The Doomed Post worked!!

I did it!!
By posting the toilet post before i had a job, they were FORCED to offer me the job TODAY!!!

I start FULL time March 1st!!

Six months later, I have the job that was coming "Any day now"

Thank you God.


technorati tags: Job

Doomed Post??

Since graduating from college I've had 3 jobs. Durring my tenure at each of my two past jobs I have in some way written about the bathroom, and then in the next few months my position has been eliminated. In my current job i don't technically have a position to eliminate so maybe this will push them to create one for me.

So here we go.

In the office where I work, to get to the bathroom, we (both men and women) are forced to walk past the Coffee Room. It's just a tiny room with a coffee pot some cupboards and a sink; and yet, while it serves it's purpose of providing coffee to those who choose to drink it, it has another effect as well. A constant smell of old wet coffee grounds permeates the entire area around the bathroom doors. It reminds me of what it smells like if you dump your coffee grounds into a trashbag, then tie it closed, then two days later open it and stick your head inside.

I can bear the smell. Seriously, it's not all that bad. However I'm afraid it's going to eventually cause some sort of Pavlovian response where anytime I smell old coffee I'm gonna have to pee. I'm more concerned about this everytime I walk past there. I've started holding my breath, just to keep it from being engrained in my head tying urination and old coffee together. Sure right now you might think this silly but imagine the possibilities.

• Weeks from now while driving around the back of Starbucks, I feel a strange pressure on my bladder.


• Months from now while in Barnes and Noble, in the midst of ordering my usual Carmel Vanilla Mocha Frappaccino I strangely have to run to the back of the store to the restroom to relieve myself.


• Years from now while taking out the trash, the bag breaks spilling (among other things) coffee grounds on the driveway I unexplicably wet myself.

I cant deal with those consequences. Maybe I'll just go upstairs and use the bathroom that has heat.


technorati tags: bathroom, coffee, Pavlov

Waiting

Stiiiiil waiting. 4 months and change left now until the wedding, and as expected, it's tough going. The thing that makes it difficult is that our relationship is so close to marriage as it is. We do everything together as if we were already married (barring sex, living together, and sharing a bank account... and anything else inappropriate that i'm missing here or whatever) I come home at night to her, we spend our evenings together, we cook together, we eat together, we do laundry together, we (sometimes) brush our teeth together, we read together, we watch tv together, then she gets ready for bed and we pray together and i go home and sleep in my bed. we do this every night.

First of all, don't think I'm complaining, because I'm not. I love where we are and everything is great right now. The part that is difficult is the following.

There's a big difference between not having something "yet" and not having something "ever." If you can't have something yet, you know that eventually you will, and that's exciting and easier to deal with in some ways than not having something ever. On the other hand knowing you aren't going to have something ever has it's own advantages as you can resign yourself to it and accept things the way they are and move on. Not having something yet means it's always on your mind and you're constantly wondering, "is it time yet? is it time yet? when, when when??" It's easy to try to push it along faster and faster trying to make it get here before it's supposed to. And that's easy enough to do.

The great thing about being engaged though, is you know when. I know that June 24th, I will finally be married. So I know the "when." It's more like Christmas than some kind of surprise that I'm waiting for "any day now". Granted this does make it a LOT easier to wait for. But you easily get into the Count Down mentality and completely miss the great time that you're having right now. I'm trying very hard to avoid that. I was talking to my friend Ryan about it today, he conveniently happens to be a pastor at a local church, but he's also just a great guy in general, here's a short exceprt from our conversation:

Ryan: very true. it's weird though because you wait the whole time up to it, going insane, then it get's there and passes and it almost seems too simple. like "did that really happen?". I mean, you are together, then and everything, but like you said, except for sex and money, you pretty much already are. It's a little bit of an eerie feeling of same yet completely different at the same time...
Kyle: thats kinda what i'm expecting
Kyle: just kind of a sigh of relief... ah finally we can just be US totally and stop stopping short of being what we're supposed to be

Patience, and Contentment. the two things the Enemy wants me to forget. I'm glad I have a good woman beside me who reminds me when I forget, and I remind when she forgets. We're a good team.


technorati tags: sex, engagement, love

Monday Morning

My dad told me to steal his MP3 player when i was home this weekend doing my taxes, so I did. It's just a little 128mb dinker, but it gets me to work and back and since i don't have a stereo, it's nice to put something in my head. Currently it has some Nickel Creek
and some nice classic rock on it, just because I was in a hurry. But it was a great drive in today. My favorite song on it right now is "It's a great day" by Paul Thorn. Check that one out on iTunes nevermind, that one isn't on iTunes... Dang you iTunes. You've let me down again. Great song, very funny. good stuff.

