Projects

I have found out after college you need a diverse amount of activities to grab hold of your time so you don't lose your mind. Firstly I'll say I'm most likely going to be working down in Harrisburg for a company called rite aid, I don't plan on moving down there as of yet but I'll be able to get money to fund some projects of mine.

The first project of course is my book circles which is coming along alright, i realized if you concentrate too much on a project you get tired of it. You need breaks from a project that's going to take a vast amount of time to accomplish. I hope to have my first draft of my book by the end of may but realistically it'll be more near the end of July.

The second project I'm working on is a project that i tossed aside when i left my job at penteledata. I had this idea for a website called brew trip which i definably don't want to get into a site where people can go to and rate beer (ratebeer and beeradvocate) for those sites already do that. Instead I want to properly properly educate individuals on beer, give them a tool that will enable them to be better informed brew travelers, and come up with a way to promote brew destinations whether it be through some award system, judgement process, or other means yet defined. Actually traveling to these places and doing a photojournalism type idea also seems like a neat thing to throw in..

The third project is just jamming with the band again, recording our random jams and working on a few songs.. Its the lowest on the project list but if we get serious again i can always throw up the old band website.

(You always need three examples to make yourself look creditable, i don't know why but it always looked better then a yes or no answer.. You always have to have the possibility of both, or maybe even neither. Anymore then that and your rambling)

I just like having these three projects now, I cut out the hour i spent everyday playing city of heroes to pursue these and i sometimes get so caught up in them i have to glance at the clock more then i should..

The main thing i guess is, you enjoy what your doing. You have breaks from what you enjoy, and you finish your goals.

Warning Signals

Warning signs reveal,
               the contemplated thoughts,
          of our past mistakes,

The bump in the road,
                 Unidentified,
                       Allows for us to take part,

To make our voice heard,
                   In the council of society,

So that future generations,
              will know before its too late,
          the troubles that lie ahead,

That instead of stumbling,
              They will rise,
                       In the face of adversity,

                They will admire,
Our one line poetic thoughts,
                            of centuries past,

They will not realize,
             the time and effort,
         for a word to spread,
                  across the globe,

Those words did not burn,
                          Like wildfire,

They were ironed out,
                 with a sword and shield,

The battles fought,
                 won or lost,
remembered or forgotten,
                remain constant in our ever changing world,

That our ideas,
              can not simply be changed,
and that freedom,
                  will not be morphed by the space bar and random keys,

No one likes bloodshed,
                      But its powerful,

It makes a statement,
                    when we cut off,
the tyrants fingers.

The Sunday Drive to Church

Leaving the house has become a daily chore. The husband, sits in the car, impatiently, awaiting the exiting of his wife. He knows he could avoid this situation, the impending argument, if he just woke her up a little earlier. But then again, the wife would wake up groggy, tired, and irate. Causing her to take even more time to get ready, slowing down his own progress.

Analyzing all those statistics from ESPN would constantly become interrupted. This in turn would cause him to have to watch Sports Center twice instead of once. The husband could also go around and unplug the coffee pot, toaster, the usual suspects. But she would double check to see if their unplugged causing him to lose that time he already spent unplugging everything.

Now he could take a shower right before bed, allowing for the hot water to build up overnight. But then when she hit the snooze button on her alarm clock, she wouldn’t have “that cue” (the shower turning off). Causing her to completely sleep in and blame the husband for being a dirty old inconsiderate fool.

Moving his processing power from his mind to his body he reaches for the radio. He decides to hit the first preset button, allowing musical waves from the nearest pop radio station to flow through his mind. He starts to shout, trying to drone out the catchy phrases of Avril Levine, but the neighborhood kid peddling by could only make out something he just recently heard on the outtakes of American Idol.

Growing increasingly impatient the husband honks the horn, causing the kid to giggle to himself and peddle away. The wife on the other hand finally emerges from the house to an oh so familiar scene. Her eyes cast down the don’t start with me look. And the husband rolls his window down, yelling “Come On” over Justin Timberlake’s bringin sexy back.

The husband hatefully rolls up his window as the wife meanders over to the car door, lifts the handle and finds the door locked. She raises her hands in the air as to pray, and puts her hand on the handle again. Like they’ve practiced a million times before the husband hits the unlock button on the door at the same exact time as she tries to open the door. The resulting factor has every other door but hers open, which would help the situation if he was a taxi driver.

“Hold your horses” the husband yells, “You’ll break the damn door if you keep it up”. The wife just stands still, looking into his eyes and contemplates trying to do it again to see how pissed off she could make him this morning. He finally hits the button the and wife is whisked into the car by a batch of fresh air just in time to hear “the best songs on the radio 94.1 WQKX Sunbury” and she turned the volume down. Rummaging through her purse the husband puts his hand on the back of her seat and slowly backs out of the driveway.

