scottms

Who gets their car stolen 2x's within a year. actually it's less than 8 or 9 months....

how the fuck does that happen?

So, just to post something, here's my grocery list:

Coffee
Water
Beer
Milk
Pita chips
Hummus
Pizza
Peanut Butter
Hard Candies
Dried Cranberries
Snackwells vienna finger things
Natural Low Fat Vanilla Yogurt
Bananas
Frozen whole Strawberries and maybe some other berry
Apples
Carrots
Baby Spinach
Sprouts
Canned Pineapple
Whole Wheat Bread
Bagels
Cereal(Special K & Granola stuff)
Canned Tuna
Deli Meats(probably Turkey & Ham)
Frozen Chicken (breasts or tenderloins)
Pork Chops
String Cheese
Cream Cheese
Cottage Cheese
Sliced Cheese
Eggs

[Edit]Oh yea, obviously I'm not lactose intolerant. Dunno what was going on with my stomach that week, but it's better now.

Ok, I get a kick out of AZ's forecasts...

on my little accuweather plug in for firefox, here's the forecast for the next 5 days:

Brilliant Sunshine
Abundant Sunshine
Plenty Of Sunshine
Mostly Sunny(normal...there will probably be A cloud that day...)
A Full Day Of Sunshine

It's like the people get bored, and try to figure out ways to say the exact same thing over and over again... :D


Anyway, it's also supposed to be sub 90 all week, so that's pretty awesome as well :)

I haven't posted any of this on here, but I bought a 20 gallon fish tank, which is full of Malaysian Trumpet Snails, 3 or 4 Red Rams Horn Snails(one is hiding in its shell, and has been for ~12 hours...so it may be dead), 6 Bloodfin Tera's, and 4 Black Neon Tetra's. The pic below was taken a couple weeks ago, and I've changed the layout since then, as well as added the rams horns and the black neons.



Oh yea, I have a Betta as well, in a separate 2 gallon tank



and sorry, I'm probably messing up your formatting due to the excessively large pics :P

I've been in an odd positive contemplative state lately. The odd part is that it's positive(for the most part).

I've managed to get a full set of very competent clubs together to replace my stolen set. Granted some pieces I already owned, and just needed to have tweaked to work right, but every thing seems to be coming together rather well. I've been to the range twice with the clubs, and I hit them as well, or better than my old set. Granted they don't feel as good...but considering I had one of the best feeling sets ever produced(literally), there's very few places you can go but down...

Apparently the guy that stole my car has reached some sort of guilty plea agreement, in that he owes me for financial losses up to $25k. I need to start getting all my receipts in order for my golf stuff, and get that taken care of. If I can get more money out of this, I would be a VERY happy camper. This should cover the $500 I had to pay for insurance deductible as well, yes?

I've more or less decided that I need to toss a majority of my old clothes that are either ill fitting or just completely out of style, and re-do a bit. I've literally spent under $500 on clothes in the past 2 years, and $100 of it is in 3 golf shirts, so $350-$400 in 2 years...I think most people spend that at least every 6 months. Granted, I'm not including shoes in this...but that's only 2 pairs, for maybe a total of $150 tops...

Each morning this week I've been trying to get my ass to the gym, and I've not made it yet. Considering it's 2 AM right now, tomorrow morning is once again looking bleak. At least I'm eating reasonably well(this week).

I was able to get my old amplifiers shipped down from my parents house in MN, and I've not had a chance to get them hooked up yet. Hopefully this weekend I can get to that. I'm very tempted to buy a more fitting amplifier for my front speakers so I don't cook them any more than they already are. Under powered speakers fry quickly, and these will be underpowered by about 30% compared to what they were powered at. Also, one of the amps I had shipped down is broken. I knew this before it was shipped, but thought MTX may do a repair on it. I called them, and they said they don't service these amps anymore(I don't blame them, they're getting close to 10 years old) but I may just stop by their factory(at least that's what it appears to be), since it's literally about 3 miles from where I work. Anyway, I should finally be able to get toons in my car once again. Driving 45 miles per day with no music makes for a rather dull ride. BTW, my new head unit is an Alpine iDA-X001, which is CD-less. MP3/Other Digital Media only. I can use a flash drive or a direct ipod connection. The unit is designed for the ipod, so I will definitely be trying that first, plus I purchased a 4 GB flash drive for things I want to keep in the car most of the time.