Did my taxes on Saturday, I'm getting some money back from state which is cool, but I owe $53.00 to the Feds. But I come out positive in the end which is cool.

Oh and it's that time of year. I'm totally getting a cold. I'm not upset about it. It's Feruary, and I haven't really been sick yet this winter, so I'm due I guess. No biggy. I've been sick before. Everyone here at the office has been taking their turns with it, and I guess my turn's comin up.

Jeanette and I are coming up on 1 year together which is cool. Last night a friend mentioned the girl I dated before her, and it brought mixed feelings. I went home and lay in bed thinking about it, and I had to thank God for what she did. If she hadn't dumped me, I never would have even looked at Jeanette and would never have found the woman I'm spending my life with. I prayed for her last night, that she'd find someone who would be good to her, and would take care of her the way she wants and needs. She's a great girl, but my biased opinion says I came out with the better girl. And that's ok. I'm entitled, it's my website.

That's a cool thing about life, "You can't pray for someone you hate (I never hated her, but this is a quote from someone so I'll leave it in tact), and you can't hate someone you pray for. Prayer requires you to care about the person." -Matt Olsen

boy am i hungry.

Quote of the week, "I'm all for women being treated equal, but they don't belong on the sidelines at the Super Bowl." -Jeanette
I am sooo marrying the right woman.

technorati tags: NickelCreek, Taxes, sick, Prayer

Writing becomes part of my career

After last night's sermon at GCC on the spiritual discipline of Blogging, I felt like I needed to get back to this, and make it a priority.
SO, no apologies, here I am.

I've become the somewhat-official-public-relations-type-writer-guy for the OIT Help Desk. I'm writing a lot of stuff that's being pushed out to the web. I think they like me for a few reasons, the biggest of which is I volunteered, and the second is that I write for normal people, or atleast try to.

I really like my job, I really like my fiancee, I really like my family. They're all really good things right now. The weather is great here right now for the first week of Febuary, though I expect it to change to Icy Frigidity any day now. But that's ok. I'm only four and three quarters months away from my wedding, and that's DANG cool.

technorati tags: GCC, OIT

Confirmation again and again

-Kyle

Last night I saw for certain that I've found the right woman for me.

I'm studying to get my Microsoft Certification, and to be honest it's been hard going. I keep failing the practice tests and it's getting pretty discouraging. Jeanette and I have talked about it and she offered to help me any way she can.

This past weekend we sat down for an hour or so and went over the book together and she helped me pick up some things that I had missed while studying on my own which was great and EXTREMELY helpful

But last night...
Last night after work she met me at my apartment. We watched cartoons (Invader Zim!)for a little while and ate pizza for dinner. Then we started studying. We did a 45 question test on the computer together, her reading the questions and the possible answers and then I'd try to figure out the right answer. A little background on these questions. These aren't just basic Multiple Guess questions, they're scenarios. You're in this situation, you want to do this this and this, which of these choices best accomplishes these? Jeanette was with me and enthusiastic through the whole thing. Words like SCSI, UDF file, REGEDIT, Dynamic Striped Volume... she stuck with it through the whole thing. I wanted to give up before she did.
A subject she knows little about, a language she doesn't really speak, a job that would drive her insane... she never once complained, she never said it was boring or called me a nerd, she never gave up.
We'll be back doing it again tonight after work.

THAT is love.

It's funny how in my head blogging is. Everywhere I go I see stuff and think... "that would make a great post" and then i walk 10 feet further and see something shiny and forget what i was thinking about.

