The Brainstorm

I’ve spent my last two weekends traveling to Portland to look at cars.  I decided that it’s time I get a car so that I can choose to take off when I want or take a long trip every once and a while.  I narrowed down my choices to a Toyota Corolla, Nissan Altima, VW Jetta, Mitsubishi Galant or Ford Fusion.

The Research

Two weekends ago I test drove an 06 Galant and it was pretty nice.  It had leather, 500 miles and some huge factory and dealer rebates.  Most of my shopping was online and last week my dad found a VW Jetta at a used dealership.  I am a fan of four-door sedans and fairly compact cars, but the Galant is a little on the bigger side than I prefer.  So, I test drove the Jetta on Saturday and was pretty sure I wanted it, now the dealer needed to not prevent me from buying.  These were the only two slightly used cars that were in a low enough price range and the right compactness.

The Sell

The first step was filling out credit check information: address, job, education, debt, etc.  The whole time though, Harvey, not to be confused to with Oculon’s cat, took the sloooooowed dictation of my statistics.  Every letter or number was scratched over at least three times, not to mention chit-chat about school, work, etc.  Then Harvey took the paper to someone with a computer to run the credit check.  While that was processing, Harvey came back to ‘talk numbers.’

This is where it got interesting.  Harvey decided to draw up a mini ‘pre-contract contract’ with the price of the car, my desired car payment range and an x_____________.  The phrase ‘If we can do these things, then do we have a deal?’ was uttered and then I had some questions.  ‘What’s the exact monthly payment?’ ‘What is the interest rate?’ ‘How many months?’ ‘How much for the down payment?’ and then a statement: ‘I’m not signing anything until I have exact numbers.’   Apparently Harvey got spooked and said that there was no pressure and then he let someone else who knew how to use a computer or a calculator crunch the numbers.

Now a manager comes out with different options based on down payment amounts and the number of months.   They asked how much I could put down now and I said I could put some down but that I didn’t even have a checkbook with me.  Manager guy immediately offered 0 down.  I decided to dwell on my options and whether I wanted a different make or model.  Harvey rushed outside and asked me ‘what my instincts were?,’ trying to stop me from walking away.  We drove around for a while and I came back and immediately went to the manager and started filling out paperwork and got some online insurance.  The purchase took less than the half the time Harvey’s fake contract gimmick and credit application combined.

The Result

I am now a proud owner of at most 60 payments on this beaut:

It’s been a while since the last post, so there’s a lot to talk about. Firstly, I hope Kevlar is having fun in NYC. I have never been to the Big Apple, but I’m sure it will happen as my list of contacts there continues to grow.

This last weekend I traveled to Klamath Falls, OR and then Bend to visit relatives. I saw my cousin Marcy for the first time in about 10 years and her husband Kevin for the first time ever. They live near my uncle Mark and aunt Darlene. The weather was great, about 65 degrees and sunny. I got to see the ever-growing Bend suburbs and city and eat at the famed SuperBurrito. It’s fairly comparable to the Burrito Boy of Eugene, but the prices are a little cheaper and the burrito is bigger, if you can believe that. I got to see Marcy’s office and their company SmartCar.

Update: Las Vegas

I keep getting pictures in from John and James of the Los Angeles/Las Vegas trip over New Year’s. Below is the chicken pasta dish from Hash-House A Go Go. The picture doesn’t do it justice as it contained a bowl of pasta with a skewer of 2 pieces of fried chicken and half of an apple standing in the middle. We all got the same dish and ate it all I got crap for not eating the dried vegetable foliage garnishing the plate. Either way it was good stuff and I recommend the Hash House (not that kind fockers) to those wanting lots of good food for a decent price.

Finally, I have two movies to recommend: Children of Men and The Departed.