I know there was a bunch more stuff I'd been thinking about posting, but it's now 2:10, so I'm hitting the sheets. adios mother fuckers :D

For the couple of you that don't know this, my car was stolen on Wednesday night/Thursday morning.

It was recovered today, but my golf equipment(except for my shoes) is all gone.

My stereo...I'm not 100% sure what's there and what's not at this point. for all I know at the moment, there's a live 4 guage wire in my trunk that I don't want to deal with at the moment.

Now, here's the odd part, this is what I gained:

-1 hat with a UPS symbol on it, but it states 'United Pot Smokers' instead
-1 CD Player, that was not my own, that they went through the trouble of completely rewiring the car for, as they stole my amps, and all the speakers were previously powered by the amps, in the trunk...
-1 Visor CD holder full of pantera and other rock cd's
-2 identical green lighters
-1 Cell phone charger
-6+ packages of powder gatorade
-1 complete wiring kit(crimpers, cutters, etc...)
-2-3 screw drivers
-1 tire air pressure gauge
-5-10 empty soda cans
-FULL tank of gas, I really do think they got picked up at a Circle K, as there's a K with a circle around it on my windshield, and I had initially been wondering what the fuck it meant...


so yea, odd afternoon/evening. I'll probably find more odd shit tomorrow...

They fucked up the ignition pretty good, I'm 90% sure my car could be started with a screw driver right now, since the key barely worked.

The shifter knob was turned slightly, bu I got that turned back myself...

The only other thing I noticed 'wrong' with the actual car, is that the switch in the door frame that turns the dome light on was gone, and there's one new small chip in the windshield...

for being stolen, they kept the car rather clean, I must say.

Ok, first, you must read this article. And while read it, be sure to take notice of the awesome captions

LINK!


Then you must commit to memory this flow chart:

So, I think I'm gonna finally get off my ass and play in some golf tournaments down here. I'm still struggling with the decision of whether to play in the 'Professional' bracket or stick with the 'Amateur' bracket for the time being. While I'd like to go the professional route, the same tournament becomes considerably more expensive since you're paying not just your fees, but also the purse.

The difference is ~100 dollars for 1 day tournaments, and ~200-300 for 2 day tournaments...

Ok, I think that just made my decision for me, at least to start with.

There are 9 tournaments between now and the end of the year. A rough estimate of the cost for the professional brackets put it at $3,500. I havent' figured the amateur tournament cost, but I'm guessing it would be around $2k.

The downside of the amateur bracket, would be that I'm guaranteed to spend that 2 k and get nothing back, other than experience, where the professional tournaments would at least allow for the possibility to get the money back, and/or MAKE money.

Looking at most of the results, you need to be in the top 3-5 players to make your money back and/or make money. The top 3-5 are generally right at, or just below par, with the winner ranging anywhere from 3 under to 6-7 under. There's one REALLY GOOD player that makes it to just about every AZ tournament, and wins most of the ones he enters in. He's made $14k this year so far...and the only guy ahead of him is in CA, and from what I can tell doesn't play any of the AZ events, and he's made $19k. I haven't looked at any of the CA events, but I'm guessing that guy dominates as much as the guy in AZ does, possibly more, as he's about $10k ahead of the guy in 3rd.

I honestly wouldn't expect to go in and win money at this point, but looking at the scores, and knowing what courses these guys are playing, I think I could at least cover my entry fees about 1/2 the time, possibly more. If I could putt worth a shit, maybe more.

The next tournament is August 5th, at a rather tough course not far from here. Entry deadline is August 1, so I've got about a week to make up my mind, and less than 2 weeks to 'train'.

So yea, that's my latest dilemma, I basically decided that i should try to succeed in spite of myself ;)

So, I also just found another downside to 'acquiring' music through the internet.

You might some day, find out that you've been missing a track or two from one of your favorite CD's, for the past 3-4 years....

I hope the track is good, it's the last one on the disc, and I've never been able to hear it before :)

I think my laptop is finally starting to give out...