I'm beginning to hate college people. Not so much the people themselves, but the culture they produce. They create this mini ecosystem all to themselves where they think EVERYTHING is dreadfully important and worth changing the world about. Ofcourse all this does is get the campus up in arms about Something or annoy the general public. I read a recent letter to the editor in the Observer complaining that ND only reserved 1,500 tickets for the 8,000+ student body.

Whoop dee friggin doo.

I'm sorry, I thought you came here to get an education not to go to football games. I love ND football as much as the next guy, but hey - this is an educational establishment first and a sports team second (possibly third... not sure, thats always up for debate around here). The point is you have better than a 1 in 8 chance of getting a ticket. Now the game is in Arizona so not everyone is going to WANT to go, so that cuts it say in half, giving yo a 1 in 4 chance of getting one (this all done through lottery) If you have a problem with a 1 in 4 chance, you have some serious issues. And if you feel like the "Poor Seniors" are being screwed over because they might not get to go... then give up your ticket. trust me, we'll be going next year.

I sometimes feel like people just write things so someone will see their name and think they're cool. Let me tell ya kiddo's, I've been writing for a while now, and it's not very often i'm called cool for complaining about the establishment.

Here's what I've learned since getting out of college into the real world:

What to do when "The Man/Whitey" is getting you down.

• Request change politely and respectfully. No one is going to want to change anything if you're bein a jerk to them. Remember, You aren't that important to them. They don't need your money, YOU need their services.


• Think about who you're complaining to. Is THIS the person who can change things for you? Are you shooting the Messenger, preaching to the choir, or going to the policy creator?
• And lastly, if you don't like the way they treat you, you can always take your business elsewhere. Whether that's changing your bank, your restaurant, your college or moving to Canada, If you can't change the establishment, change the establishment you're at.

Don't even get me started on Cultural Competency

< / Rant >

Thanksgiving weekend

What a great weekend. I'm well rested and ready to bust this week in the groin. (<--Admittedly over graphic statement)

We spent Thursday and Friday at her parents house in Ft. Wayne for Thanksgiving, and then Friday Jeanette and I went downtown to the annual Festival of Trees to see all the Christmas trees decorated for Charities... then we went ice skating and took some pictures. Unfortunately the camera died every time we tried to take a picture of us kissing there at the skating rink... We DID get some cute pictures of us all bundled up, but I'll have to put them up later, I left the camera at her place last night. Then after ice skating i took her to the coolest theater ever! It's a Dinner and a Movie type place. You order your food and they have tables there in the theater. We saw Chicken Little, Very Funny movie. Then we came back to her parent's house and watched tv until bed time.

The next day we drove up to Michigan and spent the weekend with my parents. They took us to the COOLEST restaurant ever. a little place we like to call Rockin' Robin's. I had a Bacon Cheeseburger with (get this) a fried egg on it. Lemme tell ya, that was awesome. Oh, and I failed to mention they have bottomless steak fries like other restaurants have chips and salsa. they were awesome. The next day we went to church with my parents and then I helped my dad hang christmas lights outside on the gazebo. We came back to South Bend and did some Christmas shopping and then planned out these next few weeks.

Holy crap. Jeanette has a final paper due next tuesday so I'm not gonna get to see her much at all this next week, but that works for me because I'm studying for my Microsoft Certification, we also need to reschedule our engagement pictures, get on the waiting list for a 2 bedroom apartment at Irish Hills, I need to schedule my Microsoft Test, Jeanette has 3 christmas concerts coming up in the next two weeks.

... aaaaand breathe.

New Email Subscriptions

For those of you who are visiting my site daily (both of you) you've probably noticed the new addition to the sidebar there, Email Subscriptions. If you aren't familiar with RSS or would just rather receive my posts in your email than visiting here daily, you can put your email address in that box and as soon as I post, you'll receive it in your email. How sweet is that?

Very sweet.

Beating the System

Ok before you start... I already know. But I have 2 friends who have done offers on this site and have gotten the stuff. One got an IPod and the other an Xbox game. So i'm serious it works.
I'm trying to get a free Xbox 360 because frankly I don't have the money for it. Yes, i know it's a pyramid scam. I'm ok with that. I'm smarter than the pyramid so I'll give you the trick to beat it so you can help me with this.

