How to have a heart attack in 30 minutes or less

I started school again this week and the lineup is good. I didn't get all of the classes I wanted/needed, but I got enough to still graduate this year and make my life a living hell in the process. I don't want to complain about school (I have covered that in other posts) but I do want to complain about work. I have class from 11:40 - 12:30. That means I have to wake up at an excruciating 10:30, but that's not the point. The point is. I start work at 12:30. So how do I get from my seat at ASU to my seat at work in 0.0 seconds?...... I don't. For about a month now I have been warning my scheduling department that I would need to start work at 1:00 and take a half hour lunch, but when the time came...... nothing. I went to 15 minutes of class and then ran the mile and half back to my car (remember I don't pay for parking because...... I don't enjoy being willfully robbed). Then I speed to work and get there 2 minutes late, which is one minute shy of getting in trouble for being tardy. I get to work drenched in sweat both from my run and from the fear of being late for work. I went to 15 minutes of class for two days until my supervisor basically just yelled at the scheduling department. The scheduling department acted like it was the end of the world and that they were doing me a huge favor and I better not ask for anything else for the next several years, because they just broke their back bending over backwards to accommodate my half an hour exception. So my problem is that sometimes those in power can be real butt-holes about using their power to do anything but make themselves feel more powerful by denying you whatever you request of them. (I know it was a run on sentence; I hope it made sense)
So now I get to go to all of class, but I still just about have a heart attack every single day praying as if it were the apocalypse, that I am not late for work. I guess if I were Peter Positive Thinker, I would say, "I get great exercise running that mile and a half, thanks job!" but I am not Peter Positive Thinker, I am me, and me is pissed. It's hot as hell and I run in shirts and ties most days.
In summary, running in suits and 100 degree weather is not fun, and neither are people who have power and love to remind you of that by denying you whatever they have power to give....... butt-holes.

I enjoyed it, even if I didn't deserve it

There is a saying, "a long deserved vacation." I am back from my vacation to tell you that I may not have deserved it, but I enjoyed it all the same. My wife was in California, so I took advantage of the time alone and the week break I had in between semesters at school. It was nice..... very nice. I didn't write in the blog because I didn't feel like it, and you can't make me feel guilty about it. There will be much more to come, but it is nice to be back in the grind of things. So.... welcome back me.

Big Fraud Found by Big Fraud Enthusiast

If you ever look at CNN.com or have nothing better to do than browse the internet looking for Bigfoot updates (or maybe both) you probably know that a group in North Georgia has reportedly found a "bigfoot colony." They profess that they found a group of "bigfoots" (or would it be bigfeet?). They took the carcass of one of the bigfoots / bigfeet and are now storing it in an icebox (not the southern term for a freezer, but rather an actual ice box). They took pictures and sent them to various news outlets including CNN, which in turn put the picture on the front page of their website. They reported that they would be showing the actual body to people on a later date.
So, now to my title. This "discovery" was made by bigfoot / bigfeet enthusiasts. It was made by 2 guys who lost their jobs in the department of corrections and dedicated their lives to finding bigfood / bigfeet (I have no idea how I would start that conversation with my wife (probably something like this: "uh...... honey...... did you ever see that movie 'Harry and the Hendersons......."') or something like that). So why do I have a hard time believing that something would be found by people that are looking for it? ....... Good question. I guess it boils down to their approach. The two men (psychos) that said they found the bigfoot colony said that they didn't take any alive because they didn't want to disrupt their habitat, but they are creating a media "frenzy" and then setting a time of disclosure, but the only media that will be there, are the ones that are willing to pay. Philanthropy and capitalism seem to me to be at the opposite ends of the spectrum.
So it's crap in my humble and eloquent opinion, I somehow think that these things are more likely found by people who aren't looking for them, rather than people that have obsessed about finding it and have dedicated their lives to do so.

Can you feel it?!

I feel the urge to write, but I don't know why, which probably means that I shouldn't write at all because it will come out a jumbled mess. I just googled "jumbled mess" and this is what came up, which is kind of cool. What a great analogy for the mind, or for my ideas. So this is what is inside me right now, and every day that I am not writing, I am trying to piece together some idea or sensible argument for or against something or another.
As a final thought: Explain this to me: Why is it that I enjoy skipping days when working and attending school, because I feel so insanely stressed out, but when I have more than one day off in a row I start to get insanely depressed?

