Learning Something New

I try and make every project an opportunity to learn something new. Whether its a new way of thinking about an old problem or something I just never took the time to understand. I’m also trying to accept help from others whenever I can. I find that I often develop my own idea of how something works and input from someone outside of the problem can often shed new light on the matter. I never want to become so full of myself where I start overlooking valuable input from those around me.

Work so far has been an amazing opportunity to learn and grow and I’m glad I’ve been pushing myself like I have. I’m finally starting to realize my potential as a developer and there’s a lot more fun to be had.

The Start of Something Good

 

So I’m failing at keeping this thing updated but in all fairness I’ve had a busy month. The holidays were a breath of fresh air compared to life since I moved to Boston a few months ago. Work became a bit too overwhelming and there were too much I wanted to do. I had made the decision to try and settle down somewhere full time a few months prior and since my last blog post I’ve now reached that goal.

So I’ve completed my third week at my new job and so far I’m loving it. The people are great, the work is challenging and the environment is exactly what I need. Best part is I can see the TD Garden, the Zakim Bridge, the U.S.S. Constitution and part of the North End right from my desk.

The best part about starting a new job is a chance to start fresh. I’m starting fresh as a developer, a boyfriend and a Bostonian. These last three weeks have felt great and I couldn’t be more excited for the future.

It's Been Awhile

Haven’t posted over here in awhile. I’ve been hard at work with Magicomm and making my own WordPress plugins. I’m starting to get to that point where the monotony of everything is getting kind of depressing. I’ve got enough vacation time to really get out and relax but no time to take a vacation.

In lighter news, my abuelita is coming to visit from Puerto Rico this weekend. We’re all headed down to Brooklyn for a cousin’s wedding. I’m always down for some Spanish food and good dancing. Plus, I think I look pretty damn good in a suit … altho I don’t know if I would like to wear one every day.

Another thing that’s been going good is my trekking. I’ve finally made it a point to get out into nature pretty regularly for some hiking, rock climbing and other nature stuff. I’m trying to get a small group to get up to New Hampshire for a couple nights on the bond cliffs but we’ve been having a hard time committing.

That’s it for now … maybe I’ll post a magic trick I learned a little later.

Motivate Me With Pictures


Photo by mediaboytodd

I constantly want to feel like I am moving forward with something. I hate feeling like I could be doing the same thing for the rest of my life. So far I’ve been really good about keeping things mixed up but now I am starting to feel stuck again.

How long can I stay at one company before getting tired of the repetition. Is this the real test or should I forget it and keeping moving forward. Well, so far I’ve just made it a point to always have work to do on the side as well as constantly try and move up in the company. Once that comes to a standstill I will re-evaluate again.

But for right now … I’ve always wanted to learn how to design. I’d say I’m pretty good at picking out things I don’t like about stuff. It’s the being good at knowing what looks good that I am no good at. So I decided a little while ago I was going to create title images for all of my posts. At first this was just a random thought and know I want to fully pursue it. I will not post on this blog unless the post has some sort of header image.

Hopefully I will just get better over time all the while learning more and more about adobe creative suite. It’s funny the things I will do to motivate myself.

You'll Get What's Coming To You


Photo by Ezy Brenizzle

I pretty much live my life by the motto “What goes around comes around”.

Basically I don’t do anything to other people I wouldn’t want done to myself. If someone else does something to me I don’t like, I turn my other shoulder and see if they’re doing something I like the next day. Everyone gets as many chances as they want.

If you know me at all then you know this isn’t a spiritual thing or some righteous hippie movement. Well OK maybe you might think it was the hippie thing but its not. It just had to do with my view on life. I see people waste their lives away in unconstructive arguments and its just not worth my time.

I do however enjoy a good constructive argument. This is mostly why I love my job … because my boss loves to argue with me.

But my point is that I believe my quality of life is dramatically increased by this lifestyle. Granted I am not perfect, yet, and sometimes life does get the best of me. I am however extremely content with my life choices so far.

So bring it on. You’ll get what’s coming to you and I will move on to bigger better things … hopefully.

