Thursday, September 20, 2007
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Weekend reflections
24 hours. That’s plenty of time to study.
Unless you’re me, of course, and have been coming down with senioritis (hey, spell-check says that’s a real word!) ever since going back to school this semester. For the life of me, it is absolutely impossible to focus on my studies.
Like this one book I’m trying to read. Horrible, horrible book. Even my professor said as much. I have to be prepared to answer questions on it this Wednesday, and I’m the only person who volunteered to read the book. Now it’s only 200 or so pages, so you can bang that out over a weekend.
Unless you’re me!
It doesn’t help that the guy who wrote it blew his intellectual load after the first few chapters. I guess he felt he had to offer some “value added” after making his point. Ugh. Read some pages, have a beer, check the email, read some more pages, do some laundry, read some more pages, reread the last 20 pages because I haven’t been paying attention…
And I still need to check in to make sure I’m fully on track to graduate. I’ve been keeping track on my own, and I think everything’s okay, but I’d like to have someone at Mason check my records, just to make sure. I SO do not want to go a semester longer than I have to!
All this yelping has been paying off :) First, I go and have a pedicure at Ibiza on Saturday, and it turns out they actually checked out my yelp review! Wow! I was in shock. I mean, did they recognize my picture? Do they check out their reviews every so often and figured I was the Jason in question? At any rate, I didn’t argue… I’d much rather slip back in that comfy leather chair and have my feet rubbed.
And when I went to check out my profile today, I thought yelp was having a seizure. There were 5 or 6 compliments. I’m struggling to think what the hell I wrote that warranted all this attention all of a sudden, since my last review was a week ago. So I go to read my compliments, and it all makes sense.
I made Review of the Day today! When this happens, the review in question is profiled on their home page. I still haven’t figured out the formula for having a review made ROTD, but I’ll take any attention I can get. It was really nice to get those compliments… it’s things like this that keep me writing. That and Trivia Night :)
Dinner should be really good tonight. I say that because I’m going back to the training table come Monday. I started that Abs Diet a few weeks ago, but was only doing it half-assed. Now, I’ve been sticking with the actual diet part about 50-50, and I’ve taken some weight off. But I’ve been cheating too, and I haven’t been going to the gym as often as I should. Though it’s a scapegoat to a certain point, I’m gonna have to lay at least some of the blame on school.
So I work from about 8am to 4:30pm Monday through Friday. On Mondays and Wednesdays I have class. Unfortunately, both classes are from 7:20 to 10pm. Even though they let us out a little early, by the time I come home, I’m damn tired, and it’s tough to eat healthy. You don’t wanna cook. Even if you do, you just know your meal’s gonna sit heavy on you, adding more pounds. The alternative tends to be a cop-out… getting snacks from the grocery store when I walk home from class. And since I can’t get into a regular sleep schedule, I’m waking up later and ignoring breakfast when I get up. And between the nights I go to class and the nights I’m recovering from class, I have no desire to hit the gym.
So I’m going to try to make another go of diet and exercise. I really don’t have a whole lot to lose, and I’ve still been eating much better than this time last year, but I’d still like to make some changes. My dinner tonight, a ribeye marinated in KC Masterpiece Steakhouse marinade and washed down with either beer or wine (haven’t decided yet!) is going to be my last splurge until next weekend.
Is it Saturday yet?
Unless you’re me, of course, and have been coming down with senioritis (hey, spell-check says that’s a real word!) ever since going back to school this semester. For the life of me, it is absolutely impossible to focus on my studies.
Like this one book I’m trying to read. Horrible, horrible book. Even my professor said as much. I have to be prepared to answer questions on it this Wednesday, and I’m the only person who volunteered to read the book. Now it’s only 200 or so pages, so you can bang that out over a weekend.
Unless you’re me!