I saw Children of Men on my laptop while riding to Bend and loved it.  It was high-energy, a good story, great acting and wonderfully shot.  The premise: It’s 2027 and humans haven’t been able to procreate for 18 years, until rebels of the British government find a pregnant woman and try to smuggle her out of the country for protection.  There’s great twists and turns and the story feels real even in an improbable world in the near future.  4.5 out of 5

The Departed has been on my NetFlix queue for a month or so and it was finally released to DVD after winning the Oscar for Best Picture.  The film was quite good, not as good as Children of Men, but the stars were out in force.  The cast was Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin and Ray Winstone (awesome in The Proposition).  The movie is a big cat-and-mouse game between Matt Damon, a corrupt Boston cop working for Nicholson’s mob boss, and Leonardo DiCaprio, an undercover cop moving up the ranks of Nicholson’s mob.  The movie starts to feel long, like all Scorcese ‘epics’ but the story is good and twists are believable.  4 out of 5

Things are churning along nicely at work. Let’s just say that Windows Updates are interesting. Oh, Outlook and Daylight Savings Time, DARN YOU!

Music Updates:

Bloc Party - A Weekend in the City - I’m giving the album 3.5 out of 5, so far. The album is growing on me. Highlights: ‘Waiting for the 7:18′, ‘Hunting for Witches’, ‘I Still Remember’

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible - I stole this album, just because it hasn’t been officially released. Don’t worry, I’ll be buying the album, DELUXE edition, on March 5. The whole album is great and will definitely make the year-end top 10. The only question is, do I go to the Portland show this May, or do I wait for the second go around in teh fall. Highlights: ‘Black Wave/Bad Vibrations’, ‘Ocean of Noise’, ‘Intervention’, ‘No Cars Go’. 4.5 out of 5 stars

In other Arcade Fire news, they’ll be on NPR this Sunday Night and SNL 2/24

Still waiting on the new Radiohead, Modest Mouse (with Johnny Marr of THE SMITHS) and Wilco albums.

I definitely have found my TV show sweet shop:

Monday: Heroes, Studio 60
Tuesday: Gilmore Girls
Wednesday: Nothing Good I know of
Thursday: Scrubs, 30Rock
Friday: Monk, Numb3rs, Real Time w/Bill Maher — starts up again this Friday
Saturday: Not consistently SNL, except for 2/24
Sunday: Extras, Rome

The Daily Show is on now. Time to get my satire on/embolden some terrorists OR NOT!

This week has been very busy and now the sleeping-in begins. We finally got Qwest (#@$%^&ers) to come and hook up our T1 line, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut our T1 line still doesn’t work. Hmmmmmm. Sounds like Qwest still has more work to do, more than a month after the scheduled delivery date.

Onto more fun stuff. The week was topped off by leaving early on Friday. It was nice to catch-up on my favorite comedies: 30 Rock and Scrubs and jam out to the Flaming Lips and CYHSY. (Music selections inspired by this blog post) I also got a PS2 slim from eBay, madden 07 and a memory card. The plan is play madden online with a friend from Iowa. This is two years after I sold my original Ps2 to buy a dvd player, since I never played games. Even though I’m usually quite tired after work, I’m still less busy and stressed-out compared to school. So, I’ve been working on my console Football skillz and have chosen the Bengals as my team. Once my game gets up to snuff, I’ll be ready to take on all comers.

Keep your ears open this spring:

4 albums are either out or coming out that will keep indie-rockers quite busy. 1. Radiohead 2. Arcade Fire 3. Bloc Party 4. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah . I’ve seen all of these bands live and have rated them based upon lived performances and album quality. We’ll see if the order shakes after their albums come out in the coming few months. Also, Radiohead fans should look for the Live at Bonnaroo DVD that Thom Yorke promised this fall. I was at that performance and it was the best musical experience I’ve ever had, EVAR!

NetFlix: With the full time job I’ve also got to consistently watch my NetFlix rentals. I’ve hitting up the standup comedy section lately. I recommend Louie C.K., Patton Oswalt, Zach Galifiniakis and the rest of the Comedians of Comedy gang.

It’s one week into the new year and things are already exciting. Technically the most exciting event so far was over the New Year’s holiday. I flew to LA last Friday to visit high school friends and take in the warm weather. The sunny weather was a nice respite considering the cloudly and rainy cold of the northwest. Right after touching down at LAX, we drove to Newport Beach and the Fashion Island Mall for shopping and lunch. We ate at the Cheescake Factory, molto bene!, and returned to the rental car to find that right-rear wing window was broken and my friend’s company laptop was stolen. The thief(s) passed up my iPod on the seat for the bag underneath the seat that might or might not have anything of value. Suffice it to say, we spent the next few hours talking to rent-a-cops and real cops.

