Category: Daily Life

Partied. Hiked. Got stung. (plus photos)

Had a blast this weekend… Went out to the band house for a big party, a lot of people turned out. Big fires, roasting stuff, N64-style Super Smash Bros, RISK lasting until about 4:00 in the morning.

The next morning I got stung in the arm by some kind of wasp. I’ve never been stung by one before, and I know that my mom is really allergic, so I don’t know what to expect. It’s over 24 hours later and I’m not dead, so I guess that’s a good sign, but the swelling didn’t really start until a whole day later.  Now half of my forearm is really tender and numb, it’s weird to type or drum. But I’m not too worried, if I had my mom’s allergies I’d probably be in way worse condition.

Yesterday I went hiking with Matt and Madelyn, we got lucky and had cloud cover most of the way up to Horsetooth Rock.

Here are some pictures of the weekend… I don’t know why, but recently I haven’t been taking any pictures of people.



(Link to Picasa album)

	


	
	






	
	

		
Accidental Art: Ballpoint Pen on Boxers
	


	

		
Yeah… So I accidentally let a blue pen explode in the dryer today. Getting all over an entire load of laundry. Not good.


I was really lucky and only had one really nice article of clothing in there- this is the good thing about having more T-shirts than I know what to do with. It won’t be worth trying to get all of the stains out. I might try to rescue an item or two, and I’ll have some spectacularly groovy underwear a la tie-dye. But one thing’s certain: today will go down in the book of Stupid Things Zeke Does when he Lives on his Own.


	


	
	






	
	

		
Recession
	


	

		
A USA Today / Gallup poll released yesterday says the following:


    

  • 3 in 4 Americans agree that we are in an economic recession
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  • 59% say it is likely that we will be in a depression that will last several years
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  • 79% are worried about a depression
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I have few money concerns compared to most of the country, but even I am beginning to feel the squeeze and notice how my dollars don’t go as far as they did just last year.


It’s still early, but this could very well be one of the biggest threats to our country’s future. It makes me wonder about the presidential campaigns right now – if a depression is looming, we need smart people in charge who can make the right decisions to get us back on our feet, free of liberal or conservative agendas.


I honestly don’t know which candidate is the strongest on the economy (Edwards comes to mind, but he’s out), and even an economically weak president could still put very smart people in their administration to right-side the economy.


President Bush’s first campaign was about compassionate conservativism and domestic policy reform. Then 9/11 happened and we had a president with zero foreign policy experience spending most of their time on global affairs. I would hate to see the same happen with the economy, but right now most of what I hear from each candidate has more to do with yesterday’s problems – how to reverse the Bush administrations mistakes, how to deal with the war in Iraq, what to do about healthcare and immigration. These are all important issues, but I am starting to think that the economy really isn’t getting the attention it deserves.

	


	
	






	
	

			


	

		
Writing last night’s post reminded me why I blog in the first place. Yes, it was long, and probably didn’t make much sense to anyone but myself, but all of the thought and questioning required in transforming my abstract thoughts into written form helps me understand the issue at question better – I feel a lot less “lost in it all” now than before I sat down for an hour and wrote about it.


On a completely different schedule, living in Arizona for 4 years made me forget how much I detest daylight savings time.  My body didn’t adjust to the time change at all, and now that we’ve sprung ahead, being up “late” now means 3 AM instead of 2 AM, and now it’s 6:30 PM and I feel like dinner should still be a long way off.  Stupid northern farmers. DST is useless!


One good thing about it, though, is that it’s one more sign that spring will finally be here in 11 days. That doesn’t mean much in Colorado, and I expect at least 2 more substantial snowstorms, but the sunnier, the better.


Today I saw something I haven’t seen since last summer: a bee.  More specifically, a dying bee.


bee.jpg (yes, this photo is crap. My iPhone is my “carry-around” camera, not my Canon. Just trust me, that speck in the center is a writhing bee.)


At first the bee was running all over the window frames, and had me on the edge – I frickin hate bees. But after a few minutes, it changed to rolling movements, stretching and contracting, curling up, slowly kicking its legs in what seemed like a desire to go out fighting, to never give up. Now, though, it is near motionless, a victim of its own inevitable mortality.


I think it’s weird how we rarely see most living things die. Whenever I’m around wildlife, there usually are plenty of living creatures around me, but I don’t notice a bunch of carcasses. I guess a lot of it can be chalked up to the food chain, but I have to admit that nature is very good at cleaning up after itself. But what about this bee? It died on a coffeeshop windowsill, in the unnatural urban habitat controlled by the humans. Will a scavenging spider claim it? Will it be swept up by a barista at closing time?


