At my apartment, we have a little mini toaster oven. Looks kind of like this...




I turned it on to toast an English Muffin. Woot. I took it out and enjoyed my muffin made by the Brits. And then I took a nap.

Turns out I forgot to turn off the toaster oven, and I left my roomates mimi plastic cutting board on top of said oven. When I got up from my nap and walked out into the kitchen, I was witness to a half melted cutting board gooped over our toaster oven.

I of course turned off the toaster oven and proceed to use a knife and spatchula to remove the mess from the oven. The parts of the cutting board that were not in contact with the heat of the oven were just fine, but the entire top of the oven had half an inch of plastic stuck to it. It wasn't completly melted, but just not solid. It was like really hot silly putty.

In the course of scraping the oven clean, the melted cutting board cooled off and half of the board was still stuck to the oven. So I had to turn the oven back on and scrape the goo off, trying to get the oven hot enough to where the plastic was mallable enough to scrape off, but not hot enough to burn through my gloves.

Gloves = the ends of my sweatshirt sleeves.

My roomate gets home in 15 minutes, is he in for a story...

It was a federal holiday, and I didn't even realize it.

I typically have mondays and tuesdays off, so those are the days in which I do my errands and things of the like. I went to Costco to do my shopping, and the place was packed. I even saw kids walking around with their parents and remember thinking, "I wonder why those kids are not in school..?"

I went to the gym in the middle of the day and remember thinking that the place was a little more crowded that it normally is for that time period on that certain day.

It wasn't until, at around 3:00pm I decided to go to the liquor store, only to find it locked up and all the lights off...

My train of thought went something like this...

"Why is this place closed? It isn't sunday is it? No, I know it's Monday. Did the economy hit them hard and go out of business? No, people like booze too much. The only times liquor stores are closed in the state of Washington are on Sundays and holidays..."

Then I realized it was presidents day.

Then I made the more important realization that gas stations do not close for presidents day, and bought some burgundy wine to celebrate the holiday.

So, I was perusing the job boards today to see what I could find.

Sometimes, I apply to jobs while laughing to myself. I saw an opening for a management opportunity at a Chuck-E-Cheese.

Can you really see me managing a chuck-e-cheese? All my friends would come to visit me at work, and all of my ballpits would have a bunch of drunk young adults in them.

What is the age group for young adults. I didn't see that box on the application...

I am getting into comic books again. But much like my obsession with TV on DVD, I don't buy singular comic books. I wait for a bunch of them to come out in an anthology. I hate waiting for the next episode. Or in this case, the next issue.

I don't update as much as I should.

A single tear drops... :'-(

If you want to achieve a goal, write it out on some paper, a whiteboard, whatever.

Make sure it is the first thing you see every morning.

Create mnemonic devices that help you remember your goal throughout the day.

Be hard on yourself and don't falter.

Reap the rewards.

...

Fuck it. You are on vacation this week. Relax. Maybe you can start tomorrow.

Wait a minute...

If you don't start now, when will you start?

Tomorrow? Next week? Wait for the next year to make a resolution that you are sure to break?

Why don't you start now? What is stopping you?

All it takes is a little bit of effort.

I should be a motivational speaker. Living in a van, down by the river.

Some people get hooked on certain types of music for periods of time. For others it is movies that does the trick.

For me, it is food.

I have had this craving for Philly Cheese Steaks for the past three weeks. Where ever I go, I see if the menu serves shredded steak with melted cheese all smeared on a bread of some sort. The different fixings make every one I taste a unique and memorable experience.

I even went for the Philly pizza at Papa Murphy's. Delicious.

Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that I am noticing philly cheese steak sandwiches on the menus of places I have been to a dozen times or more. It is not like they just started serving these things three weeks ago, but just recently I am noticing them pop up more and more. Also, if I ever go out to eat, I will make a conscious effort to look for new places where I am sure they will serve these wonders from Philadelphia. Whenever I step foot into an eatery, the first thing I think is, "I wonder if this place has a good Cheese Steak?"

And the first moral of this story is...

It is human nature to crave things we find pleasant. Once we find some sensation of comfort, we will go back to it again and again. We will look for new sources of this comfort, and will notice and be drawn toward this newfound source of positivity in places that we know. But more importantly, we find comfort in places we thought we had already looked.

This could also relate to positive qualities that we find in all of the people we interact with. If I suddenly realize that I like the way a person interacts with me, I am going to be drawn to that kind of person. But sometimes you get a surprise out of left field, and find that you have a connection with a person that you thought you would never understand.

And the second moral of this story is...

Philly Cheese Steaks are scrumptious.