Gamer Fo' Life


Photo by Soprano For Now

Every weekend I have set aside about 4 hours in which I can play Counter-Strike. I can’t help it. I was one of those computer nerds who would bring their computer to a friends house so we could lan. Good old lan parties. Sometimes I’ll mix it up and play a little DOD or TFC but recently I’ve been a huge scoutsknives fan so I rage A LOT of CS.

So enough Greek for those of you that have no idea what I’m talking about.

Lets bring it back a little. What games were a big part of your childhood? It could be anything from Lincoln logs to Sega genesis (Sega was pretty clutch).

I would have to say that original Nintendo sculpted a large part of my early video gaming career. I remember a lot of Mario/Duck Hunt, Super Mario Bros 3, Golf and some crazy chess like game where the pieces were creatures that would battle and stuff. I also went on to own such classics as Zelda and Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out.

So video games aside, I used to like taking stuff apart and putting it back together. This led to my love for K’NEX – “The World’s Most Creative Construction Toy”. I probably played with them until I was like 16. I would try and make it cool by building actual functional items like folder holders and alarm clocks that always missed my head. Not gonna lie I, actually know where those two glorious orange boxes of connectible trinkets lies. Good thing their not in this house because I would have already stopped writing this and started building a rollercoaster.

OK enough about the dam k’nex. Favorite childhood game had to of been Truth or Dare. It was always a win win situation that would result in me learning something new about life or… er… the human anatomy. I know everyone has played it at one time or another. It was the “break the ice” game that entertained us through puberty. I think as a result of that game I’ve … (this is the first time I’ve gone back and read what I wrote and said um …. maybe I shouldn’t go into detail).

So there you have it. K’Nex, Nintendo and Truth or Dare are the games that dominated my childhood. So now it’s your turn …. TRUTH: What games were a big part of your childhood?

Let Me Save Me

Someone put a “Let Jesus save you” pamphlet on my car … before a rain storm … which led to an interesting combo of leaves and Jesus ink smeared on my window.

I wonder how many of those pamphlets actually work. Are people seriously opening these things up and finding God right on the inside sleeve. Maybe I’m opening it wrong.

I just really don’t see the point. I don’t go putting pamphlets about my company on their cars … and my company could actually save them some money.

To make the situation worse, I think it was my neighbor downstairs, and I’m pretty sure she holds bible studies in her living room every Thursday. I used to rock a good bible study. Whip out some nasty proverbs that defined how my morals build better character. Now I write my own proverbs. Like….

People grow old and die unless they kill themselves.

That one’s a little dark. How about …

Be nice to your friends or they’ll talk behind your back

That’s more like it. So back to my main point I made when I first started this blog. You live your life and I’ll live mine. We can co-exist and talk about life … just not about how you’ve been “saved”.

Flashback Sunday: God Camp

 

So I went to camp up at Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire from when I was about 8 till I was 16. Regardless of the fact that it was a Christian camp … it was a lot of fun. I spent my entire summers of my last 2 years there I loved it so much. I mean who wouldn’t … we had “the blob” from the movie heavyweights (that big balloon you jump on to launch people in to the lake).

My older years at the camp were my favorite. Especially the CIT years. The camp had an awesome program of activities:

  • White water rafting
  • 15 days of hiking
  • 7 days in a canoe up on the Allagash in Maine
  • 10 days up in Chibougamau in Canada
  • 3 days solo in the woods with no tent
  • 3 mile swim across a lake

It was all awesome and I have a lot of great memories… but one sticks out.

The CITs were broken up into 1st years and 2nd years. When I was a 2nd year we had just gone on one of the best hikes I had ever been on. I took a lot of pictures on this specific hike and was looking forward to bragging about some of the things I had seen.

Well there was this squirrel. He made it his mission to steal every piece of small electrical equipment he could get ahold of so he could dismantle is and use it for his nest. He especially enjoyed eating our batteries out on a rock in front of the cabin where we could see him as if to mock us. Needless to say both my camera and my cell phone fell victim to his quest. I was furious. We actually found the squirrels nest some time later with my camera torn to shreds and my phone scratched to all hell.