It won't stay connected to my ipod through the USB port anymore, or at least not while I'm typing and doing other stuff. I'm guessing if I didn't touch it, it would be fine...

I guess 2.5 years of rather heavy use will finally start to show some of the build quality issues with a gateway versus Apple/IBM/Toshiba.

And here I was thinking about upgrading my desktop at some point....looks like another laptop might be the better choice...

So, I've decided that I can tell the future.

My fish died today, and last night (proof in the previous entry) I foretold of it.

Maybe Friday the 13th is my lucky day? (Though obviously not my fishes)

Granted, I watch my fair share of TV, but this isn't far from the truth...

so...seeing some pictures of Denver tonight made me think about how I've always wanted to live in Colorado. And thinking about that, made me think of other things that I want to do at some point in my life...rather sooner than later.

so, here's my start of a list of things I want to do before I pass.

Travel(this one will get a sub section)
-Central and South America
-Europe(all of it)
-Australia
-China & Japan and other countries throughout that region
-India

I guess I basically just want to see the world, there's no single destination that I would put above any others...I want to go everywhere.


Live in Colorado, preferably in the mountains, but even Denver would be alright. I just love the Rockies...always have...


At least visit New York. I almost feel ashamed to admit that I've never been to New York.



I clearly need to add more onto this..but it's a start :)

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New thought...holy shit does my laptop need more ram...

I've got 11 web pages open in 2 separate 'windows' in firefox, soulseek, and just tried to start up word...took ~20 seconds for word to load...

I guess the 512MB's of ram just aren't cutting it...needs a solid GB more...

I'm so fucking bored...

I don't really want to be a hermit...but it seems that I'm running more and more in that direction...

I don't hang out with anyone...

meh, I had more I wanted to post on this subject...but fuck it, putting these thoughts into pixels won't change anything.


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so many other things I want to post...but my head just won't let me...stupid me, keeping everything bottled, just like 'normal'

no, for real:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070503/ap_on_re_as/skorea_high_wire


Headline of the year.

So, the other day I saw something that I found incredibly funny, and I've since forgot to tell anyone about it.

I saw a car, with a personalized plate. It was 'USA4EVR'. Now, I've got no problem with someone showing some patriotism, but what I noticed next is the funny part.

The car was an import. It was an Audi, not sure of the exact model...but it made me laugh...probably too hard for what it was, but still...

For the extra amount of work it would take to get the plate, you'd think the persons patriotism would run a bit deeper...



Speaking of interesting plates, a friend of a friend supposedly got the license plate 'BBYSHKR' on one of the AZ plates that's supposed to support non-violence against children...

I need to post on this more, I think...

Alright, so I've had a chance to let the 4 new tracks that NIN has 'leaked' to the world sink in a bit, and I REALLY like the direction of this album, especially when compared to 'With Teeth'.

Me, I'm Not and My Violent Heart are definitely the tracks I like out of the 4 that are released thus far. Survivalism and In This Twilight are good, but they're not as strong and edgy as the other two.

http://symphonyofnoise.com/nails/yearzero/

All 4 tracks are available on that page, as well as the promo video which is interesting in it's own right.


To me, With Teeth was the weakest NIN album to date. I don't think any fan of previous NIN work would disagree. There was so little feeling to the music, so there was nothing to hold your attention. Unlike his previous work where you could hear the feelings right in the music.

I'll be completely honest, lyrics don't make music good or bad for me. I was listening to Mega-Colon from Fischerspooner the other day, which if you actually listen to the lyrics, is a pretty nasty song, but the music fucking rips. I love that track, and it has nothing at all to do with the lyrics...

I think this is why I liked the Fragile so much, when many other NIN fans thought it was lacking. The texture of the music on that album is great, it has so much feeling in it. And that's why I'm liking these new tracks so much. Trent has returned to having having feeling in the music, and more or less just let the lyrics ride the waves.

anyway, yea, I'm looking forward to this album so far...hopefully it's not a let down like With Teeth was.


I think I'll post a real update later tonight...

This is a question that has haunted me for my life thus far.

In looking for new jobs tonight, and looking at all these different opportunities, it makes me really wonder about what I should actually be doing with my life. I just looked through something like 1000 jobs, and maybe 4 or 5 looked even semi-interesting, the majority of which I'm grossly under qualified for.

