Smells like a new blog

New Blog smell isn't exactly a new car smell or something equally noticeable, but it's still new.
It's been awhile since I've been on the ol' bloggy, so I decided to update my tens of readers before I left on my highfalutin (or however you spell that) vacation.
My family and I leave for Hawaii tomorrow (an 8.5 hour flight from Minneapolis to Honolulu) to go on an island cruise! We're stopping at all the main islands, and I have no idea right now how many there actually are, but there's a bunch. We're going on the cruise with my mom's extended family, so my aunts and uncles and one set of grandparents and all those type people. All in all we'll add up to 23 people.
Now, I've never been on a cruise, so I have no idea what to expect. We may be doing the shuffleboard-Vegas-show-old-people-Branson-on-a-boat type things (I hope not), or we may just hang around the pool-within-the-bigger-pool-known-as-the-ocean until we're sunburnt and fat on free cruise food. I don't know yet. I do know that we'll be doing all the touristy type stuff like this shop and that volcano park, but I don't know exactly what each off-boat excursion will entail.
I do know one thing about the trip: I have about a 1000-1500 limit on the pictures I can take, and I plan on getting as close to that as humanly possible. That very well may be filling up my already almost-full hard drive.

In other news, I'm home! I've finished my first semester of my junior year at KU, and hopefully only have 3 more to go, barring any unforeseen catastrophe. Next semester I'll be taking the last of my non-journalism classes. I will also be working for the student paper as a reporter for a class, so I can get experience and class credit, all in one. I'll also be taking some other classes, but I can't remember them at all right now. I'll check on that once I get back to Lawrence sometime in January.
Ah, to be a young, carefree college kid. (insert scoff here)

For those tens of you that read my blog but don't know my mother, she has also started a blog (in an effort to become hip and cool and cool and hip and all up ons) called Just Enough Light. You should all check it out.

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Now playing: Hans Zimmer - Hunger
via FoxyTunes

New Photo Site!

Since Google is taking over the world, I decided to help them out. I'm now using Picasa Web Albums to post my pictures online instead of Photobucket. It's a lot easier, and it's integrated with Picasa.
I've just put a bunch up from this past year, and a bunch from Navigator events. Enjoy!

One Free Night A Week.

Hence the lack of blog posts. Monday I lead a Bible Study, Tuesday I have leadership team for Navs, Wednesday I have music practice for Nav Night, Thursday I have Nav Night, and Friday night I am free (hear that, ladies? Hehe). That....and I really haven't made time for it.
*Ashamed Face*
Life has been going good here at KU. It's much easier to get into the swing of things once you've already done it twice. Classes are going good for the most part. My Western Civ class is a LOT of reading (including some wonderful *snore* Plato), but kinda interesting. My Political Theory class....well....let's just say that no other human should have to take a class from this goofball. He's a big fancy-schmancy pants from Rutgers who's "used to 90 minute classes" and "can't repeat sentences. I don't have a replay button." He thinks he's all that and a can of worms, so when he lectures, it's just a bunch of big words and ramblings to make himself sound smart. He actually lectures straight out of the text (with a few pointless long ramblings), so I know what he's trying to talk about. He actually used the word pejorative about 4 times the first class period. My photojournalism class is going really well. The prof is the photo editor at the KC Star, so he really knows his stuff. He's funny, he's informative, and he actually helps all of us figure out our cameras. For instance, he taught us how to take pictures in Manual with no flash, just by adjusting the aperture and shutter speed according to what the light meter says. If that made sense to you, mad props. If it didn't, don't worry. It didn't until two weeks ago for me. My child psych class is really interesting, and I am looking forward to learning lotsa stuff to help me parent, if/when that ever happens. I also get to sit next to a girl from Navs who's a lot of fun to talk to during class. She already took a developmental psych class last year, so she usually spends the time studying for other classes. She's fun, though. I'm also taking an editing class that has so far been a bunch of practice. Which is good, because I can already see a difference in my editing capabilities.
Aside from classes and my full night schedule....hmmm. My roommates and I all pitched in 5 bucks a month and got Netflix, which has been a lot of fun. We all have a list of movies that we've never seen and want to, and now we can! For a heckuva lot cheaper than Hasting's or Blockbuster.
I've done worship once so far at Christ Community, and it was Maggie's inaugural worship experience there. She did well. I'm up next week, too.
And now, as I am sitting in the Budig computer lab listening to "Live and Let Die" by Paul McCartney and the Wings, sipping my Full Throttle Unnecessarily Large Energy Drink, I must leave again. Western Civ beckons to me from Wescoe 3140. Weee.



