It doesn’t help that the guy who wrote it blew his intellectual load after the first few chapters. I guess he felt he had to offer some “value added” after making his point. Ugh. Read some pages, have a beer, check the email, read some more pages, do some laundry, read some more pages, reread the last 20 pages because I haven’t been paying attention…
And I still need to check in to make sure I’m fully on track to graduate. I’ve been keeping track on my own, and I think everything’s okay, but I’d like to have someone at Mason check my records, just to make sure. I SO do not want to go a semester longer than I have to!
All this yelping has been paying off :) First, I go and have a pedicure at Ibiza on Saturday, and it turns out they actually checked out my yelp review! Wow! I was in shock. I mean, did they recognize my picture? Do they check out their reviews every so often and figured I was the Jason in question? At any rate, I didn’t argue… I’d much rather slip back in that comfy leather chair and have my feet rubbed.
And when I went to check out my profile today, I thought yelp was having a seizure. There were 5 or 6 compliments. I’m struggling to think what the hell I wrote that warranted all this attention all of a sudden, since my last review was a week ago. So I go to read my compliments, and it all makes sense.
I made Review of the Day today! When this happens, the review in question is profiled on their home page. I still haven’t figured out the formula for having a review made ROTD, but I’ll take any attention I can get. It was really nice to get those compliments… it’s things like this that keep me writing. That and Trivia Night :)
Dinner should be really good tonight. I say that because I’m going back to the training table come Monday. I started that Abs Diet a few weeks ago, but was only doing it half-assed. Now, I’ve been sticking with the actual diet part about 50-50, and I’ve taken some weight off. But I’ve been cheating too, and I haven’t been going to the gym as often as I should. Though it’s a scapegoat to a certain point, I’m gonna have to lay at least some of the blame on school.
So I work from about 8am to 4:30pm Monday through Friday. On Mondays and Wednesdays I have class. Unfortunately, both classes are from 7:20 to 10pm. Even though they let us out a little early, by the time I come home, I’m damn tired, and it’s tough to eat healthy. You don’t wanna cook. Even if you do, you just know your meal’s gonna sit heavy on you, adding more pounds. The alternative tends to be a cop-out… getting snacks from the grocery store when I walk home from class. And since I can’t get into a regular sleep schedule, I’m waking up later and ignoring breakfast when I get up. And between the nights I go to class and the nights I’m recovering from class, I have no desire to hit the gym.
So I’m going to try to make another go of diet and exercise. I really don’t have a whole lot to lose, and I’ve still been eating much better than this time last year, but I’d still like to make some changes. My dinner tonight, a ribeye marinated in KC Masterpiece Steakhouse marinade and washed down with either beer or wine (haven’t decided yet!) is going to be my last splurge until next weekend.
Is it Saturday yet?
Friday, September 14, 2007
Bak 2 Skule!
God, do I ever need a break from school! Shut up. I know I’ve only just resumed classes. Fortunately, one of them is starting to get interesting. Unfortunately, I still have another 12 weeks or so of classes, and then one more semester on top of that!
I got really jaded this summer. While I didn’t get to spend it with a woman, I still had a good time and got out there and did stuff. It’s tough to get back into the daily grind. I really don’t want to start backsliding. I only have until this May (knock on wood) and I’m done.
I remember how grad school first started when I first started my program. I was sooooo nervous after being away from a classroom for almost a decade. I was trying to keep it that way too. Unfortunately, a Bachelor’s is now the new high school diploma, and I started to see the writing on the wall career-wise. But I was thisfuckingclose to dropping out, and if it wasn’t for my boss at the time (thanks!), I guarantee you that I would have quit. It didn’t help matters much that my first class was Macroeconomics.
I had Macro back at Stockton. To this day, the only thing I can tell you about it had to do with the baseball strike that was going on (this was back in 95 or 96). Professor Elmore totally sucked back then, and according to a professor review site, sucks just as hard now. In fact, all the things her students are calling her out for today were things I went through with her over a decade ago! Thank goodness for tenure, huh Prof. Elmore? So I was freaked out having my first class in something I really know nothing about. Turns out this was the easiest guy in the world to take. Take good notes, and you’ll be fine!
