To the outside world we all grow old but not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were, we live outside the touch of time

Don’t be alarmed but it appears that I am writing for a second time in the same week! This may be considered a major feat by some. On another positive note, Chevelle has released their 6th album “ Hats Off To The Bull” which is freakin awesome! Great band! I think that excludes this session of good news from Jeff so let’s get on with the rest of the show.
One of the things I was anxious about coming home was to return back to work. Sitting in class is interesting and all but I missed all the hands on fun. Since I’ve been back I’ve worked a week and totally miss it. People always talk about wishing they were back in school and not working but I couldn’t disagree more. Sure school will make me better at my job and help me make more money from it but it is not nearly as fun as actually working. Although since being in school and away from work I must say I’ve gotten a bit soft. My back and legs aching after a day’s work when I could have done it for a week before and hardly noticed a thing.
The other thing I was looking forward to here was having a social life again. Now you might be saying to yourself right now “Self, if Jeff is having a social life why is he at home writing at 10:30 on a Friday night?” Well its because I have so much of a social life that I just so happened to go out on a Thursday night, that’s right I said THURSDAY!!! That would never have happened in Orem on a school night. Being here tho I went and lived it up and was out till 3:15 only having to get up in a little over two hours to be at work at 6:30. And that is the difference between Virginia and Utah. There is so much going on here its worth sacrificing a rough day at work for a fun night out while back on the ranch its hardly worth staying up to 11 even in I don’t have anything going on the next day.
No matter when or where I go to Utah the place just seems to suck the fun out of me. Night after night, week after week, we struggle to find fun things to do in town. Here it’s tough deciding where you want to go because of all the options. Of the handful of times I’ve ventured out into the Utah County nightlife I have been highly disappointed, even with my exceptionally low expectations. A bad night out here is better than any “good” night I’ve had in Utah. Maybe as the University continues to grow the more the city will have to accommodate to its changing environment. Unfortunately that’s going to take longer to happen than the time I’ll be there so I’m shit out of luck. Maybe instead of wanting to go out every night I should pick up a hobby, read a book, or maybe even start a blog….
The last reason of excitement of coming home is to see my family. Not just Mom and Dad but the siblings and abundance of nieces and nephews that have accumulated over the years. I have family in Utah too but cousins can’t really compare to immediate family. I’ve been speaking with Nieces on the phone and skyping my brother while hardly making an effort to see any of the many cousins I have in a 20 mile radius of my apartment. That may seem pretty mean but you have to realize I grew up in Virginia and only saw them once every other summer for a week while most of them were living 10 minutes from each other seeing each other frequently. On top of that I never really fit in with the rest of my cousins as did most of my older siblings. Maybe if I made a bit more effort I could get close but I probably won’t, it’s never been in my nature to make effort to be accepted wither family or friends. That’s probably why I don’t have many friends tho. Anywho, I’ve literally been counting the days to when we all get together after Christmas and can be one big family again. There’s something special about a connection brothers and sisters have, maybe the embarrassing things we know about each other, the way all all stick up and protect each other, or passing strategy on how to survive our parents. As I wrote last time about how fortunate I was with my parents I am also blessed with an amazing group of my brother and sisters. We don’t all get together often but when we do its some of the best times I can remember from growing up until now.
Maybe it’s the Christmas season or just being back in a place I feel I belong that has me feeling all happy and emotional like a woman but hey its ok every once in a while. Once I get back to Utah I can go back to writing meaningless boring shit but for now I’ll continue this joyful streak I seem to have going for me.

“To understand your parents' love you must raise children yourself.”

Well here I am sitting at home bored out of my mind after being so excited about coming back for the last four months. I know my friends are busy and work and it’s hard to go do anything too exciting on a Wednesday night so I figured I could help pass the time with this. Not really sure what I want to talk about considering there’s actually a number of things I feel I could write about right now. I think I’ll start off on my parents.
I just want to go ahead and say for the record “I love my parents.” It might take moving away from them to really appreciate all they do but I’m so grateful for them. Not the things like my Mom doing my laundry or the free home cooked meals but the bigger things. Maybe it’s with age that we start to realize the things they really do for us and can appreciate it more fully.
Having been a member of the working class of society I realize how hard it is to be financially responsible, and I didn’t even have things like rent, car, or even food to worry about and I still managed to lose all my money. So the fact that my parents were able to provide all the things I needed, and the things I said I needed is really such a blessing. My Dad covered all of my school expenses at Snow and I was ungrateful since I wasn’t happy at school. Looking back it must have been a huge deal to pay for all those expenses and I didn’t show the least amount of thanks. When I wanted to go back I wanted to pay for everything myself since I had been working and wanted to be “Independent”. I wasn’t quite able to save enough for everything I needed and told my parents I could get a loan but they wouldn’t hear it. So my Dad covered what I couldn’t.
That is only one of many momentous things that my parents have done for me for me to be happy and successful. They don’t ask for anything in return and do it just because they love me and want me happy. I guess it’s true when they say you never love your parents as much as your parents love you, and I won’t be able to completely understand that type of love until I have a child of my own. I just wish I had been able to be more loving back to them when I think of all the things I have put them through over the last 24 years. I’ll just wait till my child goes and does all the same things I did and get what I deserve that way.
Stay tuned for more blogs, I’m going to try and keep writing on a more regular basis. I know I’ve said that before but just hoping I actually do it this time

