Cell Monster

One thing that most people learn pretty quickly when they hang out with me, is that I'm a cell phone monster. I go through cell phones so fast that I'm like a monster consuming them. Most of the cell phones that I lose, are lost due to water damage. Most of the time they get damaged when I do my laundry. There was one time that I was thrown into a pool with my cell phone. So the moral of the story is. “Don't let me baby sit your cell phone.” Something will happen to it.

To be or not to be?

In the fall semester of 2005, I joined the Sigma Chi fraternity. A decision that I will never regret. As with all things, there are both positive and negative things that come with being a member of a fraternity. When it comes to being a member of Sigma Chi, I feel that the positives out weigh the negatives.
Some of the negatives that come along with being in a fraternity include: being stereotyped along with the idiots of the greek system, spending countless hours doing house activities, as well as the financial drain of being in the fraternity. I feel that it is unfair for fraternity men to be stereotyped the way that they are. Off course you are going to have idiots anytime that you have a large group of 18-24 year-old males assembled together. It just that ours stand out in a crowd due to their letters. This is not easily solved, because there is no system wide check on who is and who is not allowed into the greek system. Another negative aspect of being in a fraternity, is the amount time that it takes to be greek. To keep this short, there are a lot of obligatory events and meeting associated with being greek. So much time is taken out of your week that time spent with family and school inevitably declines as well. Another negative thing about being in a fraternity is the financial drain of it all. Despite what most people think, fraternities spend their money on more than just alcohol and girls.
At the end of the day, it is easy to see how people can get frustrated with being greek. The most redeeming aspect of being greek is the friendships that are formed. I have been a social person my whole life; making friends has never really been a problem for me. I have had close friends from primary school. I have had close friends from all the sports that I played in growing up. Yet the friends and connections that I have made over these past four years are unlike any that I have experience before. I can honestly say that there are lots of people that I want to know the rest of my life. Being greek has given me more life stories, than most people get in a life time. Although my grades are not nearly what they would have been had I not joined, and I live the life of a poor man. I still choose my fraternity. I do not think that I would have made it through to the end of my college career had it not been for my fraternity brothers. There have been many times when pressure from school or work have really troubled me, and whenever the pressures became too much, they where always there by my side to see me through. In the next five to ten years we will all see if my investment in social capital over grades will pay off.

LeBron

Yesterday with the final score being 84 to 74, the Cleavland Cavaliers finished a series sweep of the Atlanta Hawks. Every year there are sweeps in the playoffs, yet it was how the Cavaliers won that made this series memorable. In the series we saw LaBron James take the series over. It seemed that it did not matter what the Hawks tried on defense, they just could not stop him. It seemed as if LeBron could do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted.

In the series against the Hawks Lebron averaged just over 28 points, 7 rebounds, and 7 assists a game. These numbers in of themselves does not even begin to show just how dominant he really was. In watching the game you could clearly see that Lebron was just faster than the Hawks. So whenever he drove into the paint, any defender in the area was forced to foul him in order to stop a guaranteed dunk. Yet sometimes LeBron did not even have score to make his impact felt. Whenever the defense focused too much on LeBron, he was able to flip a pass out to one of his teammates for an open shot. So now matter what the Hawks did, they could not stop LeBron james and his Cleavland Cavaliers.

Death of a Dynasty

Sad news came to me today. My high school has just cut the funding for its football team; this includes the varsity, junior varsity, and the junior high school teams. This was a long and storied program. In my time on the team alone the team experience much success including: two undefeated junior high seasons, one undefeated jv season, a one loss jv season, a state championship at the varsity level. All of that, and I only was around for the tail end of the success. Before I had arrived my school had won 4 divisions championships in ten years. Two of which were also state championships.

What finally undid all of the success that my school had enjoyed was a new principle. When he came in he felt that two much of the schools resources were being focused on the football team. So he cut the funding in half the first couple of years. Because of this, most of the coaching staff that had been there for years had to be let go. The team was also forced to do maintenance on their own field. That alone was enough to deter most of this kids away from the team. That left only the hard core football lovers to make up the entire roster. When you have a school of only 500 trying to compete with schools that had more than 3000, you need every able body. Those last couple of years the team struggled on the field because most of the team had to go both ways. Which meant that the team was competitive in every game until the fourth quarter when the players all got too exhausted. The did not win a game their last two years in existence.

One side effect from the football teams down fall was declining enrollment rates at the school. My school is a private institution. So none of their enrollment was guaranteed. The only reason that most people had even heard about my school was from all the publicity the local news papers writing about the football team. There are many private schools in the area that are similar in every way, except none of them had a successful sports teams. The attention that the news papers brought not only brought in athletes, but many other students as well. The name recognition of the school made it attractive to all.

I hope that one day I will be able to resurrect the team. Even if I have to fund and coach the team myself.

there for my father

This weekend was the first time that I have been home since January 17^th . The reason for this, is that I am from Southern California and attend San Jose State University. In a car that is about a 6-hour drive. Another reason that I do not go home that often is because I leave my car at home. So even when I have the time to make the drive; I usually don't have a car to ride in.

I went home this weekend to be with my father in particular. Since my sister and I have moved out, my parents are left to the house by themselves. So when my mother leaves town, my father is left alone. Sometimes he will be left alone for a week or two. I came home this weekend to keep him company. This was not a good weekend to go home, since I have most of my term papers due this week. I'm a family first type of guy.