The other prof had a hardon for group work, and that really freaked me out. New weekly assignment, new group. A 40 page group paper! Ugh. And of course I got a dim view of this early on because one of my teammates was president of her Penn State DC alumni association and trekked up to the big game every Saturday. So our first meeting was at something like 4pm on a Sunday. Man, the point of graduating college is to get on with your life, not relive it with a bunch of current students. It must suck peaking at 21.
Well, sure enough, I was able to endure, and I’m in the home stretch of my grad school career. I can assure you there will be no dual Master’s or Ph.D. for me. Period. End of story!
I got really jaded this summer. While I didn’t get to spend it with a woman, I still had a good time and got out there and did stuff. It’s tough to get back into the daily grind. I really don’t want to start backsliding. I only have until this May (knock on wood) and I’m done.
I remember how grad school first started when I first started my program. I was sooooo nervous after being away from a classroom for almost a decade. I was trying to keep it that way too. Unfortunately, a Bachelor’s is now the new high school diploma, and I started to see the writing on the wall career-wise. But I was thisfuckingclose to dropping out, and if it wasn’t for my boss at the time (thanks!), I guarantee you that I would have quit. It didn’t help matters much that my first class was Macroeconomics.
I had Macro back at Stockton. To this day, the only thing I can tell you about it had to do with the baseball strike that was going on (this was back in 95 or 96). Professor Elmore totally sucked back then, and according to a professor review site, sucks just as hard now. In fact, all the things her students are calling her out for today were things I went through with her over a decade ago! Thank goodness for tenure, huh Prof. Elmore? So I was freaked out having my first class in something I really know nothing about. Turns out this was the easiest guy in the world to take. Take good notes, and you’ll be fine!
The other prof had a hardon for group work, and that really freaked me out. New weekly assignment, new group. A 40 page group paper! Ugh. And of course I got a dim view of this early on because one of my teammates was president of her Penn State DC alumni association and trekked up to the big game every Saturday. So our first meeting was at something like 4pm on a Sunday. Man, the point of graduating college is to get on with your life, not relive it with a bunch of current students. It must suck peaking at 21.
Well, sure enough, I was able to endure, and I’m in the home stretch of my grad school career. I can assure you there will be no dual Master’s or Ph.D. for me. Period. End of story!
Things I learned about Denver
1. Tattoos are mandatory in Denver. I swear, pretty much everyone was sporting at least one tattoo, and there were quite a few people with tats running up and down the full length of their arms. I’m not really into body “art,” but it seems to be the norm there, regardless of age.
2. Air conditioning is inherently evil. I’ve never seen a place with such an aversion to air conditioning. Granted, since I’ve mainly lived in Houston, New Jersey, and the DC area, I’ve known the need for A/C all my life. I don’t care what people say about “dry heat.” Hot is hot! Now, it was nice to be in 90 degree weather and not sweat like a whore in church, which is what I pretty much do in DC’s summers. But man, get the A/C on just a little bit!
3. People are much nicer. Most people in DC suck. There’s no way around it. You know it. I know it. From the boot-lickingest intern to the highest corridors of douchebaggery, people in DC are petty, passive-aggressive meanies. Denver was such a change. It wasn’t like a southern/Midwestern make chitchat to death nice (and I’m not opposed to that). More like people would smile when they talk to you and make eye contact with you when you passed them down the street. I distinctly remember meeting the glances of the first few people in Denver and thought it was weird. But then I remembered that this is normal behavior, and I’m the one who’s weird!
