That awkward moment when....

It’s been a little over a year since my last entry so I figure it’s been long enough and should probably write again because I hear if I don’t use it I’ll lose it. I don’t think that was about my blog but whatever I’ll just apply it to this and ignore its actual meaning because that’s a whole different story…. But I digress. I would like to start writing fairly frequently again just because I don’t ever write anymore and actually kind of miss it. Don’t get your hopes up though because I’ve made that statement before and look what happened. So let’s see, what has happened in the last 13 months? Not a whole lot would be pretty sufficient but I’ll do better than that. Since I stopped I had just finished my first semester in my electrical automation program. I am now starting my 4th and final semester and am looking anxiously towards graduation. After I finished my second semester I returned home to Virginia where I spent the summer living at home and working. Unless you count fishing and work exciting I didn’t really do a whole lot but sure was nice to be back. Unless you’ve lived in Utah, it’s hard to really understand how different it is out here so it’s always nice when I’m able to get back to what seems like “reality”. So now I’ve set my sights on moving back to Virginia when I finish up here and get a late start on the rest of my life. Also since I last wrote I’ve picked up a new hobby (although some say an obsession) with fitness and nutrition. I got a gym membership and actually used it unlike all the other gym memberships I had before. So when I got back out to school and saw the apartment fitness center that I used last year, I realized that it would not be sufficient for my new physical needs. I sucked up the cost of a gym membership, which is a lot to a broke college student, and have been going diligently for the better part of 5 months. I cannot express how much I enjoy going to the gym, it has totally changed, and taken over my life. I’ve always wanted to be bigger and stronger but never really wanted to work for it. Now its all I want to do. When I get to class all I can think about is going to the gym as soon as class lets out. After the gym all I can think about is a better way to improve the workouts I’ve done and to research better and more effective workouts and nutrition. It’s almost like the gym is my major and I just happen to go to college in my spare time. But unlike school I can see progress from my time spent in the gym and I absolutely love it. I’m not giving up on my school and the career I plan to go into but I feel like my health and fitness will always take precedents over that and would like to also turn it into a career. I‘ve been studying this stuff so much and love how it’s changed me, I would like to share what I’ve learned to help other change. Maybe do a little personal training on nights and weekends (after being certified of course) or just help friends that would like a change for the better in their life. Enough about that though, I feel like people get bored when I talk about that stuff (probably because it’s all I talk about now) so I’ll kind of change paths and just share an interesting story that happened over this past break when I was home. My first weekend back home over winter break I went out with my best friend to some bars out in Clarendon. The night itself was fairly uneventful and was mostly spent standing around making fun of all the weirdo’s that were staggering around as the effects of alcohol were starting to take over. What made them stand out were their very pronounced hipster outfits. I’m talking full on colored skinny jeans, plaid shirts, uncomfortable mustaches, glasses, beanie, and probably a weird fascination with Portland. Anyway, at the end of the night wound down, closing time finally came and I waited around as the lights came on and my friend went to close out his tab. At this point I was just leaning on a table by myself watching people leave when I felt a hand cup my right but check and give a very noticeable squeeze. My immediate thoughts were ok Nick got his tab and I ready to leave, but when I looked up Nick was just emerging from the mass of people around the bar and laughing hysterically. So my next instinct was to look around for a culprit. I looked around the only person within a 10 foot radius was one of the hipster guys. A little suspicious and maybe a bit perplexed, I looked at him with a questioning look on my face and boldly asked him “Did you just grab my ass?!” He replied, with his blank facial expression unchanged, “I may have”. Touché my friend! At that point I was more surprised at his reply then I was upset that he had just molested my ass. A few more words were exchanged and then he wandered off sea of people leaving. I don’t remember the last few words we said because I was still in shock of this guy not only grabbing but admitting to grabbing my ass. I don’t know why these sort of things happen to me but I seem to constantly find myself in these sort of awkward scenarios that always end up lose-lose for me. Guess that’s just part of life

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!