A Start

"I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” - Michael Jordan

On Monday I got home and decided to play with Max for a while. He still need a lot of work and more attention than he currently gets. He is so high energy. Then I came inside and decided to go for a run. Actually for a walk while I watched Hardball, but I started to run. I did a good job and then did a bit of lifting. After, I took a shower, had a good dinner with a beer (better than a Coke) and felt great after. This is a routine I would really like to have. I am feeling it this morning, but it is something I know I deserve.



I was watching October Road Monday night and thought it was cool that the characters are from the class of 98. Makes me feel like I can really connect with them. I still like the show and now that the writer's strike is almost over, I hope to catch it more often. I was trying to decide what kind of guy am I, Hanna or Aubrey? Now I'm trying to go more personality wise than just attractiveness but I'm sure it played a role. The winner is Aubrey. Even though Nick and Hanna were the perfect couple, they are just different people now. The Aubrey character is smart, confident and well in the context of the story, isn't about to get married.

I've also started watching that Terminator Fox show. I really thought I would have no interest in it, but so far I'm hooked. Maybe it is because the girl from Serenity is in it. More on the TV topic, Lost is back, so I'm excited to see that, but I just don't feel as much invested as I used to, but I watch the show just the same.


I wish people were more upset about the torture issue than they seem to be. The fact that we executed people in WWII for waterboarding our soliders, but will not say whether it is illegal when we do it is clearly a way of the administration protecting themselves. You know, I'll let Jon Stewart explain it, he is good at this kind of stuff.

Here is some politics from some of my favorite girls:

On who they're voting for:
Scarlett:"I will continue stumping for [Barack] Obama until he's elected. The past eight years have been painful for a lot of people. We're in a state of emergency."
Natalie:"I met with about 10 representatives... and Hillary [Clinton] was by far the sharpest. Did you read Gloria Steinem's op-ed piece?" Natalie asks, citing Steinem's January 8 column about the presidential hopeful in the New York Times. "Hillary's just so experienced."

How does this logic work? So imagine if you have a terrible diet and you change to a bad diet. Now if you told someone about your bad diet, they would probably tell you, "dude, that is a bad diet." Now as long as you can prove that it is better than your default, "terrible diet," then isn't it at least a small step to move to a bad diet and try to make that your default before you try to move up to a normal/good diet? Maybe it is like smoking half a pack instead of a full pack of cigarettes a day. Is it half as bad? Half a pack and kill you anyway, so why not just smoke the whole pack? I guess it depends on what the difference is as far as the effect it makes.

One foot in or both feet in?

Good Hearted People

"Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” - Paul Boese

I had a discussion with a friend about the idea of surrounding yourself with good people. If you are around happy, goal driven, good hearted people; their traits help motivate yours and you end up not only a better person, but one that enjoys their time with friends much more. But if you surround yourself with depressed, irresponsible, selfish, complaining, anti-social people, those feelings and apathy start to rub off on you and not only bring you down, but make you not enjoy your time with them as much. I feel I have been very lucky in my life, my friends have all helped me make me the person I am today. From wanting to be the best I learned from Rick, to the good natured humbleness I got from Juan. I could go on listing friends and qualities, but I'll save those for their weddings or such occasions.

Now there are times friends are going through a rough patch and I think it is important that you to be there for them and help them out as much as you can, but there is a point when you can't let them pull you into their spiral of unhappiness. Now all these things I think I people agree with and isn't new news, but then recently, my friend, who does have reason to be upset with me, told me that I was one of those people that are in the group I mentioned that you should stay away from. Having been told by another person once that I was toxic, I decided to pay attention. Now I know who I am, and I know I'm a good person who cares about others and who quite frankly has more to give than to take. My self image isn't going to be based on what a few people think of me, nor what so many others who think the exact opposite. My self image is just that, from my myself. You still can't turn around and ignore such an accusation or just defend yourself, because maybe there is a lesson in it. I was told that I was selfish, irresponsible (financially) and not willing to try new things. She did make good points and there are many examples of each of those qualities that I exhibited when it came to her. My self defense mechanism wants to say that my positive qualities outweigh, but the fact is that I can be all those things....I mean for sure I'm financially irresponsible. It was ok when it was just me paying the price, but when others are involved, then that is the definition of someone to stay clear of. I'm doing all to protect others from coming down with me and know that my word is my bond and it means everything. I don't make promises I don't keep.

So even though these words may have came from anger and I feel were not truly their full impression of me, it does make me take inventory of who I am, where I'm going and what I want. Despite all this, I think Marty is pretty fucking awesome, but I can't help that, I mean I've just known him longer than anyone else. Each day I learn something new.

Here is some politics:

"I can understand why President Clinton wants to campaign hard for his wife," Mr. Bush said. "And you know, these accusations that Bill Clinton is a racist I think is just wrong. I just don't agree with it."

Isn't this similar to saying, "All those people calling President Bush a child molestor, well that I think is just wrong."

My point is, defending a person in that way is more of an attack on them than a helpful sign of support. I mean Bush has been called many things, from a dictator to a war criminal, a constitutional law breaker, and many other things (some which I agree), but saying you don't agree with those claims is similar to a backhanded compliment.

Did mention I'm now registered to vote in Texas. I just got my registration card, so I'm good to go. I really need to get up to date with local races here.

Here is a statement I agree with in regard to David Shuster's now-infamous "pimped out" comment and his subsequent suspension from NBC News.