Here's a great video of one my new favorite artists, Damien Rice. The song is called "Volcano."

Back in the Saddle again...kind of

Well, I'm back in Lawrence now. Have been since Monday, but just haven't gotten around to blogging yet.
I left Hutchinson after church on the 12th, and after Maggie's (my newest guitar) worship team debut, and drove 4 hours to Ames, Iowa, where I have family. They weren't actually there, but I was able to use their house to sleep in, which was very nice. They actually had a plaster tree built into the side of the wall. (see picture)
yeah. Don't really know what the point of that was.
Anyways...after a night there, I drove the remaining 4 hours to Lawrence. Driving for the most part went okay...it just got really tiring really fast. I had my iPod hooked up to an FM transmitter so I could listen to it on my stereo. The only big cities I had to drive through were Des Moines and KC, and both weren't too bad. Lawrence traffic was, and is, by far the worst. Most major roads are four lane, and a huge percentage of the drivers are college students.
Which, by stereotype, aren't exactly the best drivers (I'm only guilty sometimes).
Classes started on Thursday, but I've only had one. The two others I have scheduled are discussion sections for lectures I haven't had yet. The one I did have was Child Psych, which looks very interesting.
Other than that one class (busy, I know), I've been running errands, buying cables to get various electronics in the room working, eating at Sonic again (for the first time in a long time today! Yummmm!), and seeing old buddies. I'm actually going to "The Bourne Ultimatum" again tonight with some of them. Wooohoo!
The room's pretty nice. I'm on the sixth floor in something called the Jayhawker Towers now, or just the Towers. They used to be private apartments, but the university bought them a while back and now they're university-operated apartments. We have a very small kitchen, and a pretty good-sized living room. I like it.
My window I'm right next to right now is a little creepy...There's four Towers (A-D), and they all face a central courtyard. My window faces the courtyard, and therefore looks into a buncha other rooms, too. That's why they have blinds.
Well....that's about it for the Lawrence news. Be sure to check back for more excitement!







PHOTO BONUS:

The New Hairstyle!

My Summer (sans 3M and pre KU)

Well, since the last post was a feature on where most of my summer has been taking place, here's what I'm doing when I'm not at 3M. Only a few more days up in the FWOM* until I go back to Lawrence!

On the weekends, I've been hanging out with my friend Jeremy a bunch. We usually just watch movies and talk (or rather, he talks and I listen) and take the occasional road trip (we went to St. Cloud so I could help him buy a camera. Since I'm like a camera expert or something). We've been friends since halfway through 9th grade, or the beginning of 10th grade...but that's besides the point. We've been friends for a long time.

During the week, I usually meet with my pastor Dan Moose (yes, funny name I know). We're going through the book of Nehemiah so I can begin to grow as a spiritual leader. I'm really excited about what I've learned, and I know that God will present multiple opportunities to test it out. Nehemiah was the governor of Judah right after the Jews got out of exile, and he took it upon himself to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

I'm also a part of the Joshua Team next year at KU which is a leadership training thingymabob for Navs. I'm pumped to see what God has planned.

I've also made a new friend! Zach Meyer is the new youth leader at our church who also works at HTI, or as he calls it, "The Company." He's [age], and a lot of fun to hang around with. Not to mention he actually gets and laughs at most of my jokes. I think there's probably 4 or 5 people in the world who do that. My sister and dad just look at me funny most of the time. Shoutout to Mom for thinking I'm funny!

I am now the proud owner of my fourth guitar! I bought an acoustic-electric Martin DCX1E about a month ago, and it rocks! I keep it next to my bed just in case inspiration strikes suddenly, which it often does. I've been playing a lot of bluesy-jazz-make-it-up-as-I-go stuff, as well as some Damien Rice.

When I went to St. Cloud with Jeremy, I also bought a new external flash for my Olympus E-330. I got drafted to take photos at a friend's wedding this fall, so I figured I might as well be all fancy and whatnot.

