Do It Alone

You ever get the feeling, you know, the one where you are the one person in the room that every doesn't like. Recently I feel like I am that person. You know, the one where everyone rolls their eyes when they turn away from talking to you, the one where they laugh at your jokes just to make you leave. Yeah, that guy.

I am the self-proclaimed room silencer, the guy that says something and kills the room. I have seriously contemplated not saying anything. It is hard for me, because ... well ... I like to talk. I think I am talking to my friends, but with the way some people can be, who knows these days.

I feel like I have an important role, but really, I am starting to feel I don't. How can it feel important when, when I talk there is maybe two people who feel like I am credible enough to be speaking. I am like a kid lecturing adults on the correct things to do. Hell, why should they listen to me when I don't even take my own advice.

So, it has only been two days at school and I am already growing tired of it. Oh well, I can't ask anyone for help, because then I would not be trying, so I guess I have to do it alone.

Sugarcult, "Do It Alone" on Lights Out

Bringing In the Season

What season is that? Copy editing season. Today marked the beginning of the end of my social life and normal amounts of sleep. The paper begins and I am sitting at my desk, waiting for stories to come in.

I wrote a column this afternoon which will appear in the school paper I work for and I am sort of excited. Writing a column allows you to do ... what I am doing now ... but put it in print. Obviously it is not a printed blog and must have a point and be aimed at the targeted audience.

But having a column, something I can call my own piece of territory for that day of the week is fun. The thought of people, possibly, looking forward to something I have to say. Sure, there is the flip side of the coin, someone could grow to hate the person I am, and make threats based on my opinion.

The hardest part of writing the column might have been coming up with the name. It is what people identify you with, sometimes more than your name and picture. You can tell people what you think about almost anything and hear what they have to say. The idea for this type of writer-reader communication is fun.

Tomorrow I will see how the advisor's took to my first piece, which I would call ... last minute to say the least. I came in and because of a technology error, found out I was going to write a column. Although it was not my best work, I know that for future columns I can do better and in hopes of getting people interested in what I have to say, I will have to.

Even though I have a position where I read everything, I feel as if my writing is not up to par, and the lack of writing over the summer might have aided in that, but the more I read the better writer I will become. Maybe I will read some Faust or maybe some Faulkner. Who knows.

Anyway, house update: My roommates and I have moved in and unpacked most of our things. One of our roommates is moving in tomorrow and Tuesday, which is confusing because school starts tomorrow. However he does it, we will see.

As for tonight, maybe I will open up my new bottle of Gray Goose and toast to finishing the first issue of the paper ... if we finish it before a reasonable time.

Tomorrow Comcast is coming to install the Internet and cable to our rooms, which is nice because we have been without since the middle of last week. Oh how desperately I need the Internet on a daily basis. Anyway, I must get back to work, before I fall behind my time table.

30 Minute Meals ... Yeah Right

No, I am not starting a cooking show and no my girlfriend's last name is not "Ray," I am not America's Top Chef and I am not an Iron one either. Instead I am part of a group that takes the longest time in the world to decide where and what to eat.

Imagine yourself sitting at your computer, nearing your average dinner time. Since you and your "roommate" are not cooking, it means another night hunting for a meal to satisfy your hunger. Sure, you can go to the regular places and you always seem to.

My group has what I like to call the trifecta. The list includes, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Iguana's, Wing Stop, Little Caesers and don't forget Quiznos. I know there are more than three there, but when I started calling it that, that's how many places we seemed to go to.

So your sitting in the common room of your place discussing with your house mates the places you would like to go to eat. Everyone chimes in and a vote is taken to figure out which places is more desirable.

Well that is how, in my head, it should go. Instead, I ramble off a bunch of places that we haven't been to in the last ... three days, and my room mates sit on the couch in front of me playing Street Fighter II Turbo, ignoring what I am saying.

Sure this doesn't happen all the time, but in the last seven days I have been back with them, that has been the pattern. So when I call my girlfriend at around nine each night, I am starting to think that she thinks I just pick a time at night to call her back. So this post is here to describe the average time wasted, using tonight's outing as an example; discussing, looking, picking and getting to a place to eat.

The following example works for all possible meal times for college students.