I want out of my current job, but I don't have any idea what I should try to find for a job. Getting back into 401k's wouldn't be a bad thing, when I was finally off the phones there I didn't mind it as much, and I can all but guarantee it would pay better than what I'm doing now.

But even doing that, it's not really a career path I want to go down.


I've more or less tossed golf professional out, because of the amount of time it takes out of your day, EVERY day. After talking to quite a few golf pro's about it, it doesn't sound like what I want to do, even though I think I would probably be good for it. I want to play golf, not stand in a golf shop 8-10 hours/day without having a chance to ever play myself.

If I were to work in the golf industry, I think my previous teacher has now got the exact job I would want. He has a teaching/playing position at a rather exclusive club on the east coast. So, essentially he gets to give lessons, and play golf...I'd love to do that. The downside, is how long of a journey it is to get to that point. I know that at this point, he's trying to get on the senior tour, not the regular tour....so that's how long for him to get there, and he was rated one of the best teaching professionals in MN quite a few years back.


Anyway, I need to get out of my current job, not so much because I don't like the job...but I've started to hate the schedule. fuck working weekends, and fuck working nights. Also, fuck getting passed over for a promotion for someone less skilled. Maybe I don't hate the shift...maybe I just want to leave cause I know it would fuck up their schedule until they could find someone reasonably skilled to take my time slot... no, I'm just sick of working weekends...and nights...

anyway, all this looking at jobs is making me think more and more about school as well. there's few, if any, full time jobs that work well with full time school. of the jobs that might work...I actually have one right now, due to the rather messed up schedule, the complete lack of stress, and the fact that I'd probably be able to do some homework while there most nights. But even if I were to go back to school....wtf do I go back for? I'm no closer to picking a major, or even a field of study than the day I started kindergarten. I mean, there's so many different things I find completely amazing, so I don't know what I would choose...


bleh, i wanted to write more...but got caught up doing other things....so this will have to do for now, cause I'm gonna go pass out.

So, I've been sick for about 2.5 weeks straight now. there was a slight reprieve in the middle, but I managed to go out and drink a whole shit load of alcohol and get sick again.

So, in being sick for these 2.5 weeks, I managed to blow my nose too hard, and from looking at the diagnosis on mayoclinic.com, perforated/ruptured my ear drum. Now, I'm 95% sure that I've done this before, but what I've not had happen before, is to get an infection in my ear at the same time as having this happen. I'll leave out the gross stuff, but basically for a few days I was actually pretty scared that I'd really fucked up my hearing in my left ear for good.

I still have not been to a doctor about it, but I'm finally going to schedule a visit for this tues/weds(my weekend). It's been close to 2 weeks that my ear has been messed up, and it doesn't seem to be getting much better on its own.

This whole being sick thing is rather foreign to me. This is the first time I've actually considered missing work due to a non-drinking related illness in at least 2 years. And even then, I never thought about not coming in till after I got here, and realised how shitty I felt...but then I was already here, so I may as well stay for a few hours and help out... :D
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On to that horrible amount of alcohol I drank in the middle

So, DJ called me on Thursday, asking if I could/wanted to go to the FBR/Phoenix Open on Saturday. Since I work on saturday's, it took a bit of greasing to get out of it, but I was able to go in the end. And I'm glad I was.

Let me preface this with a note: It's good to know 'people'

Bob, Justin, Jeff, DJ, and I got to the tournament around 2 PM, we pulled right up to the front gate, where Bob called a friend, who let us into a parking area roughly 200 yards from the main entrance. He also provided us with a total of 5 passes for the event. Jeff, managed to get 4 additional general admission passes, as well as 2 passes for the Corporate Tents. We sold off the 4 extra passes for drinking money for later. After entering the site, we made our way over to the corporate tents where we started trading off the two passes for them, as they had free booze and food. By the time we each had 4+ drinks in us, the tournament was basically over. I think we combined as a group maybe saw 10-15 golf shots, this was not a trip about golf, this was about drinking.