I find kittens adorable. Not cats, but baby kittens. As kittens get older, they lose their appeal exponentially. Like hookers.

And now for something completley different...

I saw an old lady driving her car, elbows bent and both hands gripping the top of the wheel as her her head peered over the dash to get a better look at the road.

She had a vanity plate that read, "TAPDANCE"

Cute.

Even better, she had a custom made border made for her Tapdance plate. The border consisted of flowers on a vine surrounding her plate. One of the flowers was placed in such a way that it covered up the top part of the "T" on her plate lettering.

So at first glance this sweet old lady has a vanity plate that reads, "lAPDANCE"

I was amused.

Driving down a hill very slowly, making sure not to slip and slide. The front of the car, I can control fine. However, the back end of the car starts to slip away from me. Slip slide, slip slide, slip slide I go. Lucky, am I that my front left tire slowly bumps the curb, and I am stopped on this hill. Granted I am sitting at a 45 degree angle, but safe nonetheless. Just before I stopped, I heard the honking of a horn from the vehicle that was behind me.

"Dumbass, I know I am sliding down a hill. You don't need to honk your horn at me." I think to myself as I turn my head left to peer out my window and up a hill only to see...

An SUV sliding down the same hill and coming right for me.

Impact is imminent. I ready my body for the collision, holding the wheel firmly but keeping my body loose so that I can adjust for the sudden jolt I am about to receive. But strangest of all, I shut my eyes tight. Yes, I am sure my face looked like I was about to crap myself. Maybe if I closed my eyes it would all go away...?

CRUNCH

Nope, didn't go away.

I open my eyes to realize that I am yet once again sliding down the hill. I have enough presence of mind to pump the brakes and try to regain control of my vehicle. Not withstanding the fact that I am two seconds removed from being on the business end of a T-bone collision, I still manage to get my car safely stopped on the curb once again. Success!

Wait, wasn't there an SUV behind me...? Maybe I should check on that...

And for the second time in a very short time frame, I am witness to a Sport Utility Vehicle barreling uncontrollably on ice right towards me.

Hands on wheel? Check. Body loose? Check. Eyes shut tight? Check.

CRUNCH

This time my car stays stuck to the curb, and the SUV is nudged firmly against my car and the curb. I spend a couple of hours calling tow trucks or the cops trying to get these cars off this hill. There is no way these cars are being driven off, and no tow trucks dare come near. Am I to die on this hill like a pussy? Not likely. Instead, I find out that one of our company vehicles is being held at a hotel three miles away. No cabs want to come get me, so I thought it would be a fine idea to take a little hike downhill in the snow. After my brisk walk, I drove back to work through a snowstorm and finished my job in said snowstorm, like a real man.

Boomshakalaka.

Russell before the gym





Russell after the gym

I work for a company that primarily hires recent college grads. Folks from the ages of 21-22. Me, teetering on the cusp of 26 years of age, while not seeming like that much older to me, am being considered one of the "old" folks.

Really?

It went down like this. A co worker and I were talking and he made the comment, "Russell, you are probably old enough to remember before that book "fast food nation" came out in '01 and McDonalds had the option of the 20 piece Chicken McNuggett order, right?"

Chicken McNuggets = Learnedness? Sure, why not?

But this exchange did give me cause to reflect. Time after time when I am at work, I see myself making this mental comment to myself about some of our newer employees, "I can't believe that idiot did/said that."

Upon further reflection, It isn't the fact that the newbies lack mental faculties. Hell, the "kids" are probably smarter than ever. It is just a lack of experience in what some would call the "adult workforce." Or maybe it's the lack of 20 pieces of mechanically separated meat in their diet. But in any case, it is part of my job to make sure the young'uns have a glossing understanding of what I do. Learn, train, teach, coach. Bing, Bang, Bongo.

And as I go about doing my thing at work, I am humbled in the knowledge that the people more experienced that me are looking at me do my job and thinking to themselves, "I can't believe that idiot did/said that."

"Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn."

C.S. Lewis.

TV shows on DVD.

Due to the relative small about I watch on TV, I do not have cable television. The only thing I watch on a regular basis are sports, and I usually just go to a bar or friends house to get my fix. I do have an extensive dvd collection of shows like Scrubs, The Office, My name is Earl, and the lesser known and sadly prematurely canceled Fox comedy "Titus"

In addition to watching these, my roommate has a Netflix subscription. It is like Hollywood video in our mailbox. It is fantastic, so we can watch all the latest "flix" with ease in a short amount of time. The only hassle is the one or two day wait he had to put up with to watch our stuff.