Then one day we caught the squirrel in a mouse trap. It’s tail was chopped off by the trap and it had gone into shock. We brought the squirrel about a mile down the road and set it free by the girls camp. We didn’t want to kill it but we didn’t want it messing with our stuff anymore.

About a week later the squirrel is back in our cabin trying to steal our stuff again. The little bugger was relentless … tailless and all. So we immediately went on the offensive. Next thing you know there are 12 guys running around with lacrosse sticks and canoe paddles trying to swat down and shoo out a technology loving squirrel. Unfortunately in the scuffle the squirrel hit its head and knocked itself out while trying to jump across the room.

Next thing i know, one of the other 2nd years comes walking into the cabin wearing nothing but the squirrel’s pelt and he says “Anybody want them some squirrel with hot sauce”. I was 17 and had been out in the woods for 7 weeks … so of course I ate me some squirrel.

So that was God camp in a nutshell. Well, that and a lot of capture the flag.

The Laundry Blues


Photo by Paul Keleher

I feel like every time I make the trek downstairs to do laundry; the door is locked, the washer is full, or both the washer and dryer are full. This has been a recurring problem not only in this apartment … but everywhere I’ve ever lived. College laundry rooms were always full with kids stuff left over night. The laundromat at camp when I was 16 was always full because everyone did laundry on the same day. Why must the simple chores of a single 20something become harder at everyone elses expense.

Alas, the perils of apartment living. It turns out it’s not just me … and we’ve even developed unspoken rules as to when its okay to interfere with some elses laundry routine.

For example, It’s ok to take stuff out of a dryer if everything seems dry as long as you neatly place it in the basket provided. Taking stuff out of the wash can get touchy.

I’ve also grown accustomed to walking softly and keeping it down after 10pm. I think that’s more just ingrained in me from my childhood. I was never quite able to figure out how I could walk up the stairs any quieter. Whatever … I’m older and wiser now. I just wear thick socks everywhere around the house. I’ve never seen a ninja get yelled at for being to loud walking up the stairs.

So this is my time killer while I wait for the laundry to be done. Crappy part is I have to walk around back of the house to go take it out of the dryer. This is gonna suck in the winter but I guess it’s better than not having one at all.

Things I Can't Stand

I find myself repeating myself over and over again when rationalizing the things that I say and do. I usually just wouldn’t give a dam but for my friends and family I’ll repeat myself as many times as they like. For the rest of you I’m making a list of things I can’t stand:

  • People that don’t have good relationships with their parents. I understand that in some cases there are good reasons to not have relationships. This is more about a girl I know that is a bitch to her mom for no good reason. She is also incredibly spoiled … but ya. I’m a family man.
  • People that aren’t open minded. This ones simple. I hate people that refuse to step outside of their little safe box.
  • People that are racist. I’m pretty laid back when it comes to this stuff but people in my family have not been so lucky.
  • People that try and push religion down other people’s throats. I went to 8 years of christian camp, youth group, bible studies and catacombs by choice. It was a great time in my life but I have since moved past it. Your not going to teach me anything I don’t already know. I choose to have my own beliefs or disbeliefs of my own and you can enjoy the same privilege. Lets keep it that way.
  • People that think they know everything. Because I know I know everything and that’s all that matters.
  • People that judge me by my age and appearance. If everyone started judging everyone else by how they presented themselves and their accomplishments we would be a lot better off as a society.
  • Parents that shelter their children. I was a camp counselor for years and have always loved working with kids. My younger stepbrother is one of the coolest kids I know. A lot of over concerned parents ruin their children’s youth by instilling fear. They do this out of compassion and their own fear but they don’t realize the real danger they’re doing. The odds that something will happen to your child are only decreased by such a microcosm of a percentage that its not ever worth trying to figure out. The truth is that child psychologists believe that your kid is alot less likely to have a normal social life when they grow up do to a lack of basic survival skills we develop in adolescence. Basically… let your kids be kids.
  • The Police. I know a few cool ones … but they’re about to retire so we’re all screwed. This is just because of my own personal relations with cops up to this point.
Well that’s about it for now. I’m getting to tired to think.