At this point we headed over to 'The Birds Nest' which is essentially a big party each night of the tournament. They have a regular area which you have to pay something like $20 to get into, and then there's the VIP area which they charge $150 to get into, but has free food and drink. Through Bob's contact, we managed to get into the VIP area free of charge. so this was at around 4 PM, and the birds nest closes at 10:30 or 11...I really don't recall when exactly. Regardless, we drank MUCH liquor. I can say, without a doubt, this is the most alcohol I've consumed in a single day in at least 2-3 years. At one point in the evening, there were four of us in need of drinks, so I made the suggestion to just order 8 more, since we were all there, and you're allowed to get 2 at a time per person... for the rest of the night 'EIGHT MORE DRINKS!!!' became the tag line whenever any of us needed more alcohol... I think we did this 3-4 times. Even before the 8 more drinks got started, we were all double fisting for almost the entire evening.

I know after the birds nest we made a stop into Dos Gringo's in Scottsdale, I don't recall much before or after this point...but I know we got at least 1 drink at Dos...possibly more.

I may or may not have puked that night...I'm not really sure, and wouldn't be at all surprised if i did. I don't think I did, but really....who knows...?

So that was the FBR, a drunken blur that was partially forgotten before the night even ended. Good times :D

So, I went golfing on Wednesday with my Dad.

It was quite a bit of fun, and I'm really glad that I went out and played, for multiple reasons.

First, it was good to actually go out and do something with just him. I haven't been able to hang around with just him for any length of time in quite a while. It did allow me to see how much his issues have progressed as well. It would have been much more fun to have been able to play on a more empty course with no one pushing up behind us, but oh well. I still think that dementia/alzheimer's is one of the cruelest things. My dad is still able to hit a golf ball as well as he ever has, but often forgets where he hit it, and gets confused about where he is on the course, and what club he should be taking... Granted this is more or less just a microcosm of what every day is like with/for him, but yea... It really sucks when the mind deteriorates so much faster than the body...

It was really good to just get out and play as well. Since I've not played much lately, i really didn't expect much at all from my game. I managed to shoot a 3 over par 75. I started with a double bogey on the first hole, so basically I played the next 17 holes at 1 over par. Had I not been so rusty with my wedges and putter, I would have easily gone 2-3 under par, even with the opening double bogey. I need to stop spending money on 'worthless' shit, and get back into practicing and playing...

Playing also showed me how much my working out has helped already. Even though i've not been playing or practicing golf, my muscles still had plenty of memory, flexibility, and strength. I know my timing was off, and it was pretty cold (high 50's maybe?) and I still knocked out 2 or 3 290-300 yard drives.


So yea, that was my wednesday.
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I'm so mixed on what i should to with work/school/golf...

Do I go back to school full time, see what kind of aid I can get, and see if i can play on the golf team? I have no idea what kind of limitations there are on college players...

Do I stick with this job, try to scrape together the cash to play on a mini tour?

Do i get a different job, and try to mix and match with the above options?


I definitely don't love my job, there seems to be little room for advancement, and what I'm currently doing bores the shit out of me. The flip side of that, is that my job is virtually stress free. It's virtually guaranteed 40 hours/week, 20 of which are spent on instant messaging, LJ, and myspace...

That and my coworkers are pretty cool and like to party.

I really should go back to school to get some/any kind of degree...just get the fucking piece of paper and be done with it. I like almost anything I do, and there in lies the problem. About the only thing I don't want to do is Computer Science. As much time as i spend fucking around with computers as it is, i don't need to spend any more time on them.

I'd love to go back to school and get into bio/chem stuff, I always loved sciences back in the day.. I honestly have considered culinary school, cause I do enjoy cooking, and trying to make more challenging dishes.

I should probably just head over to the school, see what the different degrees I'm closest to are, and pick on that I like the most...
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I accidentally made myself homesick last night. I started looking through all my old photo's from the past 5 or so years that I had on my desktop. Lots of good times captured in those photo's. Photo's from the lake, from different parties we've had, from random things that happened through out the years... Just a whole bunch of memories.

I think some of my favorites are the ones that were obviously taken in close succession, and tell a story. some of the ones from NYE 2002 or so are the funniest...cause we got WAAAAAY drunk, and the pics are hilarious.

I miss my MN peeps....move down here already. It's waaaay warmer here.