The truly exciting part came when the ‘CSI Unit’ was called to lift fingerprints. I was sitting in the seat where the window was broken, so there was a chance that the fingerprints were mine. So, I had to give finger and palm prints to rule out my prints. I just heard yesterday that the prints found were NOT mine! Hopefully they catch the scum who stole my friend’s belongings, and his company’s, and discard my prints. I’m not sure how helpfully my prints would be for the official record considering they took my name and birthday only.

Other than that, work is going well as temporary DSL has been setup until the #$(*@# at Qwest get us the T1 line they were supposed to have provided, THREE WEEKS AGO! People are getting settled in after the office move and there is definitely less stress. Although all of the moving has helped me my find my new calling, running Cat5e ethernet cable above the ceilings.

Dsjoo faithful, it is done.

No, not this blog. I’m talking about college. I finished penning my last test just twenty minutes ago. Leave it to the test gods for me to have a 4:30 pm Friday exam. I spent the morning at work, lunch with co-workers and friends, and the afternoon reviewing a thousand years of Roman history and literature. The grades are starting to come in and it looks like I can leave Iowa without fear of getting screwed out a grade. I’m confident that a diploma will arrive in the mailbox in the coming months, an Oregon PO Box at that.

For those who didn’t know, I am moving out of Iowa City this Saturday and flying to Oregon on Monday. Hopefully the gale-force winds will have quieted by then and my plane will be able to land. As soon as I touch down, I’ll have to get to work at my job and help the company move its network infrastructure to a new building. It will be a trying task, but it can and must be done quickly and correctly so that the business can get up and running and back to making money.

I will post more as my brain leaks miscellaneous knowledge between inane Roman historical facts.

-D-rock

A startling event occurred last week when I was in a Roman Literature discussion class.  The reading assignment was from Augustine’s Confessions and our class was talking about Augustine’s conversion to Christianity.  Augustine had been going to church since he was a child and constantly engaged in philosophical conversations with church elders and different sects of Christianity.  He eventually joined the Roman Catholic church after his conversion.

The class was discussing the believability of his ‘instantaneous’ conversion after he heard children chanting ‘tolle lege’ (take up and read) while in a garden.  This inspired him to open his bible and read from the first passage he saw.  Upon reading Romans 13, Augustine claims to be instantly converted to Christianity.  Half the class seemed to agree that conversion was instantaneous, while others thought it was a long process from years of Christian upbringing.  It was at this point when someone offered an opinion about their experience with religion and science.

A male student in the back of the classroom was apparently swept up in the topic of religion and said, paraphrasing, ‘I don’t understand why people are always forcing their opinions on me.  It’s like their telling me that what I’ve believed since I was born is wrong.  I ain’t no tadpole.’  Another person in the class promptly agreed saying ‘Yea.’

I can only interpret this as a reaction to the teaching of science in school and the process of evolution.  I sat in bewilderment at the out-of-place comment and how someone could think that science’s goal is to get people to stop believing in religion.  The scientific method and it’s emphasis on questioning beliefs definitely contribute to religion’s debunking, but I’m pretty there’s plenty of religious scientists.  Also, science and religion are not mutually exclusive.  It is science’s goal to explain everything, but it will never fully achieve that goal, even though it strives to at all times.  In the void of the complete scientific knowledge, religion will always exist for rational people.

But, while there gaps in science’s ability to explain the world, evolution is a well-founded and researched scientific theory.  It is not a theory in the sense that evolution is theoretical, but rather evolution has upheld decades of scientific scrutiny and new evidence continues to prove evolution correct.  The phrase ‘I ain’t no tadpole’ shows a basic lack of understanding about what evolution proves.  While sperm (sort of like a tadpole) combined with an egg to make an embryo, humans don’t transform from tadpoles into frogs into apes into humans in one lifetime.  Obviously no one told this person, and countless others, and so I was forced to hear a stupid phrase that will never leave my mind.