However, we also have an X-box, which now lets us stream Netflix right into our own home. It is as easy as ordering Netflix online. No more of this only three disks at a time bullshit. No more of this waiting two days horsecrap. No longer will I have to burn excess calories walking from the apartment to the mailbox! Just a couple of clicks and there it is.

This is going to take up way too much of my time...

I am going to be very vague here, as far as who I work for, what I do, and who I am talking about. But I am sure you all will understand...

I had a sit down lunch with my boss yesterday. We talked about the recession in our economy, where our company stood, and where he and I stood as far as employment status goes.

It was an interesting talk. Our particular division in Washington has never had to lay anybody off for financial reasons in 50 years. Ever. But this past month, we have. Hard workers from all divisions of our company have been getting laid off. The cuts are not swooping and dramatic, but one by one over the past six weeks or so. Another one bites the dust, as it were. We have a pretty solid division here in Washington, and it is sad so see us have to do it.

The worst (or best thing , depending on your point of view) is how awful it is for other groups in our company around the nation. Cutting upper management to "trim the fat." as it were. One upper manager goes so that four or five entry level workhorses can stay. Working on a skeleton crew, as the saying goes. Even worse is our competition in the marketplace. Reading about shares in stock pricing anywhere between $3.00 a share down to $.41 a share. Some of these drops getting as far as 95% of that as they were 18 months ago. It is kind of scary seeing where we are at.

I have learned so much about running, owning, and operating a business over the last few years. All this stuff is kind of scary. This is the first economic recession I have experienced in my adult lifetime, and it is very eye opening. Seeing different business models and different business philosophies, and how they have worked now as opposed to 12 months ago. Leaves much to ponder...

Long story long: I still have a job, and my job is not in immediate jeopardy. (or so I am told.) Rumor has it I am awesome.

I called my roommate before he got off work with instructions...

"Buy a cheap $10.00 bottle of vodka"

He had found ten dollars at work that day and had the same idea before I called him.

When you live with some people for any amount of time, your thoughts tend to be on the same wavelength. As soon as he found Mr. Alexander Hamilton, we both got a mental spark at the same time. Interesting, no?

before I go to the gym that is...

I have kind of a strange schedule. I work on Saturdays and Sundays, and I have Mondays and Tuesdays off. I sit here, on what is supposed to be my weekend, with nothing to do. All of my friends are at work, and nobody wants to go out Sunday or Monday nights because they are tired from the weekend and have to go to work.

Boo-urns.

My job isn't that great. It isn't like I am sacrificing my weekends for anything in the future as far as career advancement goes. It just kind of turned into, "It is more convienient to have Russell work on the weekends, so lets do that." Even when I took this new position, I was promised one weekend day off a week.

And I got my hours cut. Frustrating, no?

So, with my days off, I feel perusing the open job market is the way to go. With no social activities to spend the time, there will be plenty of hours to search for new, gameful employment. With the economy on the downturn, good jobs are scarce, but they are out there. If you need somebody to jump start your workplace, I am the guy to have.

Food digested? Check. Off to break a sweat...

I am an American, and a proud one at that. Proud of what our country stands for, and what one can accomplish here in the U.S. of A.

Then, why do I not care who wins the 2008 presidential election?

I am just exhausted of the constant media blitz going on with these two candidates. I am tired of hearing how much polls change every 12 hours not knowing what questions are asked or how these polls are conducted. And I am tired of all the negative things each party has to say about the other.

I kind of feel like an asshole when I vote, for a couple of reasons. first of all, sometimes I don't feel like I understand all that is going on with the economy, or why exactly gas prices are going up or down, or what foreign relations are like. I only know what I read, and sometimes the things I read are one sided or biased. Some of the things going on in this country, I can't get a straight answer as to why they are the way they are. The more I read and listen to try and figure it out, it seems I never can.

Usually, there are a lot of little tidbits which are the reason for things happening, best I can figure out...

I don't want to be uninformed when I vote, but I think I know and understand more than most, even if I can't provide a formula for the American economy.

Secondly, I really don't care who wins. I can see both candidates being a good president for different reasons. I pay enough attention and read enough to where I would be proud to live in a country with either man as its Commander in Chief. I hate to sit on the fence and not take a stand, but it really wouldn't bother me if one or the other did or did not become president. I would feel comfortable voting for either candidate.

Even though both canidates do things that piss me off, like McCain's appearance on SNL trying to humor voters into a vote, although I do appreciate a man who can laugh at himself. But top of the list of aggravating things candidates have done has to be Obama's 30 minute "American Stories, American Solutions" infomercial. It was like a 30 minute episode of "Bart's People" for all of you Simpson's fans out there.