4. Denver’s more expensive than you might think. We got a whopping $48 per diem in Denver, which is standard Federal per diem. You lose 25% of that on your first and last days (I guess they assume no one spends a full day on travel days). You could kill the bulk of this on lunch. In fact, I spent (sit down, please) $30 on BREAKFAST one day. Yeah, breakfast. At the hotel. I mean, it was good and all (crab meat, cheese and leeks), but not $30 good! I know I lost at least $100 out of my own pocket on that trip. But I had a good time, so I’m not really upset. I remember filling out my travel report and my supervisor said “Hey, Jason. You can go ahead and claim full per diem on your site visit days. It’s okay.” But I did put down my full per diem, I told him. He couldn’t believe it.
5. Denver has a trolley system (sort of). There’s a section of town called the 16th Street Mall. It must span about 20 blocks, maybe more. It’s closed off to vehicle traffic, except for buses that do one huge loop from start to finish. It’s completely free, and is really neat. Unfortunately, the 16th Street Mall is essentially a stretched-out version of Clarendon. I mean, if taking the bus from Pottery Barn to Williams Sonoma is your cup of tea, go for it, but it felt very commercialized. But they had a lot of restaurants in the area, and it looked like a happening place.
6. Beer is way cheaper outside of DC. “Man, $3 for a pint of beer? How do these yokels make their money?” It was surreal to see booze actually affordable. Nothin’ like laying down a fiver for a Bud Light to really humble a man.
2. Air conditioning is inherently evil. I’ve never seen a place with such an aversion to air conditioning. Granted, since I’ve mainly lived in Houston, New Jersey, and the DC area, I’ve known the need for A/C all my life. I don’t care what people say about “dry heat.” Hot is hot! Now, it was nice to be in 90 degree weather and not sweat like a whore in church, which is what I pretty much do in DC’s summers. But man, get the A/C on just a little bit!
3. People are much nicer. Most people in DC suck. There’s no way around it. You know it. I know it. From the boot-lickingest intern to the highest corridors of douchebaggery, people in DC are petty, passive-aggressive meanies. Denver was such a change. It wasn’t like a southern/Midwestern make chitchat to death nice (and I’m not opposed to that). More like people would smile when they talk to you and make eye contact with you when you passed them down the street. I distinctly remember meeting the glances of the first few people in Denver and thought it was weird. But then I remembered that this is normal behavior, and I’m the one who’s weird!
4. Denver’s more expensive than you might think. We got a whopping $48 per diem in Denver, which is standard Federal per diem. You lose 25% of that on your first and last days (I guess they assume no one spends a full day on travel days). You could kill the bulk of this on lunch. In fact, I spent (sit down, please) $30 on BREAKFAST one day. Yeah, breakfast. At the hotel. I mean, it was good and all (crab meat, cheese and leeks), but not $30 good! I know I lost at least $100 out of my own pocket on that trip. But I had a good time, so I’m not really upset. I remember filling out my travel report and my supervisor said “Hey, Jason. You can go ahead and claim full per diem on your site visit days. It’s okay.” But I did put down my full per diem, I told him. He couldn’t believe it.
5. Denver has a trolley system (sort of). There’s a section of town called the 16th Street Mall. It must span about 20 blocks, maybe more. It’s closed off to vehicle traffic, except for buses that do one huge loop from start to finish. It’s completely free, and is really neat. Unfortunately, the 16th Street Mall is essentially a stretched-out version of Clarendon. I mean, if taking the bus from Pottery Barn to Williams Sonoma is your cup of tea, go for it, but it felt very commercialized. But they had a lot of restaurants in the area, and it looked like a happening place.
6. Beer is way cheaper outside of DC. “Man, $3 for a pint of beer? How do these yokels make their money?” It was surreal to see booze actually affordable. Nothin’ like laying down a fiver for a Bud Light to really humble a man.
Denver, part un
I recently (okay, several weeks ago) got back from a business trip to Denver. I had never been there before, and was looking forward to going.
The trip out there was great. I was lucky enough to fly out of National (hooray short airport trip!) and was extraspecialsuperlucky to fly Frontier.