I've seen a few good flicks this summer as well. "The Bourne Ultimatum" was absolutely incredible. It was better than the first two, crisp, gritty, and full of fight scences and car chases that made you go "Ooooo! That had to hurt!" Plus, it has the ominous-sounding line "Activate the asset."

Creeeepy.

I also saw the third Shrek movie (snore, with a few funny parts thrown in) and the third Pirates movie, "At World's End." I thought it was a good ending to the series (although they did leave it open for more...oh Disney), with a lot of great action and hilarious Captain Jack moments.

Overall, this summer was a lot of fun, despite the work that sucked my life up. I'll miss everyone back in Hutch this school year, especially my awesome family.

I love you guys! Thanks for being a great family to come home to.

*Frozen Wastelands Of Minnesota. Applies 9-10 months out of the year.

The Story of The Temp, Mr. Guy Who Talks Like Dan Akroyd, Mr. Oops, and Mr. Mumbles

Well....this isn't really going to be an actual STORY. Sorry. Those are just the people that I've spent a majority of the summer with at 3M. Since I haven't written in the ol' blog lately, I thought I'd liven things up a bit with a different kind of post.

If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm The Temp. I'm one of 4 in my area of 3M (HPT Converting for those 2.5 of you who speak 3Mese), and we basically get the shaft while on our short stays here. Oh well. We do need money, right? Anyways, I'm going to be done being The Temp on the 10th, which means (hopefully) eight more days of work, counting this one. Whew.

Now on to the other characters. Mr. Guy Who Talks Like Dan Akroyd (let's call him Mr. Gwtlda) is somehow the self-appointed leader of the bunch. And seriously, he sounds almost exactly like Dan Akroyd in The Blues Brothers.
"You want I should clean the dead bugs off your windshield?"
Yup.

Mr. Oops is the nicest of the bunch. He has a daughter that just graduated, and he works really hard, but sometimes he just makes mistakes that make ya wonder where his mind was. Mr. Gwtlda gets very angry at Mr. Oops sometimes.

Mr. Mumbles is my favorite to work with. He doesn't get all pissy like Mr. Gwtlda, and he doesn't make big mistakes like Mr. Oops. He's been here for something like 17 years, knows exactly what he's doing, and is pleasant to talk to when he isn't being a creepy old pervert (Mr. Mumbles and Mr. Gwtlda share this affinty). The only problem is that about 50% of the time, I have no clue what the heck he's saying. Oh well. He thinks he's funny.

And there you have it. Of course, we have many supporting characters, like Creepy Old Ladies 1-7, Mrs. Extremely Loud Cackle, Sarge the Supervisor, and the list continues. I will definitely (read=not definitely) miss it here.
The money has been good, and will be good, considering I'll be driving in Lawrence this school year, and gas tends to cost money.
Unless you've got extra arms and legs to give to the employees at Holiday. I don't know if they actually take them, though.
Might be something to try later...*strokes chin*

Gettin POLITICAL all up in dis

Yes, political ghetto-speak. It should be used more often.

Anywho...here I am at the last break of yet another 8-hour stint at the 3M. Decided to get a little political in this post, seeing as a few things have been brought to my attention.

Which brings me to my first point: there are some things that are brought to my attention that I really don't feel like having to pay attention to. In other words, I don't stinking care.

Case in point: the whole stupid Paris Hilton thing.

Facts?

-drove drunk.

-got arrested(or whatever it is they do to celebrities....foam handcuffs?).

-got license suspended.

-drove twice while license suspended(took legal advice from her publicist).

-got sentenced to serve 45 days in jail.

-served three, and then was released to "house arrest" (meaning: "You're in trouble...Go to your private Disneyland RIGHT NOW!").

-judge got mad and made her serve the whole sentence.

-Paris started to scream and cry.

My take?

Holy crap, people. Worldwide, people who got arrested for driving with a suspended license are all asking their TVs the same thing:

"Where's my small army of paparazzi and helicopters?!?"

She should just have to serve her sentence just like any other bum who drove drunk and then on a suspended license. No whining, no "medical condition." Besides, I wasn't ever aware that whining and complaining qualified as medical.