Miami Dolphins Fan

My favorite NFL team is the Miami Dolphins. I have been closely following them since I was very little. Most people have a hard time understanding this; because I'm from Southern California. Why would I root for a team that is from the opposite side of the country? Southern California has the Chargers, they are a team worth rooting for.

The reason why I started to like the Dolphins, was that I wanted to be an oceanographer. More particularly I wanted to work with dolphins. So it was a natural fit for a four or five year old. Since then I have become very attached to the team. Since high school I have made it my personal hobby to follow every aspect of the team. Some call it an obsession. I call it a passion.

Letter to my new little bro in the greek system.

Hello Little Brother

The fraternity with which you seek to join believes that each of its members must be: men of good character, who are students of fair ability, who hold ambitious purposes, who have congenial personalities, who posses good morals, that have a high sense of honor, and posses a deep sense of responsibility. These are all important things. As your big bro I will take it upon my self to show you a few more character traits. I wish to show to be a respectful and loyal man as well. You are about to become a member of the Royal Family. A family built upon loyalty and respect. As your big bro I will always be there for you. Through thick and thin. It is my hope then that in the time to come our friendship will grow and mature into something that will last a life time.

In you I see a great potential. Yet as I was once told “Potential is nothing when it is not put to good use” You will need to learn to unlock that potential. Once you have realized that potential, you will be able to succeed in any endeavor you choose to pursue. Come with me now this is where our journey begins.

Corn nuts

Many fond memories that I have from my childhood are from lunch time at school. I never went to public school, so for the most part sack lunches where my only option. The closest thing that we had to cafeteria food was food purchased from local venders, that was marked up and sold during lunch. One of the problems for me growing up was that I loved food a little too much. So in order to fulfill my ever growing need for food I started to buy things from the school on top of the sack lunch I was already bringing.

Knowing that I could only get fifty cents to and extra dolor from my parents each day, I started to try and find what I could by that was the most filling for what I was paying. The snack that I ended up deciding was the food that gave me the most bang for my buck, where corn nuts. The school sold them for fifty cents a piece. That meant at minimum I was going to get at least a bag of nuts to eat after my meal. One the cool days that I got a dolor, I would either get another bad of nuts of a can of soda; which also cast only a dolor.

The cool thing about the corn nuts where that they came in a variety of flavors. They came in salted, bbq, ranch, nacho cheese, and other flavors. The flavor that I got the most was the ranch style. This was because I really like the stuff they used to season it. Later in life when girls started to become more important, I stopped with the extra food and stated to play organized sports. My affection for corn nuts faded away as well.

Bud-Light + Coors Light =Boors Light?

Two of the largest Beer manufacturing companies in the US are the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Company and the Coors Brewing Company. They both produce a wide variety of different products ranging from ales, lagers, wheat beer, and other types of beer. One type of beer that both of these companies produce is a light version of their lager. Both of these light lagers are top sellers within the companies. Another thing that they have in common is that when canned they have similar labels.
The labels on the Coors Light can and the Bud-light can are very similar in design. For instance both labels share silver backgrounds. This silver is not printed onto the can, but are in fact bare stretches of aluminum. Another aspect that both of these cans share is that both labels only use four different colors red, black, white, and Blue. The last similarity that the two cans share is that both cans make use of wide mouth technology. Wide mouth technology is when the mouth of the can is stretched horizontally, in order to allow for faster consumption.

Econimic Spin (aka Bull Shit)

The recession that the United States is currently experiencing, is actually making it a stronger country. On the surface it may appear that nothing good will coming will come from this crisis, but there are a lot of positive things that will come as a result of this recession. When times are good in America, there is often waste. Waste that gets ignored because of the plentiful recourses that this country enjoys. Yet, when things go bad in this economy, it is the greed of capitalism that will be the saving grace.
Capitalism is a system of government that depends on the accumulation of wealth by individuals to be the catalyst for the economy. So when the profits of those people start to wane, they are the ones who must find the answer. Not the government. One of the ways in which the people find ways to solve this problem is by eliminating waste within the society. One way that this is done is by streamlining production lines. This may eliminate some workers in that production line, but the end result is cheaper production of the same product. Couple that with the same action in many other industries and the cost of living will be driven down overall. Lower living costs make the money that employed workers still make more valuable. This in effect is another way of generating more wealth for Americans as a whole.
The main draw back for this, is that often when business owners are trying to streamline their business they try to lower the wages of the people they still employ. The best way to address this is the forming of unions. Unions have the power to keep wages up even in harsh economic times.

Some love for my boy Sonic.

The 1991 Sega Genesis game Sonic the Hedgehog, is still considered one of the most popular video games of all time. After this release, the writers at Sega were faced witht the task of meeting growing expectations. In order to meet these expectations, the writers at Sega just decided to build off of the privious success of Sonic. So they created Sonice the headgehog 2.
In the second instalement of the series, the creators gave sonic new capabilities upon which to comlete his all new mission. An example of one of the improvements was new spin camabilities that Sonic possesed. In the first gam Sonic was limmited to just running jumping and spinning. Yet in order to spin in the first game, sonic was forced to build up speed before he cold tuck and roll into his spin. So to fix this, the creators gave Sonic the ability to croutch and wind up into his spin. This simple change gave sonice much more freedom to speedily move about his world; and helped Sonic the Headgehog 2 decome even more of a success than its predisesor.