The solution is science education and a critical lens toward the manipulation of science in the form of intelligent design, or just plain lies.  The earth is not 5,000 years old and humans did not magically appear as the first life form on this planet.  Humans did not live in the time of dinosaurs, nor did they fight dinosaurs and film themselves doing so in documentaries for future generations.  These are non-negotiable points when choosing to lead a life that takes science seriously or as a threat to beliefs.  ‘Save the Science, Save the Planet.’

Phrase to remember: ‘Yea, grand-dad was no ape.’ -Samantha Bee

People,

Much has happened in the last few weeks month. Major project milestones were completed, movies were watched and enough food and football for a king will be consumed. Since my last post I have watched three movies: The Prestige, Stranger than Fiction and Casino Royale. I highly recommend all three and won\’t even attempt to place them in quality order as they are three different types of movies.

Summary:

The Prestige - A mystery murder? thriller starring Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Davie Bowie!!!!

Stranger Than Fiction - A Will Ferrell rom-com with Maggie Gyllenhall, Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson and Tony Hale. “Hey bruuuuuther”
Casino Royale - High action, high style and a good story. The newest James Bond film starring Daniel Craig and Eva Green. Some have said that this movie is too long, but I disagree. Spoiler alert: The movie ends with Bond in a short-lived domesticated role, but still kicks ass to the finale.

I shall write more about Thanksgiving break and finals once they are over. After that I will be moving to Oregon and starting the rest of my life.

-Peace!

Tonight was a nice end to the week of minimal work. With only one class and rest of the time being University work, this semester’s Fridays are excellent for starting the weekend. While it seems fairly far away, finals are about 6 weeks away and that means the end of my undergraduate era. It is unlikely that I will return to a traditional school setting and guaranteed not to happen if I ever have to pay for a class again.

Two years ago about this time I dropped my last math class and decided to switch majors to MIS. Management of Information Systems has its tedious aspects but Education and abstract math classes had run their course. Even though I have tons of group projects, their substance is actually of interest. For instance, in DB I we set up a database with a web-front end for the inputing , updating and extraction of data for a real business. Now in DB II and Systems Analysis and Design we are doing same, except now we utilize more advanced concepts that allow for a more efficient design and implementation of a system and/or database.

Stop being so laissez-faire

The MIS major is fairly small in terms of other business majors at Iowa, so ‘each vote counts more.’ This is especially important since the MIS department is considering changing their course requirements by dropping one course and making the open space another elective. As a senior MIS student, my concerns about the major requirements are actually being heard by the MIS faculty, giving hope to the notion that students’ opinions matter. Now these are some politics that I am actually interested in participating in. Juxtapose this with state and national politics, where persuasion and rational thought are wayside concepts to the partisan lobby machines. Politics that have an effect on people that I know and/or may decide the future of people in my profession and passion are worth investing time and energy in, not party-controlled, power mongers.

So… There’s why I design websites, why I want to graduate and why I don’t vote. Oh, and South Park is god!

- Another Bloc Party inspired title

Sunday mornings usually entail watching excessive amounts of pro football analysis, provided by ESPN and FOX. Today is a little different though since I am without a TV for my reality and fantasy needs, no jokes people. So, I am stuck with using Yahoo’s online video fantasy analysis, which is mainly provided by Brandon Funston. Most of my fantasy options are closed off since I’ve got three players on a BYE and I’m not dropping Frank Gore, even if he fumbles twice a game.

In non-fantasy news, group projects continue. My last test was Wednesday and boy was it a mother of a time. Database Management II is a challenging and interesting course, but there wasn’t enough time in an hour and a half, not to mention 50 MINUTES, for this test. For DB nerds out there: 10 mc, 3 short answer using an ER diagram, 2 difficutl SQL statements, draw an ER Diagram from a client rqmt, normalize to 4NF a 1NF table, and some more stuff. So, thank goodness its a small class and that test will have to be curved.

In fun news, my boss and a former co-worker got married yesterday. Now there’s on honeymoon in Disneyworld, so if anyone sees them roaming around Epcot, shout out: ‘HEY mark and reka!”

Well, I’m off to the Airliner for 1.50 slices of pizza and a salad while we all watch football. How much better can a weekend get? Oh wait, the Hawks lost, but that was expected, even if there apparently a horrendous call made. For details and development in the latest Hawkeye screwjob, keep posted to Oculon