was about to leave on Tuesday. As luck would have it, while I was getting ready to leave, there a mouse was stuck to the glue trap. It screamed. It violently jerked trying to free itself of its sticky confines. I shuttered.

For a good fifteen to thirty minutes I argued with myself about whether or not I should take the mouse out or leave it and say, "I never saw a mouse." I finally gathered up the courage to approach it and everytime I got closer, it shook more. I knew that as much as I couldn't stand it, it was scared even more. Finally, I decided to get a paper cup and cover it so I wouldn't see it shaking and put it into a plastic bag. As much as I didn't like the mouse, I didn't like the cruel and slow death it was going to face. But I guess I had to do it, so I left it in our garbage can and wiped the sweat off my brow.

I can't believe such a small thing required me to gather up the courage to face it. I swear I walked past it a couple of times keeping my eyes in an opposite direction so I wouldn't see it. Hearing it and watching it struggle to get out was horrible. I hope I don't have to do that again.