All my routines are back to normal now… at least for the next week, when the clocks change again. (See my post from last year for my views on DST.) I’m going to end up having less time between school & work. I guess I’ll have to make lunch & dinner at the same time… or save dinner until I get home, since it will be earlier. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

I’ve got two exams this week, my Jazz History class and Biology. These exams probably what have been the most detailed weeks yet. The bio exam will cover chromosomes, mitosis/meiosis, the cell cycle, DNA/RNA, their chemical structure and the chemistry involving proteins and amino acids. Jazz history is covering the early jazz and the swing era, plus the big stars of these ages, especially Louis Armstrong & Benny Goodman. Another late night of studying, I suppose.

On the acting front, I’m starting an improv training class this weekend. This will at least give me some opportunity for training & work while I pay the bills & wait for my chance in the Theatre dept. at ASU. It’s being run by Matt Rosin, who’s done a lot of work with the Improv Olympic in Chicago as well as the Jester’z improv comedy troupe in Scottsdale. His new group, The Originals, is also located in Scottsdale. I also found out that he happens to have a day job with the same company I work for (albeit a different division)! Small world, I guess… but I’m lookng forward to it.

Well, today my vacation ended. So now I’m back in school and work together and getting back to my original schedule. In some ways, I’m glad. I never cleaned my apartment, but while I was not working, I didn’t really have a good excuse. Now that I’m back on my schedule, I just don’t have the time. It’s a relief… and yet, appalling to me at the same time. I’m not sure why that is.

As an out-of-class assignment, I had to screen the movie Coach Carter, so I went and saw it last night. Not a bad night of movie watching overall. It’s not a film I would normally go see, but might catch on video since I’m a big Samuel L. Jackson fan. He’s the main reason I’ve been enjoying the recent Star Wars movies. Watching him lop Jango Fett’s head off in Episode II was a definite highlight. And Formula 51 totally kicked major ass. This was one of his more toned down performances.

It was based on a true-life incident in 1999 when Ken Carter, a moderately successful business owner, set aside some time to take over the basketball coaching job at his old high school as a favor for his old coach, who was retiring. He was brought in to whip the team into shape after years of large losing streaks. Not only did he force them to improve on the court, but also off the court as they were required to maintain perfect attendance & a GPA high enough to get them college scholarships. He butts heads with players, parents & faculty up to the point that he locks up the gym & bars the players from playing or praticing until they get their grades up. I won’t give away the ending… I think you can figure it out for yourself.

Good solid acting by the cast all around and solid direction. While I’m not big on “based on a true story” kind of films, it highlights the often conflicting values of pursuing an education while still developing solid athletic skills that could bring big money. Surprisingly, I genuinely liked this film. Jackson has done several films along this line in the past, albeit slightly more violent (i.e. the film 187), but the solid directing of Thomas Carter along with positive performances by the young actors playing the basketballers make this one of his better movies.

I’d rate it, but what’d be the point? I’d rather compare my level of enjoyment to another of his more somber films I enjoyed, The Red Violin.

It’s been a couple of long days. School is back in session, but I have a few days off of work instead now. It’s been hard to motivate myself to clean my apartment. Maybe I’ve been watching too much MST3K… nah!

I’ll procrastinate tomorrow.

It gets lonely at work sometimes, especially on a Friday night. Tonight, I’m watching MST3K. Specifically, episode 516, where they watched Kathy Ireland’s magnum opus Alien from L.A.. It’s one of their finer mockings really, since this really isn’t a very good film.

For those who’ve not been subjected to this “epic”, Kathy plays a timid, nerdy girl who goes in search of her missing explorer father and discovers a whole underground world, ostensibly Atlantis, which inevitably teaches her how to be brave and sexy so she can show up the hunky guy who dumped her at the beginning of the film. I just saw the part where she got the message about her dad’s disappearance.

Quote: “My father’s dead… he fell down a bottomless pit.”

Well, despite my uncontrollable laughter at her delivery (mainly because her voice in this film is about an octave higher than usual), a question struck me. How could she possibly know he fell down a bottomless pit? For that matter, since they showed him exploring alone, how did anyone know?! Am I reading too much into this? I suppose I am.

On a lighter note, we are reaching the end of Spring Break this week. Back to school on Monday. But, in reverse I have about half the week off of work. Crazy, man… crazy. At some point, things will sync up so that I am off from school & work at the same time. Maybe this summer.

I’m going to give building my own website a shot. I’ve attemtped this a couple of times before, but it never went anywhere because I really didn’t have anything to say, or so I thought. But fifth time’s the charm.