But, whoever does win, in two or three years when our economy gets out of this funk, will go down in history as the President who pulled America out of one of its greatest recessions. History books will tell tales of Obama or McCain as the man who saved the U.S.A the time we had to take out a 700 billion relief loan. Who knows, one of them may get their face carved into a mountain.

More importantly than this election. Happy birthday mom.

Let me bring you up to speed, for those of you that don't know..





It really is a beautiful place. Minus certain kinds of people that live there...





But, home is home. I went for a run while I was there, and it was cold out. I am very sad to say my lungs are in piss poor shape. For about two and a half years, I smoked cigars fairly frequently. Despite me going to the gym consistently for about three months, my lungs were burning after about a mile. My legs and blood pressure felt fine, just the 45 degree air filling my lungs left me hacking and coughing something fierce. It is a far cry from the warm sweaty air inside my gym.

I am very sad because when I was running 20-25 miles a week, running in brisk, cold weather was my favorite climate in which to run. I haven't had a cigar in about three months, which is good. But I know what I did to my lungs is something I cannot take back, and although it will get better, I will never have the respiratory strength I once had, no matter how much I train.

It is one of the things I regret? Sure. It is something I can change? Of course not. Can I learn from it and use what I learned to help me make future decisions? I had better.

More importantly than jumping on people and judging people by their actions, is to judge people by how much they learn from them.

See how I tied that into one of "life's little lessons?" I do that in my blogs from time to time. It's like "Chicken soup for the soul", but with "Less metaphors and more cursing."

Shit piss fuck.

Or, livejournal told me so anyway.

So, I logged into livejournal to read what a few of my friends have been writing about over the past few months, and I see this...

"77 weeks without an update. What's the matter? Writer's block?"

Livejournal then asks me this...

The World Series begins today, meaning balls will be hit, bases run, and homeruns scored. Remember the first time you got to first base? What was it like?

My first feeling was, "Why would anybody write about something like this on livejounal? Who would seriously waste their time writing about this crappy metaphor?" I almost hit the little (x) in the upper right hand corner of my screen.

Almost..

Then a little voice not unlike a cartoon cricket in my ear said to me, "You used to take a sentence like that and turn it into..." well, I am not sure what you would call the literary pieces I used to write. You could call them rants, you could call them my personal philosophy, or you could call them gibberish. Take your pick. The point is that I used to get a creative spark when I read or heard something that made me think, and somewhere along the line I lost that. But more importantly, I forgot how much I missed writing, or typing rather. Visually, my writing looks like a drunk 4 year old got a hold of a pencil and an 8*10.

But I digress...

You can call it therapeutic, you can call it stress relieving, call it boredment relievment(?), a creative outlet, or a forum to practice my typing. But I enjoy writing what I think. Lord knows I express myself better on pad (screen) better than verbally. Maybe it is my fingers talking, maybe it is my lack of creativity trying to burst out, or maybe it is the 40 oz of Olde English I have running through my veins and liver. But it may be time I picked up the pad and pen (monitor and keyboard) again.

Long story long, to answer livejournal's question, the first time I got to first base was awkward and confusing. I had no idea what the hell I was doing, but thought I should have, so I acted like I knew I was doing, but I did not. =-(

But I got better. Semicolon, minus sign, end parentheses.

Let's see...

My grandma died 3/30

I got promoted 3/20

I changed work environments 3/01

Hell, what should I say?

Sorry mom, I have been drinking. But I bought a bowflex. Working on the bowflex bod

I think I may go up to bellingham this weekend, 5/4. I got some good peeps up there.

Why does nobody call me? Probably because I am sort of a dick

unintentionally of course, but still a dick nonetheless

Man, do I love cake and meat.

Lately I am feeling less creative. I used to write a bunch, draw a bunch,and think of crazy inventions that would ultimately make me millions of dollars. However I don't really do that anymore. All I do is work and make money.

Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but life is getting awful one dimensional.

One of my roomates is in the process of writing a short film script. Just because he can. I'll get to play a part when the filming takes place, but I think that is really neat. I may try and make it a new years resolution to be more creative.

I might make a snowman.

I have yet to write my prize winning novel. I'll get to that later as well.

A year ago I was getting fired and kicked out of school on the same day.

Tonight, what am I doing?

I am going to a work party honoring people who are badasses within the company. Said badasses include Russell Bishop.

Life's little lesson learned? We will try multiple choice.

a) Gotta work through the setbacks.
b) Perseverance pays off.
c) Good things come to those who wait.
d) Western Washington University can go suck it.

Survey says...?

The D's have it.