I really like Frontier. I had only flown them once before to visit my mother, but I was really impressed. For one thing, they seem to use only Airbuses. Now I don’t have any comparative data, but I can tell you anecdotally that there seems to be a l’il more legroom on an Airbus as opposed to a Boeing. The fleet looks new and clean, and the flight attendants are usually quite friendly. Nowadays, you usually get flight attendants that must've gone to the casting call of "DMV: The Motion Picture." Best of all, they don’t pull a US Airways and pour your soda in a cup, and then give the remainder to someone else. I’ve never figured that out. How does that help your bottom line? Is all your overhead really spent on in-flight refreshment? How many less sodas do you need to pack? Is it that much of a space saver?
At any rate, I've always enjoyed flying with them. For that matter, I’m willing to try most second-tier airlines since personally I’ll do whatever it takes to not give my business to American, United, Delta, etc. They’ve rode the gravy train for too long, and have gotten fat and complacent. Lousy service, uncompetitive fares, and hey, when they fuck up (and you just know they will every few years), Uncle Sugar gives ‘em a big cash bailout to reward shitty management. I should be so lucky to land a job like that.
Government: Jason, you really ran Air Suckfest into the ground. What were you thinking?
Me: Well, I had a lot of good ideas that looked nice on paper…
Government: Shag carpeted planes? Fondue service in coach? Paying staff in Canadian dollars? Man, you really screwed up. Here, here’s a big bag of money.
Okay, I kid. But I’ll never fly a major airline if I can avoid it. I’m not rewarding them with my ticket money for their lousy treatment of the flying public.
America West used to be a great airline… I’ve heard they’ve merged with US Scare, so I’m not holding out hope for continued success. Their in-flight meals were better than some sit-down meals I’ve had. Full-course meals, and hot too! I flew with them several times, and was always impressed.
But now, I think Frontier is gonna get the bulk of my travel dollars, at least as far as travel out West goes.
Now, onto part two…
The trip out there was great. I was lucky enough to fly out of National (hooray short airport trip!) and was extraspecialsuperlucky to fly Frontier.
I really like Frontier. I had only flown them once before to visit my mother, but I was really impressed. For one thing, they seem to use only Airbuses. Now I don’t have any comparative data, but I can tell you anecdotally that there seems to be a l’il more legroom on an Airbus as opposed to a Boeing. The fleet looks new and clean, and the flight attendants are usually quite friendly. Nowadays, you usually get flight attendants that must've gone to the casting call of "DMV: The Motion Picture." Best of all, they don’t pull a US Airways and pour your soda in a cup, and then give the remainder to someone else. I’ve never figured that out. How does that help your bottom line? Is all your overhead really spent on in-flight refreshment? How many less sodas do you need to pack? Is it that much of a space saver?
At any rate, I've always enjoyed flying with them. For that matter, I’m willing to try most second-tier airlines since personally I’ll do whatever it takes to not give my business to American, United, Delta, etc. They’ve rode the gravy train for too long, and have gotten fat and complacent. Lousy service, uncompetitive fares, and hey, when they fuck up (and you just know they will every few years), Uncle Sugar gives ‘em a big cash bailout to reward shitty management. I should be so lucky to land a job like that.
Government: Jason, you really ran Air Suckfest into the ground. What were you thinking?
Me: Well, I had a lot of good ideas that looked nice on paper…
Government: Shag carpeted planes? Fondue service in coach? Paying staff in Canadian dollars? Man, you really screwed up. Here, here’s a big bag of money.
Okay, I kid. But I’ll never fly a major airline if I can avoid it. I’m not rewarding them with my ticket money for their lousy treatment of the flying public.
America West used to be a great airline… I’ve heard they’ve merged with US Scare, so I’m not holding out hope for continued success. Their in-flight meals were better than some sit-down meals I’ve had. Full-course meals, and hot too! I flew with them several times, and was always impressed.
But now, I think Frontier is gonna get the bulk of my travel dollars, at least as far as travel out West goes.
Now, onto part two…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)