Snow, Again

Its snowing here, and naturally the first thing that come to mind for me is to check out all the cool looking snow drift. If I knew how to post pictures on this thing, I would post pictures of the snow in progress. As of 5:15 I measured 2" of uniform snow, and up to 4" of snow drift height. That seems like quite a bit for a day in which I had heard no rumblings on the potential for snow.

\End most boring blog post of all time

Remember Me?

I was told yesterday by one of my 3 readers that I don't blog anymore. I am here to prove that that is a lie. Thats right, I got to phrase a sentence with a double that.

I have been busy, I guess I've been pre-occupied with work, home life, and looking for my missing rib (/biblical reference).

Anyways, that is all.

Time to Come Clean

Hello all, I thought I needed to confess something. In the interest of full discretion, here goes:

I have an irrational hatred of balloons.

That is all.

Darren

Update of Sorts

So I've been busy with this, that and the other thing for a while, and have been negligent with this blog. But hopefully this short blurb will tide over my legions of fans [legions = two or three].

I just wanted to express publicly that the documentary Kobe Doin' Work on ESPN is one of the most spectacularly, ridiculously, inconceivably awesome things to watch on TV. Every time I'm looking for something to watch and its an option, I get drawn to it like eyes to a car crash. It portrays Kobe trying to be a likeable teammate / person / coach, yet it fails miserably in each regard. Should you watch it, you will get treated to 2 hours of Kobe talking about watching himself play a basketball team, complete with him laughing at stupid jokes that he tells to opponents on the court, him beaming with pride at his efforts to teach his younger teammates [complete with the disbelief on his teammates face at the fact that they are being talked to by him in a congenial fashion] and the selfless way Kobe plays offfense when you don't have to watch the whole court, you just get a full game of close up shots of Kobe, either with the ball driving into traffice or walking the perimeter of the three point line with his hands out clamoring for the ball non-stop.

Its an awesome watch, I would recommend it to all. :)

Darren

Forgetting Stuff

I forgot I had a blog. But then I remembered. So I decided I'd post to that effect.

Sports Rooting Interests

Over the years, I have watched some 1.8 million sports games (give or take 0.05 million). Sports has been around my life forever. However, for most of these 1.8 million games, I don't end up having a rooting interest in the game. This got me thinking, how would I rank the top 10 rooting interests I have? So, here we go.

10. Notre Dame Football. It just appeals to the Catholic side of me.

9. Seattle Mariners Baseball. Grew up a fan of them as well, with the yearly trips to the Kingdome to watch a game or two.

8. US Olympic Sports. Patriotism + World Renowned quality athleticism is a good combination for me.

7. Oregon State Baseball. My alma mater + 2 national championship = #7 ranking.

6. Portland Trailblazer Basketball. Took a hiatus during the Jailblazer year, but came back with the draft that netted Aldridge and Roy. Really like what kind of moves the franchise is taking, and nowadays the operation of the franchise appeals to my interests. I like seeing teams making smart moves toward a goal.

5. Gonzaga Basketball. Joined the bandwagon when my friend went to school there, and now I am very invested in rooting for their basketball tournament. Every year, I end up picking them to go farther than they end up going in the tournament. But as compared to #4, at least they are in the tournament.

4. Oregon State Basketball. I have become a fan alot more in the last few years. I am liking the turnaround circa the David Lucas era.

3. Boston Red Sox Baseball. My dad grew up a fan of the Sox since he was a kid, and this is something I picked up from him.

2. Oregon State Football. There's something to be said for going to those games and investing so much time in them, and not to mention being around for the turnaround from the 1 and 2 win seasons to a few more victories a game.

1. My two brothers' baseball teams. This could be a 1A and 1B kind of thing, but you aren't going to get me to decide between the two of them.

Apologies

Dear Fruit Roll-Ups Corporation,

I apologize fro your omittance from the top 5 list I wrote yesterday. It was not a matter of opinion but rather my own forgetfulness that led you to be absent from that list. Maybe it was because I didn't have enough fruit roll ups as a kid....But then agin, who did get "enough" fruit roll ups, those things were awesome.

Darren

Top 5 List

Following is my top 5 list of favorite "foods" to play with:

5. Potatoes - for its pure molding and sculptin capacity.

4. Food Coloring - A stretch on "food", but its fun to make things different colors.

3. Marshmallows - The special cannon that shoots the marshmallows would be required for this high of a score.

2. Jello - Simple enough.

1. Bugles - Ain't nothing like having super long witch fingernails that can taste pretty good. This can be substituted on a lesser level with olives, but it doesn't have as much bang for the buck.