1. Everyone gathers in a common place to discuss the level of hunger and the possible places to satisfy said hunger. (Time recommended 5:00 minutes.) Actual time taken 20:00 minutes.*
*Note: Time does not include bathroom trips, exiting World of Warcraft or hearing the initial summoning.

Instead of discussing what places they want to go, I hear a bunch of, "I am not all that hungry" and "Lets get something different," instead of hearing suggestions that would meet these criterion. More Street Fighter is played and no decisions are made.

2. A general location is picked and the group makes its way to the vehicle, where they take off for their destination. (Time recommended between 5:00-20:00 minutes depending on traffic.) Actual time taken 60:00 minutes.

We drove around the mall parking lot looking for places to eat inside. Seeing lines in most places still open we keep circling, mainly because the roommate driving can't drive worth a damn and doesn't understand verbal directions. They have to come from his female navigator in his car. We circle and eventually I get frustrated and end up picking a place that would have met the recommended traveling time.

3. The driver promptly drives his passengers to the desired location and successfully navigates the vehicle back to the place of residence. (Time recommended including time to eat at a casual restaurant 45:00 minutes.) Actual time taken 80:00 minutes.

The thing about one of our roommates is, he just can't drive, navigation or not. It baffles the rest of us that he even obtained his driver's license. He goes up one-ways and makes u-turns in intersections clearly marked with no u-turn signs. He doesn't use his blinker or look over his shoulder and also can't drive at night without using his high beams. That is all for my next post, but really, he should not be driving.

All in all, lunch or dinner, out, should not take more than an hour at the most. Instead, trips with my roommates always end up being a minimum of two hours without a maximum time. It drives me crazy, but I know it drives my lady up a wall, so I had to explain.

So tonight after driving almost 20:00 minutes from our house in search of a place to eat, we ended up eating in a Jack in the Box less than a quarter of a mile from our house. Then it took our wonderful navigator fifteen minutes to get us back home because he missed a right hand turn in the parking lot, putting us on a painfully long detour.

Tune in more often, I am going to be going back to school in about a week and plan on posting on a regular basis.

Why Don't We Do It In The Road

In the last week I have traveled more than eighteen hours in a car on my mid-summer vacation. Last weekend, my younger sister and I went up to Nevada to visit my brother and spent a few days hanging out and catching up on things. Not to mention eating big meals and playing 36 holes of miniature golf.

I had the pleasure of driving that adventure; four hours on the way up and six hours on the way back down. Sure I had a good time, but I will never drive to Nevada again at night, especially when I am tired. The trip was fun and I had a good time hanging out with my siblings and my brothers girlfriend. You know, just us kids. I guess it was a treat because the following weekend I would find myself traveling South through California for a weekend at the lake with my girlfriend and her family.

We left early Friday morning ... well early for my standards. We packed up the SUV and headed on our five hour trip through Yosemite National Park and toward the city of Mammoth. We climbed the windy road through Yosemite and avoided campers and bikers haphazardly stopping in the middle of the road to take pictures and sightsee.

We made it to Mammoth and planned out the next few days with my girlfriends family and cousins. We went horseback riding up the rocky side of a mountain, one my hind quarters did not take kindly. Two hours of a sun-hardened saddle keeping you on top of a bouncing bronco. OK, it wasn't a bronco to my knowledge but it was a horse, that I am certain.

Today we met up with some friends of my girlfriend's cousins and spent the morning and afternoon skimming across Crowley Lake, trying to wake board. I had only been once before, about seven years ago, but had never managed to get myself out of the water.

It turns out I was told the wrong things to do when I went my first time.
This time was better, I was able to get myself up and balance for a little while before taking a head-first dive into the chilly lake. There were complication with my equipment, since my size thirteen feet didn't want to hang out in the bindings.

Other than that, I had a fun time and am sad that my vacation is ending with tomorrow's drive back to the Bay Area. These last two road trips have really made my summer and are helping me keep my mind off the lonely semester to come. I have had a great time and am definitely considering convincing my family to purchase a boat. Oh well, like this vacation and this post, all good things must come to an end.

Title: The Beatles, "Why don't we do it in the road" on the White Album