The other thing that was brought to my attention was a response to an article I wrote in the Leader. First off, it wasn't an opinion piece. It wasn't really even me. It was simply a reaction piece of business owners on a smoking ban that just went into effect here in Hutch. The ban applies to all public places and requires that smokers must stand at least 15 feet away from entrances, lest they face a $300 fine and a petty misdemeanor charge. Anyways...this person started the email saying that there were things about liberty that I "did not learn in school." This person then went on to say that whenever the state is used to accomplish a goal, it is considered force. This person then gives the example of property tax, and says that if you don't pay it, you will eventually be killed.
Not really, though. The person said that if you don't follow the law, you will eventually be killed, but that argument was juxtaposed with the property tax example, making it rather interesting.
The person then goes on to give this account:

"Think about the smoking ban for instance, we have now given the police
the power to throw someone in jail because they smoked a cigarette in
their own property. If this person refuses to stop smoking the police
will eventually have to remove him or her from THEIR property. This
does not sound like the land of the free to me."

Alrighty then, let's get started.

First of all, what didn't I learn about liberty? I, unlike this person, have lived in a country with significantly less liberty than America (Singapore, for three years, cuz my Dad works for 3M). I know about liberty. I couldn't be prouder to be an American, and I thank God on an almost daily basis that He has given me the great privilege to live and serve Him in this great country. The Singaporean government works extremely well, with crime being lower than low, and most street being clean. Sure, you can't sell/buy gum there, sure, the newspaper is probably regulated a little bit, and sure, you get deported for possession of pot and executed for possession of cocaine and heroin. But those freedoms were sacrificed by the Singapore people, and their country is and has been a rising star in the global economic and social sense. I'm not saying we should start offing coke fiends right and left, but some "freedoms" may have to be sacrificed to have true, protected liberty.

Secondly, when the "State" causes something to happen, (now read this carefully), it's doing what it's supposed to be doing. What is a government for, if not to do things in the best interest of itself and it's people? Since when is using force a bad thing? If it weren't for force, the Israelites would have been wiped out by it's many enemies in Biblical times, Germany would have stomped all over the world (and then would have most likely pulled a "Fall of the Roman Empire" Part II), and a drug dealer who pulled a gun on a cop would still be in the streets killing people with guns and drugs instead of dead or in jail. Force may be unpleasant at times, (Iraq, anyone?) but it is completely and utterly necessary.

Thirdly, the property tax example was flawed. This person based it on religious principles, which property tax has nothing at all to do with. Property tax is where cities get a lot of their money, and without that money, sewers, streets, lightpoles, and even water systems would not get maintained.

Fourthly (is that even a word?), this person got the smoking ban totally and utterly wrong. It is illegal to smoke in restaurants, bars, clubs, bowling alleys, newspapers, salons, theaters, and any other public building. If someone owns a property like those and smokes on it, they face the same fine and petty misdemeanor charge that any other person would get. To say that a person can be forcibly removed from their living room for lighting up is completely ludicrous. That isn't even remotely enforceable. A person can smoke on private property, no problem.

Which brings me to my last point here on this rant: The smoking ban is a good thing. Don't you dare give me the whole slippery slope theory, saying that next we can't smoke on private property, and then cigarettes will be totally illegal (my response to that by the way: so?). The slippery slope theory is ridiculous. Think I'm wrong? Show me one example of the slippery slope theory being proved, and I might reconsider.
Anyways, banning smoking is a wonderful idea. Sure, the three bars in town may lose a little bit of their Friday night farmer regulars, but those numbers will be made up by the families who can now enjoy a smoke-free, choke-free dinner.

To wrap things up, the law is a necessary thing. Without it, we'd have anarchy and total chaos. Sure, people would be "free to do what they want," but at what cost? If Hannibal Lecter were free to do whatever the heck he felt like, he'd gorge himself on human livers.

Some freedoms must be sacrificed in order to obtain a truly free and secure society.

The Work Blog

Yes, that's about all I've been doing this summer so far. I'm actually writing this post while on breaks at 3M.