Today, Barbara returned with a comment on Shuster's suspension and, specifically, the letter Hillary Clinton sent over the weekend to NBC News President Steve Capus:
"It was as if she was advocating more than just his being suspended. Perhaps I feel this because of the years, and all of you, we are live, and sometimes you say something unfortunate. You apologize, he's getting suspended, he apologized, MSNBC apologized. Drop it already! It's OK. He made a mistake."

Here is an Obama Video you should see: I'm leaning Clinton's way right now, but this is beautiful.

McCain: Like Hope But Different (a parody on the Video Above)

I would do the same for you

My Own UFO

“Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering." - R. Buckminster Fuller

I got a call from Abram on Sunday night. He is thinking of moving to Austin. The timing is great because Rino and I are in the process of looking for a place for May 1st. There are some complications, like what happens if he gets into law school, but I'm sure we will figure all that out when the time comes.


Saturday night and Sunday I moved all my exercise equipment up into Danny's old room. (formerly the Marty Media room.) See if I just keep moving it up and down the stairs, it is just like a workout, so my constant moving of stuff does make up for my lack of using it to its full extent.


Recently there were some UFO sightings in Texas I saw on the news. Now I don't want to get all Dennis Kucinich on you, but when I was a young boy I saw what was to me a UFO. I make no claims to what it actually was, but I was sure that it was not an airplane, star or weather balloon. I would lay outside at night staring at the stars and watching airplanes fly by. I had always hoped to catch a falling star, (like see it, not literally catch). One night I was looking in the sky at Orion (at the time I didn't know it was Orion, I used to call it my football goal post.) I then saw a light that I thought was a star. Then I noticed it was moving. So I thought, it it must be a plane. But then I noticed that it would move up down left and right almost like someone was facing a flash light to the sky and waving it randomly. Then it would stop. I didn't know what it was, but it was clearly something I had never seen before and for me at least it would be considered unidentified. Knowing that no one would believe me because I was a kid and I know all UFO sighting people were wackos, I ran inside and grabbed our VHS recorder. I wanted evidence so that people would know what I was talking about. I grabbed a random video, popped it in and went outside. I started to record the "moving star" for at least a few minutes. I was worried it would not show up on the TV so I ran inside put the video into the VHS and watched it on my TV. You could see exactly what I was talking about. I was so proud of myself. There was no one to show, but I might have shown the video to my siblings. I didn't think much of it and knowing I had the video may be feel more secure in telling my story and having my evidence. Now here is the part that follows all UFO sighting trends, the lack of evidence part. The tape sat with many tapes we had and over time I just forgot about it as the years went by. The tape wasn't labeled and probably had other random stuff on it. I mean I wasn't sure what it was and it wasn't so impressive as to think people would be wowed by it to actually do much with it. So now I don't know where that VHS is. (I know, a likely story.) It might be in storage somewhere and one day I plan to go back and watch all our old videos to maybe find it. It sucks that it might have been thrown out when my mom moved houses. Well, I don't talk about it too much because I just figured it was something like a plane, but now I've seen videos that looked exactly like mine. Here is one from London in 1990. Not very exciting if you watch it, my was so much better, there was more swishing back and forth and it was dark at night. But I'm glad I'm not the only person that saw a strange moving light. In the end, that is why I say I saw a UFO, but I make no claims to it being from outer space. Though I do find it interesting is that this video below was close to the time (like decade) when I made my recording. Man this article would be so much cooler if I actually had my video.

Driven

More Changes

"What you need to know about the past is that no matter what has happened, it has all worked together to bring you to this very moment. And this is the moment you can choose to make everything new. Right now.” - Unknown

Thursday I went home after work and took a nap while watching the news. I remembered I had plans with Oscar and Danny, so I woke up and went over to Danny's apartment. I had yet to visit it. It is a nice place, the main benefit being the location, he can just take a cab to go out and not have to worry about how drinking and driving could be an issue. We watched TV for a while and then went to a bar. Mainly we just shot the shit with all my random question scenerios of, what would you do if? You put someone in a bad situation and see what their instinct would be to deal with it. Interesting how different people would react different ways. I got home pretty late on a week night and I started to feel bad for thinking 11:30pm was late.

I've been saying this for a while. Study: Sad People Spend More

Someone once told me, "You seemed so carefree." It reminded me of a time when I was told, "you were different then." It is easy to be carefree if you don't think about the future or the past and just live in the moment, but not thinking about the future makes you directionless. I do conceed that obsessing about it makes the present miserable too. I like to be in the know. I would rather see the punch coming, than be happily walking along as I'm knocked off my ass and before I figure out what has happened, I'm having to get back up. I've also been told to just chill out. To be honest, I do feel more carefree right now, but I think I can find a good balance of both. Yeah I'm a bit confused too.

Friday I went to the court to make some copies. I was proud of myself for finding that brief, now I have to read it and see if it is at all helpful.

After I went to hang out with Rino at his place and we played some online poker. I bubbled on both tourneys, not so much because I haven't played in months, but because I kept lose connection every 15 seconds. I think it is the wireless on my laptop, but I don't know what to do to fix it.

Saturday I slept in and watched some recorded tv. Oscar has some guys come in and shampoo the carpets in the house. They were pretty quick. I was wondering how big their machine would be, but the machine was literally the VAN they came in. Just one big super vac and a very very long hose that they used up and downstairs to clean the carpets. I've never seen this before so humor my amazement. The carpets are all wet now and I'm waiting for them to dry.

Saturday is also Danny's housewarming party. It looks to be pretty fun.

Oh I got my voter registration card. I'm going to get to vote in the Texas primary. I'm looking forward to it.

"What I did was unintentional, what you did was deliberate." - from a tv show in response to wife saying she cheated on him because he was too distant from the family.