Darren

Reflections on Commercials

I saw some commercials this morning, thought I'd reflect on them.

A pregnancy test commercial claimed that these days, up to 10% of people can misread the results of a pregnancy test. So they were selling this test that explicitly read pregnant or not. I think at this point, selling to the 10% that can misread the pregancy test won't be fixed with brighter LED display, that will be fixed by addressing the issue of illiteracy.

A new Sesame Street product is on the market: Elmo and Cadabby. These two are supposed to be best friends that you can hug and be best friends with. Could they not have chosen a better name than Cadabby? What happens when the kid later on in life learns what a cadaver is, and puts the two together? Doesn't that introduce a bit too many unnecessary issues into the equation that could be resolved with a normal name?

Hope all two of my readers are doing well.

Darren

Disappointed

I think the most disappointing sports development of 2009 has been the chalkiness (new word i made up) of the NCAA tournament. In years past, there have been the George Masons, Davidsons, and most satisfyingly, the Gonzaga's of the world. This year, the elite 8 is marked by the "shock" of 2 #3 seeds making it. Kind of disappointing for those of us who are willing to sacrifice the accuracy of their bracket for pure chaos.

I've been more satisfied with the "chaos" of the NCAA baseball tournament recently. In previous years, regional #3 seed OSU (regional #3 in baseball ~ regional #9 through #12 in basketball) and regional #4 seed Fresno State have stormed the tournament and won it all. Maybe I'm a little biased, considering my surprising interest in the CBI this year.

Anyways, go Beavers.

Random Notes

I bet self-conscious crazy people must love the invention of those wireless bluetooth headset things. Now they can walk around downtown talking crazy nonsense to themselves without me automatically thinking about how crazy they are.

My brother has incredible skills in studying to retain information long enough to do well on a test and then instantaneously forget it all. I got a text message from him after his calculus test, claiming he knew he got at least 58%. He clarified, stating he was confident that he got 12 out of the 20 problems right. (Side note, he kicked butt and got even better than that).

I don't mind that my NCAA bracket gets screwed up every year. I would love to some day see my bracket get annihilated if I was able to enjoy some crazy awesome games. I think the only teams I really care if they advance or not is Gonzaga, Purdue, and Oregon State (when/if they make the tournament again in the next 30 years).

I spent Wednesday night through Saturday night in San Francisco. I only saw one guy in a white wedding dress downtown. I feel like I didn't even go to San Francisco.

I wish CBS would step their game up and offer all the games live on different stations and not just offer it online. They are a step slow when it comes to late game action, and I'm confident my remote skills could exceed their producers.

By the way, CBS, misspelling Siena (its not Sienna) at the start of your broadcast would be defined as unprofessional.

I've got more stuff to post, but that will wait til another day.

Checking In

So I'm loving how busy I've been at work lately. We've got a deadline coming up so its like all hands on deck trying to meet the deadline. I was so busy, I forgot to check on my travel arrangements to San Francisco, like how to get around and where I need to go when I get there. So here I am at the airport, checking up on my flight and what not.

Other than work, not a whole lot to report on at the moment. Well, i gotta get going, the power on my laptop is starting to dwindle.

Later

Declaration

I like pie.

Funny Story

Hey, so today, while walking back from the fitness center in the apartment complex, I passed a few kids (about 8 years old or so). One of these kids, in passing, told me I look like Frankenstein. It was pretty awesome.

Commentary on the Holiday

So I finally figured out something to talk about, hence the new blog post. I'd like to throw my own commentary into the foray on the holiday of the season: Presidents Day.

First of all, I've come to find that some people don't even get this holiday off, yet others (myself included) do. Shouldn't there be some sort of standardization that for people in the same field of industry take the same holidays? I know that those of us on this project at work are going to fall a day behind because the architect on our project doesn't have the holiday off. Kind of odd I guess.

Next off, I wonder how odd it would be to be in Barack Obama's shoes for this holiday. For most of us, all Presidents Day means is a free holiday off. I think the intended purpose of the holiday is to celebrate the presidents past and present in honor of the service they have performed. Now for Obama, how basically had a huge party in his honor that got dragged on for the inauguration, does he expect to be celebrated today? Or is he going to be getting the same treatment the kids that had birthdays on the 23rd or 24th of Christmas get, where they only get one set of of presents to account for both celebrations?