There are so many options of what kind of software to use… how torturous. Dare I use Microsoft FrontPage, Mozilla Composer, or something else entirely? Or should I slug through all the (X)HTML & CSS code by hand for the challenge of it?

I’m going to keep this blog site though. I’d hate to sacrifice this page after the work I’ve put into it. Okay, so it’s not a lot of work so far, but I hope it will tie in well when I get my site up and running. I’ll throw the link up in here of course when it’s live. I will also add some more stuff to this blog as well. I may start experimenting with some audio blogs & throwing in some pictures as well. I don’t take nearly enough advantage of all the capabilities of this site.

::vent::

Today, I sat in a training class introducing the “7 Habits”, as proffered by Stephen Covey. While that in itself was not a problem, we watched a video at the end which sent shivers up my spine. It was a short film of Covey’s appearance at A.B. Combs Elementary in North Carolina. This school is a “magnet elementary school” centered around leadership. They were showing him how the kids have learned his “7 Habits” program for themselves. A series of kids gave short speeches on the Habits and then they unveiled a photo-mosaic “Wall of Wonder”.

Now, aside from the fact that the video was so sweet I almost went into a diabetic coma, I have 2 concerns about this concept — 1 major, 1 minor.

First, the major concern. A magnet elementary school?! While I do not object to the idea of magnet schools (or charter schools, in some cases), somehow I think having them at the elementary level is a bad format. Have we become so obsessed with efficiency that we must breed it into our children before they have a chance to explore who they are. The aggressive need to win (or “win-win” in the Habits) should be developed in smaller doses over a longer length of time. The children who were giving those speeches were incredibly bright, and I’m proud of them. I probably would be one of them if I were their age.

Watching these kids made me think they were in CEO training, getting ready to assume the leadership of a Fortune 500 company upon hitting puberty. Naturally, my overactive imagination kicks in to tell me this will eventually into something out of either Antz or Gattaca, where are defined for life from birth into certain preset roles. Do I listen to the imagination? You bet… probably a little too much, which is probably why I’m in therapy anyway. But that doesn’t make the point less valid which is let these kids just be kids. If we siphon out all the fun of growing up and exploring at their own pace, we’ll just be giving birth to miniature adults. (see this movie for a better take on what I’m talking about)

Oh, the minor concern? I lot of these kids used the words “synergize” & “synergy” over and over again. Putting aside the fact that the mere word gets my hackles up, hearing come from the mouths of children was very disturbing.

::/vent::

I was looking over my previous posts… it’s been almost a year since I started this blog. Although I obviously didn’t keep it up as much as I had hoped, I’m amazed it’s still here at all. Time really does fly, I suppose. And what have I accomplished in the past year. Not much, but maybe I’ll throw up a list next month when the anniversary actually hits.

I recently started tinkering with add-ons to the blog as well as adding links to various places of interest (as most links are supposed to do). I’ll try to add more soon.

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“I think Ralph Bellamy said it best when he said ‘If I can’t get the girl, at least give me more money’.” — Hawkeye Pierce, M*A*S*H

I found something interesting today with my insurance company, Progressive. My windshield had developed a weird crack because of all the cold weather recently and so I decided to get the windshield replaced. Their website allows you to file a glass claim online! It was quick and easy to do. They’ve even got a page where you place the cracks on the windshield to show them size and location, like an automotive Mr. Potato Head. After I submitted my claim, they called me back within 90 minutes. Now that’s service.

I still feel like I’m paying too much for car insurance, but considering I’m only paying what I would somewhere else, it’s a screamin’ deal.

Okay, so I’m not totally bored…

I just started a new job a couple of weeks ago. It’s been interesting so far, and enjoyable. I dare not say anything more since people are getting fired for saying too much about their jobs. I can’t imagine I’d get too blasted for saying nice things, though.

In any case, the days continue on in that chronological way they do. Spring Break is almost upon me. The only thing I’ll be doing next week is trying to sleep in before work. And since that won’t work, I’ll just do some errands. New glasses and possibly registering for summer & fall classes if I can.

Since the new year started, I’ve been back in school full-time along with working full-time. How does anyone have time for anything? Still, I wouldn’t want things to be too different. Hopefully, as my life unfolds, I’ll post in this more often. Lord knows I think I can squeeze a few lines in every day. I’m hoping to learn HTML & other tricks so that I can add photos & audio to this blog as well. Wil Wheaton’s website is the kind of site I’m aiming for. I don’t have the celebrity he did when he started, but I’m working on it…