Newest Idea

Well I haven't quite found anything to update my blog about but its been a busy week. I had a total of five tests in the past 3 days and two of which were midterms. I would say I was busy because I had my nose in books all week but that would be a complete lie. I actually did less studying then I normally do since there wasnt any homework to be turned in. So in reality I guess I had the time to find something but just worried about my tests instead of studying. Ok you caught me I wasnt even worried about the tests. I did absolutely nothing this week and could have worked on some new ideas. In all of my nothingness I may have actually found some ideas.
Saturday I went to a hole in the wall El Salvidorian restuarant and walked around Provo checkin out pawn shops, which got me thinknig about just finding a bunch of unknown places in town and checking them out. Maybe find different obscure restuarants to cool shops in town. Provo/Orem are great for this because they are filled with stores all throughout town. It wouldn;t be so much a review as it would just documenting my exerience. The other idea I had was to go with my friends Samantha Sands and Ashley Shippen when they go to take pictures. They always seem to have such beautiful pictures of places I haven't seen around here. To understand what I mean check out their blogs Ashely and Sam. Both are amazing photographers and would be fun to spend more time with them. While I would leave the photography to them it would be cool to explore all of Utahs hidden beauty with them and write about the places we find. Since you two are my main readers anyway let me know what you think

"Just 'cause you pour syrup on something doesn't make it pancakes!' "

Upon my much anticipated return to the blogging community I decided to mull over a few of my past posts to see what I’ve written about since I’ve been on here. I remember starting off with the intention of not writing about the lackluster life I lead but something far greater than me, and after reading those old entries I realized all I’ve done is write about my life. Pretty hypocritical if you ask me, so I have a decision to make. Either give in and write about my boring ass life and the oh so unfortunate situations that seem to continually befall upon me or actually put a little effort into this dammed thing and try to make it worth reading. I had great difficulty creating a topic for this blog, hence why I’m writing this now, and was unable to come up with one. The plus side is now that I’m in school I have more than enough free time to come up with something, and maybe my new environment will inspire me. Considering I’m writing this just before bed on a school night means it will have to wait until tomorrow though. Hopefully I can come up with something and get back to my hope of an interesting and original weekly blog posting. So stay tuned to see if I actually do it this time

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them" Einstein

Where has the time gone?!? It’s been 6 months since I last wrote in this so called blog. I must say it has been a very interesting 6 months and has made life a bit interesting. I don’t really remember what was going on when I last wrote but judging by the date I was just working and playing soccer, two things I miss very much now. Let’s go through a little list to see all the things that have changed in the past 6 months; I quit my job (more of a long term leave of absence) then moved to Utah and started school. Normally that wouldn’t seem like a big deal since that’s pretty much what happens to every new college student when they first attend college, but this is different. I’m not 18 and just graduating high school leaving my summer job to finally leave for school. I had already gone to school, and failed. I cut my losses and came home and found a career in electronics that I loved. I dedicated 2 years of hard work to the company I loved and created a family with all the employees. Life was actually going well for me for the first time in a long time. I also had a great group of friends I hung out with regularly; I was playing soccer, and living the bachelor life in my parent’s basement. So why did I throw it all away to go back to school?

Growing up I always knew I was going to graduate high school, go to college, get a good job and live happily ever after. Then life happened and I realized that’s not how it works, at least not for me. I got bored of business which I thought was what I was destined for, I got sick of school entirely and gradually gave up on class and failed my way out of school, and I even got sick of life. Once I realized that I had no hopes of fulfilling the life I had planned I felt lost, scared, and most of all alone. I thought that nobody would understand my situation and most of all that they would be disappointed in me for failing. So instead of realizing after 2 years it wasn’t working and talking to somebody I decided to go back and bite my tongue and do what I was meant to do, that couldn’t not have been any worse of an idea. I stopped going to all my classes by mid-October and made no attempt to let anybody know how it was affecting me. I was scared to return home because of the shame and disappointment I would feel returning home again without success. Instead I was greeted with the love my parents show me no matter what and a determination to help me.