HOLY CRAP!

I ran desperately into the garage knowing I didn't have much time. I needed to find anything I could to protect me. I saw a pair of old gardening gloves, the kind you could try to cut with a steak knife to no avail, but even those wouldn't be enough. I needed to find more: a surgical mask, a bulletproof vest, a hazmat suit. It didn't matter what I put on, I was going to be naked to what was to happen next.

I put on the gloves and went back in the house. My heart was racing, my hands were shaking inside their thick leather protectors. I wanted to cover me eyes but knew that I needed both if I was going to be able to complete my task. I walked hesitantly, not knowing exactly what to do, but when all was said and done, I think I managed not to put her diaper on backwards.
That's right kids, I changed my first diaper. I am 24 years old. I did seriously wear those gardening gloves. Not only am I scared to death of other people's poop (even if it is from a very cute neice), but I despise touching wet naps or baby wipes. I don't know what it is, maybe some traumatizing wet nap experience in my childhood that is long since repressed, but that alcohol smell and wet napkin feel just make me gag.

I was only babysitting for 4 hours and thought...."ok there is a good chance I won't have to change her. Even if she poops near the end of my stay I could just bear it for a little while until I quickly escaped leaving my father with the dirty diaper." 15 minutes after I was left alone, that girl crapped her pants like nothing I have ever seen. I had to setup an elaborate system of pullies to be able to lift the (almost) bursting container of poop. I cleaned her (I think) and put the new diaper on (possibly backwards). I then called my wife to receive accolades for the amazing accomplishment that I had just achieved. Needless to say, she was very impressed.

You're an idiot......boss

I gave a presentation today in my last day of class. The presentation was just me pulling things out of my nether regions and throwing them against the wall to see what would stick, much like a monkey. Most of my college experience has been comparable to a zoo; a zoo that charges thousands upon thousands of dollars to go inside and once inside, you realize that it's just animatronic animals behind glass and is in no way representative of the real animal out in the wild. (that was an interesting analogy (but to be honest, college is more like one continuous rape shower, you just feel dirty the entire time (because you pay so much))).

Anyway, back to the presentation. I was giving a presentation on Chicano English. It was funny because every time I told someone at work what I was writing about, they immediately responded, "oh you mean spanglish." I guess I never really thought about it, but ya, I was writing about Spanglish. I made up some flattering (and totally false in my opinion) difference in between Chicano English and Spanglish, saying that Chicano English was to maintain cultural and family oriented words and Spanglish was for the ignorant who used one language because they really didn't know the word in the other.

So I am giving this presentation on Spanglish versus Chicano English and I am rolling with it. I think I am doing well. I talk about how Spanglish is bred from ignorance and so on, and then my professor chimes in and explains, that he speaks Spanglish and how proud he is to speak Spanglish.

Don't you just love those times when you say something along the lines of, "People that do _______ are idiots." Someone then responds, "I do _____" and you then respond, "point proven." Well..... I got the first two parts of that and everyone in the class (myself most of all) were thinking the third part of that series, but it's a little different when that person has the power to undo the work you have done in the last 5 weeks. I am yet to see if there was any backlash from my subversive, "you are an idiot," comments, but I am sure I will see.

Free at last

My wife is going to california for 9 days and you know what that means....

ok...... so that may not be completely true. It would probably be something more like this:

Yup..... just clock me out and plug me in..... it's going to be great!

I have a really good idea for an analysis on racism or the perception thereof, but I am missing a really funny picture that I took from a window display in Fry's. I will let your imagination run with that for a little while, and for now say "until then."

The short road to an even shorter break

I refuse to be one of those people that apologizes in every post for how long it has been since I last wrote, but I do have to remind myself of that every once in a while. That being said, not much to say. I am about a week from finishing my summer semester of school and really happy about it. I always go crazy with stress the last week of school so the picture above is a pretty accurate description. I don't have anything to analyze today, but wanted to say hello and say that you can expect many more oddities coming very soon.