Hopefully, he isn't expecting anything, because well he's probably got bigger fish to fry. But it must be surreal to go from celebrating the great men of the past one year, to being on that list the next. I wonder what the time for that kind of thing to sink in is.

I'm not sure if I can really celebrate him though, I mean all I've seen him do is start up this nonsense that is FOCA, and the only times I've seen him on TV is to get face time on the Super Bowl pregame show and now on the NBA All Star game half time show. It almost think he wants to be involved in sports more than anything else. My opinion may be jaded though, as this may be influenced by the kind of television I watch.

Wow, I don't think that made much sense, but oh well, I warned you all on my first blog post that rambing incoherencies would happen.

Darren

Work Day

So today was a good workday. I put in 9.5 hours, but it was a fun 9.5.

So what, do you ask, did I do today? Lets see, I rode on top of an elevator, stood on the roof of a building in downtown Portland with good views of Hood and St. Helens, and climbed a rail type laddr in a mechanical room in the dark.

So yeah, it made Tuesday an entertaining escape from the norm.

Top 10 T.V. Show Seasons - My List

So I believe myself to be somewhat of a connoisseur of television, considering how much I watch TV, I would hope to be somewhat informed on the topic. (And yeah, I googled connoisseur to verify the spelling and the definition). So I thought I'd try giving a top 10 list a try (note: there may be some heavy weight given to newer television, but that is just because I have devoted more time to new television, so hence the weight shift. For similar reasons, I have alot of comedy as opposed to drama). And away we go:

10. The Big Bang Theory S1 - Being an engineer, this should be an obvious decision. How could I say no to a show that makes nerdy jokes all the time?

9. Prison Break S2 - I initially was going to add season 1 to this list (because it was about a structural engineer and engineering principles), but this season was particularly compelling with how they portrayed a manhunt.

8. Heroes S1 - Simply put, how the mighty have fallen. This show was awesome, but it took a nosedive at the very end of season 1.

7. Freaks and Geeks S1 - I always remembered watching this show once or twice in high school and really liking it, and I figured out why: it is so real. This show portrays geeks so realistically, for some reason I connected with that.

6. 24 S1 - A show I have dedicated so much time to over the years. I remember wondering how they were going to do more than one season of it, and "The following takes place between ___ and ___, on the day of the California Presidential Primary" is permanently engraved in my head.

5. The Office S3 - Purely good stuff. This has been my favorite show for a long time.

4. Arrested Development S2 - I could have given credit to any of the 3 seasons, but S2 in particular is awesome because of how awesomely the show uses word-play and reference back to itself for jokes. I could watch this show over and over. Fingres crossed for the movie.

3. Lost S3 - This show threw out a bunch of questions through seasons 1 and 2, and in season 3, the answers (and, ultimately, more questions) came flooding out. The way the show flipped itself on its head at the end of the season was awesome.

2. Friday Night Lights S1 - This show was so purely brilliant in that first season. Season 2 took a turn for the worse, but after watching the start of season 3 this evening, I'm hopeful for the return of the very well put together realistic drama.

1. The Office S2 - This season was so light hearted and hilarious. Such brilliant jokes, creative pranks, and pure awkwardness.

Honorable Mention: Chuck S1, Family Guy S4, Entourage S1, Sports Night S2, Family Matters S2, Boy Meets World S3, Fringe S1 (pending the successful completion of it).

Riding the Bus

I forgot how fun it was to ride the bus in downtown Portland. 4 days into my new job, I've already seen so much to remind me how different the people are in Portland, OR than they are in West Lafayette, IN. Every day is a new adventure. So far, I've been treated to the soap opera of the girl who is cussing at her grandmother and having a nervous breakdown over the phone. I'm sure there will be more exciting crazy people to see soon. In addition, a 30 minute ride on the bus in West Lafayette would mean tarvelling multiple miles, crossing a river, and getting into a new city. In Portland, there's always the possibility for a 30 minute travel stretch that encompasses a mere 3 blocks,

I may sound sarcastic, but I actually enjoy taking the bus into work. Its really nice to not have to deal with driving to work, especially now since the office I work at is so much further into the gut of downtown. I'm not exactly the worlds best driver, so I am sure the drivers of Portland appreciate it as well.

Back later, with more "nonsense" to write. These blogs may not be exciting to read, but at least so far I am proving half my name.