With the help and support of family and friends I was able to get out of the slump I was in, which is apparently called severe depression by medical professionals, and get my life back on track. I had to accept that I wasn’t a failure because I hadn’t accomplished the goals I had set out to do. Instead I had to realize that I was still on track and merely had taken the wrong road. The prestigious college degree wasn’t my only option for happiness and success. As I talked about before I found the job and career I loved and was happy. So I ask the question again, why go back?

Unlike going to Snow, I actually wanted to go to school this time. I now know what I want out of school and how it can help me. I found a program 100% relevant to my field and want to use it to advance in my career to help make up for lost time. Given my bad track record I was worried I would slip back to my previous habit of skipping class, avoiding homework, and eventually giving up all together. So far though I haven’t and plan to keep up my hard work. I learned from my mistakes and I know it isn’t going to be easy and will be a lot of hard work but this time I’m ready. I know I can let my family and friends know when things aren’t always easy and they will keep me going, a valuable lesson I learned the hard way before.
I miss my friends and family back home and the life I had before but I know this will be for the best. I have old and new friends here to help me along the way and all the ones back home. I will eventually be back to working and starting my life over again but until then I have to keep working towards it one day at a time. Nothing worth having is easy and nothing easy is worth having, so if I keep that in mind I can make it to the end.

P.S. I know it isnt my style to just write about me but given the large gap in entries and that I can do what hte hell I want with my blog I decided to give an update so suck it!

Its in your hands now

Here I am again, writing with no agenda except trying to fulfill my duty and write somewhat frequently. I feel that my posts starting in 2011 haven’t necessarily been anything to brag about but have been somewhat structured and organized with far less random tangents about nothing. So in other words I think it’s getting better. Now all I need is something worth writing about and this will finally be something worth writing in!
It’s the end of March which means spring time baby! I’ve realized that this is my last spring/summer that I will really have before I’m really into the real world and won’t have the luxury of goofing off and doing whatever I want. I’ve saved of almost enough money for the following school year and won’t really have to work extra hard to earn enough. In theory I could make more than enough and save some for the next year but we all know that isn’t very likely. I’m going to have to count on summer jobs and financial aid for that second year, but anyway I digress (much like I said I have done better about not doing). So with that in mind I want to make the most of this and do things I won’t necessarily be able to do as freely after school. My plan is to do everything involving exercise and the outdoors. That means getting back into BMX; which I’ve started by fixing my bike last Sunday and riding a little bit every day since (a whole 3 days). I want to go boating a lot, kayaking, canoeing, and jet skiing; even though that really isn’t exercise I still want to do it. I want to go camping, fishing, shoot guns, and basically live a rednecks dream! Recently the only thing I’ve done recently is come home from work, go to the gym, and then plop my lazy ass on my couch and play my PS3 until I go to bed. Although I still want to continue the gym these last few months of freedom I don’t want to be confining myself to my room when I can be out making the most of what I have doing things I really love.
Another thought I had was making this blog more visitor friendly. When I originally started I said that this blog was for and didn’t give a shit about what anybody else thought about it. Although I still don’t really care what people think of it I do want people to enjoy coming on here. I even did a little research of some popular blogs and came up with two major categories then split into different sections within the two categories. There are the informational and there are user submitted. Informational can be anywhere from a” Do It Yourself”/”How To” to Perez giving you all the latest celeb gossip with his incredibly gay opinions. The user submissions I found were things like FML, Fail blog, and Lamebook (all funny sites that I do recommend) and would like to move towards that area. I don’t necessarily want to try and get the entire world following and submitting but maybe just write a comment to a funny picture weekly or something that the (few) people reading this can write about or send in to at least kill 5 minutes of their day that they didn’t feel was totally wasted. I also don’t want that to be the sole purpose of this and keep me from having to actually do anything to maintain this but just to make it a little bit more exciting. Even if it’s that something you do when you are waiting for a date and are nervously waiting for him to show up and have already looked at all your friends profiles on facebook (twice) and watched way too many stupif but funny videos on youtube and STILL have time to kill. I would like to keep this blog going since I feel it is productive, I just don’t want to continue to write stupid meaningless posts about absolutely nothing. SO as a reader your first assignment is to respond to this with ideas or feedback. Ready, set, GO!