For those of you not in the know (the tens of people who probably read this), I am interning at the Hutchinson Leader for the first four weeks from 8am until noon. I have a week left on that. It has been an awesome experience. I'm working for a real life newpaper! Sure, my workload may be somewhat lesser than the other reporters there, but I still do a buncha stuff. I've proofread, ran errands, snapped hundreds of pics (a lot of which will be up here when my computer's back in commission, see below*), and of course written a buncha stories. I'll post those all up here when I'm done there, too. This has really taught me what it's like to work for a real paper (writing 3 opinion articles really doesn't count that much), and it'll look great on the resume.

On the not so much fun end of things, I'm also working fulltime at the 3M plant here (for those 2 of you who have been living in a cave, 3M makes Scotch tape, Post-its, etc.) from 3pm until 11pm. For some reason, they call that the "afternoon" shift, but it basically eats up your entire life.
At least I still have Saturdays.
I'll describe what I do in tomorrow's post.


*Computer Note: A week before finals were done, I accidentally downloaded a virus which promptly froze my computer and didn't let it boot. I sat on it for a week (figurtively, not literally), and then brought it home and promptly did nothing. Work, you see, kills time like no other. Finally, at the beginning of this week (it seems oh so very long ago...), I took it to a business computer place here in town. They worked on it a few days and then called me last night to let me know they were having troubles burning the 30 GIGABITES of data to DVDs. Allow me to explain. I have 10 gigs of music, yes. But not 20 gigs of Word documents and pictures. That is an exhorbitant amount. I had put about 15-20 gigs worth of movies onto my hard drive to put on my iPod, and forgot to tell the guys to disregard them. Oops. So I went to Target today, bought a 320gig hard drive, and dropped it off at the place. Hopefully, I will have a blank computer tomorrow, so I reinstall the OS, scoot all my documents and pics over to my laptop, and be back in action!
Also, we now have WiFi in our house, so I can BLOG FROM MY BEDROOM!
HOLY CRAP!
hehe.


Well, I have about 10 minutes left in this break. Then it's back to work for another hour, then it's TV for 30-40 minutes, then it's sleep till 7am.

Thank God I don't really have a social life.

Kansan Article #3: The Pointlessness of Flyers

Here's my last published article for this year, folks! Enjoy!

Fliers are as much a part of campus life as cramming for tests and 3 a.m. fire alarms. When they’re pinned up on bulletin boards or featured on Web sites, they don’t really cause a problem. It is only when they are passed out to students on campus that there are problems.

Some students just ignore the fliers and walk past the advertisers, often creating awkward situations for both parties. Some take them only to throw them away shortly thereafter. Campus is littered daily with discarded fliers and inserts and someone has to pick them all up.

Doug Riat, University of Kansas Facilities Operations Director, said that fliers are a hassle for his crews to pick up every day. Advertising inserts in the Kansan are to blame as well. His employees have a daily routine of picking up fliers and Kansan inserts, which he says are mainly dropped by students on accident, flying out of the paper when it’s picked up.

Fliers are useless. Handing someone a piece of paper on campus creates the same effect as tossing a bunch on the ground. Sure people have a Constitutional right to free speech — which is why you’re reading this right now. People also have a right and a duty to help keep our environment clean.

If you want people to actually read your ads and not just litter, then post a few on bulletin boards next to the other things that students are selling. When students want a cheap car or stereo or want to know about upcoming events, they look at the bulletin boards. If you really want to advertise something, put it in the classifieds.

Even consider Facebook fliers, eBay, Cars.com, Craig’s List, and the myriad advertising Web sites out there. The people who visit these Web sites are looking for something specific, so they really care about what you’re selling.

The sheer amount of traffic generated by those websites is amazing. According to statbrain.com, Facebook gets around 4.5 million hits per day, Cars.com gets 1.5 million, Craig’s List gets 5.6 million, and eBay gets a jaw-dropping 8.6 million.

The litter and annoyance created by fliers isn’t worth the possible effect of changing someone’s thinking. Especially when there are such great online opportunities.

But inevitably, fliers will continue to litter our campus. When someone hands you a flier, don’t just throw it on the ground. Consider reading the flier and then throw it away in a nearby trash can or recycling bin. Don’t use the excuse that you couldn’t find one. Trash cans on this campus are as innumerable as filled parking spaces. You’ll save the maintenance crews a lot of work by just recycling the fliers, or better yet, by not handing any out at all. Go for eBay.

Photo #29

The weird snakey bridge thing at Millenium Park in Chicago.