Wanting to see how she looked, the wife pulls the blinder down and exposes the mirror to take a look at herself as she always does. As they pulled up to the first stop sign, the husband pounds the blinder up and for the 100^th time shouts “Do you want to get into an accident? I can’t see the road when that things down.”

The wife who was already satisfied with how she looked rummaged through her purse and found what she was looking for. Nail polish. It didn’t take long for the husband to glance over and protest the smell of nail polish, but she simply said if you woke me up earlier this could of been avoided.

Seclusion

The candle burns lower as the room grows colder 

while the spiders feast upon their prey.

The dust grows denser while the man sits tenser, 

as his cough echoes in the room.  

Work stacks higher, 

sounds from the fire, 

his foot gently tapping against the wooden floor.  

Shadows from afar, 

made by the stars, 

creep ever so slowly from the window.

The man is alone, 

cold to the bone, 

secluded from the rest of the world.  

A quill drips black, 

sitting on a rack, 

gradually changing the color of the wood.  

Recalling memories, 

taking remedies, 

a shot of whiskey to easy his nerves.  

The man starts to laugh, 

when the bottle is half, 

as creatures lurk outside his door.

His heart beats faster, 

the crickets a bastard, 

skipping there harmonic melody.  

The bottle is empty; 

his body becomes hefty, 

with dizziness clenching his frail mind.

The room becomes black, 

as the man starts to hack, 

uncomfortably suppressing the inevitable blowout.  

Ten dollars now lay on the floor; 

the man never viewed it that way before.

Rats came happily, 

as the man sat sadly, 

watching them devour the pile of stench.  

His gun lay loaded; 

a loud explosion, 

smoke fills the little room.

 

Load the bullet, 

pack the powder, 

the power of god is in his hands.  

The man grows tired, 

the gun rises higher, 

and the bullet of freedom will reign once more.

Confidence

It has lately occurred to me that confidence is a difficult attribute for individuals to obtain/maintain. The first problem of confidence is building it, whether it be for school, work, dating, military, ect. How do we exactly obtain confidence? Do we need to fail over and over again at a task; finally completing it and realizing how to apply it to other activities? Well that’s sounds like knowledge, but it takes knowledge of a task to build the foundation of confidence.

Now is simply knowledge everything when it comes to confidence? Of course not, you need to be able to apply that knowledge in some atmosphere over and over again. Gaining experience through your successes and failures. But then again, is experience needed for someone to be a confident person? Someone who fails constantly at an experience isn’t going to be as confident as someone who constantly succeeds. If the person can improve from their failures and eventually succeed he has traveled through adversity and a person who has experienced adversity and came through on top is a more confident person the someone who simply succeeds.

Once they succeed, they must be able to look at other individuals and be able to tell them the knowledge/experience they obtained. A confident person is a leader, who might not always be right, but will learn from their mistakes.

So we need a knowledgeable/successful person who has failed. Traveled through the land of adversity and was able to lead hundreds without light.

Now the tricky part is, how great of a failure does it take to lose your confidence? Does losing the hundreds of individuals your leading to darkness cost you to think twice when you only thought once. Failing a paper or receiving an awful grade on a paper you thought in your mind was perfect. Breaking up with your girlfriend after years of servitude.

I know this, once confidence is obtained, it takes a great failure to knock someone off their pedestal. And once off, they must start from square once, revising their knowledge, reflecting the experience, and expressing concern to others where failure did not seem like an option.

Iraq

I've been reading a bunch lately on the current situation in Iraq and the degrading coalition of the willing. I can't help but look at the country and say it was doomed from the get go. A foreign government invades and topples a regime, only to side with half of the population. Creating the roots for a civil war in a country that honestly needs to be divided if peace is going to be pursued.

The religious beliefs of the Sunni and Shiite are not comparable with each other. Our basic moral values such as the freedom of religion seems alien and they simply want to work with other like minded individuals. They live in a world of absolutes, black and white, right and wrong, while the united states brings in a shade of grey to a culture that's not ready for it.

When someone says no to a situation or law in our country, we might protest, write a letter to the congress man/woman, organize meetings and talk with other individuals. These simple actions are not translating properly over there, and they do not realize how much can be accomplished with time and effort.

What they realize is that giving their life makes a statement, it a crude way but a legitimate way in their eyes. Wasting time arguing with a side that you hate like heated debates before the American civil war will not be resolved while we are there. Governments are forged in bloodshed, conflict, and determination. The side that wants to govern most and stands up to their ideas firmly will win.

I can see no reason why we should not at least support a side by equipment and training if it fits the best interest of America, i do not however want to see us wasting countless lives because we are fighting for a side that does not want to stand up for a government we enacted.