Book report

So upon my glorious return to writing I went back and read a handful of my old posts. As I read through them I noticed a number of things. 1. I can’t type for shit; at least five words a paragraph were either misspelled, missing letters or just missing words all together. 2. I have no train of thought; I went from idea to idea without the slightest bit of transition. 3. I was seriously F’ed up in the head. I mean it happens when you’re on a lot of medications I guess but still! So I decided that since I still don’t really and any set topics I want to cover, I want to at least work on fixing those immediate problems. Although I don’t think writing can fix and neurological problems I could probably work on the first two.
So to try and get some practice I’m going to do a quick and dirty book report. I take that back, I want to write an epiphany I had on modern novels, and that is that books these days are dirty! I know the general media has been advertising with sex a lot the past 1 or 2 decades but I thought it was just for TV, movies, magazines, and more visual public display. I guess the fact that I never read let me become so naive. The last two books I’ve read have both been on the National Bestsellers list and came as quite a shock to me. The first involved a murder at a lesbian vacation retreat and the suspects were all in some sort of weird love dodecahedron (I’m talking way past the love triangle here). The second book was another murder mystery (yes I am noticing a trend too) and started off rather slow. As I read on it slowly got more interesting and intertwined, and then it took some sort of weird kinky turn and couldn’t go two pages without somebody having sex, getting raped, or just some flat our freaky shit!
Being such a popular book my Dad has asked to read the second book I mentioned once I am through reading it, and I’m not quite sure if I feel comfortable letting him. Everybody always claims the book is better than the movie but I always thought it was because they left out too many details, not because they took out all the sex scenes! And seriously who uses the word “Fuck” in books? I guess since I stopped reading books in middle school and then picked it back up again as an “adult” (I use this term loosely) that it was a pretty dramatic change, but I honestly thought that books were rather clean. It only makes sense thought, when a new movie comes out and it looks really good and then I notice its PG-13 I get pretty disappointed .It’s because I know they had to take out the gore and sex and cussing to be able to get a younger crowd. But books don’t have a viewer’s guide discretion and can write whatever the hell they want, and they know what people want! Its like going from watching ABC family to HBO, you gotta pay for HBO because its drugs sex and rock n’ roll baby!
Now I realized if that were an actual book report and had to turn it in I would fail horribly. Lucky for me I pick the topic and grade it myself. My writing style isn’t quite up to a literary standard but if I can go through a page on one broad topic and keep it one that one subject and actually make some sense out of it I think im on the right track! Not only that but I haven’t had nearly as many grammatical errors come up on spell check as usual and haven’t had so many red lines under words that I felt was on what some people would refer to as a roll. Sadly that is all I could muster up for one night but I’ve been trying to think of a subject for two nights now and this was what I got so hopefully next time I get a better topic and can write something more useful or exciting then this piece of shit.
Goodnight!

“People always find it easier to be a result of the past rather than a cause of the future

Oh man, where to begin! After much persistence from a friend to return I have once again joined the world of blogging. I have not written since December 18 so I’m well past due. So first a little update on what has happened since then. Obviously Christmas and New Year’s, nothing too exciting there except seeing family and such. Don’t get me wrong I love family but seeing them isn’t too out of the ordinary. Although my good friend came home for a few weeks and was so good to reunite with her before she had to go back to playing super woman and saving 3rd world countries. Valentines came and passed without any special someone, again nothing unusual there. But one thing was my sister living in San Diego came for a week with her new baby whom I hadn’t met before. But like I said from day one this isn’t going to be one of those blogs that blabs on about all the cute babies and family members and boring things that happen all the time, so as much as I love my sister and baby niece that’s all your getting on here!
All that leads me to my next point, which is; what is the point? For a while this was sort of a self-therapy and way of letting out feelings I wouldn’t ordinarily expressed and change bad habits by pointing out what needed changings. To some degree it has worked, which is to say, I don’t feel the need to get online and vent which is partially why I haven’t written in so long. I do want to make posts regularly so I need to come up with something to write about or else it’s going to be once every few months and only when I finally have enough built up frustration that I need to let it out. I haven’t written because I’m no longer upset with the world and am finally accomplishing the goals I have set for myself. In November I had said that I wasn’t reaching the goals I made for myself which was partially why I was so upset all the time. But like I said I would in the article, I worked harder to step up and stop letting myself fail, for example I have saved up enough money to cover a semester and a half of school and should be able to earn the rest this summer as long as I keep up the progress. I made a goal for myself back in November that on March 15 I wanted to be back in the best shape I had ever been. Although I had a few slow period I pushed myself hard physically and can honestly say that I am in (or damn near) the best shape of my life. See I told you that it worked!
But this still doesn’t solve my problem because it worked so well I no longer have problems in need of fixing. Ok obviously that’s a load of shit, but not ones significant enough that I need to express on here. I don’t and will not resort to the cliché weekly update but I do want more structure then what I had originally planned, nothing. So hopefully I continue to write these next few days and weeks and can come up with something, or a few ideas I can cycle through to make exciting and fun enough to actually be worth reading. But until then you’re stuck with this lousy excuse of an exciting article so for that I apologize.