Likewise, it reminds me of how insignificant my own life is from a universal perspective. All the time I spend freaking out over relatively little stuff could really be spent doing better things…

	


	
	












	
	

		
Whoops.
	


	

		
Staying up for 35 hours in a row is not a good idea. Especially when you have tests, web design projects, and homework.


Needless to say, I was a caffeinated beast yesterday and today.


Besides that strange coding/working/class marathon, not much has been going on as of late. I’ve been recruited into a band, so I guess that’s news. It’ll be nice writing drum parts, since I haven’t ever had to do much of that beyond simple comping.


Other than that, it’s just same ol’, same ol’. Work is pretty crazy, and school is keeping me busy too. I miss people in  Arizona.


I guess I shouldn’t write blog posts while crashing from a 24-hour caffeine high 😛 . Things really aren’t that dull. I just need some sleep.


Wooooooo.

	


	
	






	
	

		
5 days away, 1 back, 5 away, school.
	


	

		
Just got back from a 5-day conference for work. It was exhausting, but we managed to have some fun, as well.


Going to Arizona for 5 days tomorrow. Haven’t seen most of my friends down there in 7 months (and some in over a year, since graduation). Should be fun.


School starts right after that. Not quite as fun, but my classes will be better than last year- more stuff in my major, less stuff that I don’t care about. Two CIS classes, to boot.


Let me know if you’re in Arizona and you want to chillax.

	


	
	






	
	

		
A Day in Software
	


	

		
I recognize that it’s kind of sad, but I am a hardcore computer junkie and a significant percentage of my work and play are done on the computer. So here’s a peek into the software I use daily:

Waking up:


    

  • Southwest DING! – Check for low airfares to/from Phoenix. Find that there aren’t any.
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  • Mozilla Firefox – Check e-mail, Facebook, Digg, Engadget, Dilbert.com, XKCD.com, and New York Times. All banner ads huffed by AdBlock Plus plugin. But it’s bloated and RAM-hogging, so I won’t use it for the rest of the day.
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At work:


    

  • Internet Explorer 7 – Work stuff in an all-Microsoft environment. Lots of ASPX web apps that don’t work with standards-compliant browsers.
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  • Microsoft Office 2007 – More work stuff… Greatly eased by Microsoft SharePoint Portal, one of the best CMS and project management suites out there.
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  • Instant Messaging – Office Communicator for work contacts, Pidgin or Meebo for personal contacts
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  • Windows Remote Desktop Connection – log in to lots of systems remotely. Login to my home machine to stream MP3s.
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The coffeeshop:


    

  • Safari 3 Beta – Surf sites, correspond with web design clients. Using Safari because it’s the fastest browser on Windows, standards-compliant, and makes me feel like all of the Mac hotshots in the coffeeshop.
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  • Adobe Design Premium CS3 – Web design with Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Photoshop.
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  • Gmail – check with clients, share documents and web copy, load PDFs and Word documents without having to download them.
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  • Microsoft OneNote 2007 – Track progress on design projects.
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  • Pidgin – IM with friends. Share links to pictures of pitbulls attacked by porcupines.
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  • WordPress – write this blog post to refresh brain between romps in code.
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Home:


    

  • iTunes 7 – Crank up the tunes. Sync iPod with new DRM-free music from eMusic or iTunes Store.
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  • Picasa 2 – Load shots from yesterday’s bike ride off of my Canon PowerShot S3. Maybe upload them to Picasa Web Albums and blog about them.
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  • e-SWORD – Get confused about something in the Bible that says men with long hair bring shame upon themselves. Consider a haircut. Cory then tells me that it was written in a cultural context to age-of-Christ Jews, so I’m overreacting.
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  • Safari 3 Beta – check deals on Woot.com, newegg.com. Pay bills.
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  • Windows Media Player 11 – Watch Star Trek: The Next Generation or Futurama.
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  • FL Studio 7 – Write jazz fusion licks. Bang head on desk because of the steep learning curve. Go back to newegg.com and check prices on a desktop computer with hardcore audio interfaces and a MIDI keyboard.
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Yep, I am lame and spend too much time on the computer. But it makes me money and keeps me connected to a lot of friends that live outside of Fort Collins, so I make no apologies.