Go to the site above, creat an account. it will start asking you to "complete an optional survey" this is a dumb scam, close your browser and go to http://xbox360s.freepay.com(the main page) then click "Complete Offer" Scroll through them, if you see something you like, feel free to sign up for it, but I recommend the one from REAL. you sign up for a free 14 day trial and then after 1 week you discontinue your membership and you're done. That's it. People get caught in the trap when they don't remember to cancel their membership. So I'll help you out. If you do this, and email me when you do it, I'll email you in a week and remind you to cancel your membership. I just did it for a friend and it took me seriously about 5 minutes. I'll set a reminder for a week from today to cancel my REAL account and he'll be one person closer to getting his xbox360 and thats all it takes.
seriously.
So here's the link. click it and follow the above directions to help me get the best Christmas present of the year.
Free Xbox

oh and here's the specs on it:

Xbox 360 - Complete Premium Edition

• Official Release Date: 11/22/05


• Backwards compatible with previous Xbox games


• 20GB detachable hard drive


• Wireless controller


• Wireless Xbox Live headset


• HD game displays on HDTVs


• High-definition AV and Ethernet cables


• Xbox 360 Media Remote Control


• Detachable faceplate


• Xbox Live Silver membership


• Stream media from portable music devices & Windows XP PCs


• 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM


• 3 symmetrical cores - 3.2GHz each


• 500MHz ATI graphics processor


• 12x dual-layer DVD drive that supports: DVD, DVD+-R/RW, CD-R/RW, WMA & MP3


• Built-in Ethernet port


• 2 memory unit slots


• 3 USB 2.0 ports


• Wi-Fi ready: 802.11a, b & g

Why I'm not a teacher

My solution to whiney kids running to the guidance counselor complaining because they were changed from soprano to alto:

"I say you go in there and tell her if she doesnt shut her little yapper you'll switch her to tenor and she can sit between "Billy" and *insert butthead male's name here*. Then you kick her in the shin, and pile drive her through the guidance counselor's desk to the sound of the guidance counselor saying "ahem, umm... lets find a less violent way to let out our aggression." and then you can say "sorry, i just felt that this was a situation for tough love." and then after a short discussion you warn "Lucy" that if she starts cryin' again you'll give her some more tough love through that table there by the door."

*Names changed to protect the brats.

Light and Breezy

Well after the problems I had with that last post (I had made it in flock) I've decided to try something a little different. I'm trying a tool called w.bloggar. It's pretty sweet so far, so enough about it. How bout I get on with what I'm gonna write...



Every morning when I drive to work, I pass these kids waiting for the bus in my apartment complex, and every morning I see the same guy standing there. He looks like Carl from Family Matters, and every morning he smiles at me as I drive by. I really like this guy even though I've never talked to him, because every morning he stands at a bus stop with his 6 year old daughter and holds her giant pink backpack for her while she plays with the other kids. I don't know the guy, but he's one of two fathers who stand and wait for the bus with their kids. I don't know anything else about his parenting, but that's something I want to be able to do with my daughter when she gets to that age.

Congrats to you Carl, you win the father of the morning award. Thanks for setting a good example.

Notre Dame vs Tennessee

Tea and Sympathy

Giving advice is tough because most people either don't want it or aren't planning on implimenting it in the first place. This is hard for me because I think I'm smart and can fix most people's problems.

So today I've decided to try this a different way. Instead of thinking what I would do in their situation, I'm gonna first try to empathize with the person's situation.

So here we go.
The problem is huge to them. Giant. They're trapped in it and can't get out of it. Everyone knows about it and feels sorry for them and everyone is more than happy to offer one more piece of advice about how you can do "this" or have you tried "that?" and the person HAS tried This or knows That would never work for this situation. They want help, they want to hide, they want out... but they can't Get Out. Thoughts of Perserverance and Trying Again and Getting Up and facing Tomorrow only make things more difficult for them. Yesterday was tough, the day before was tough and even though the day before that might have been ok, they don't remember that. They're focused on the now and the hopelessness of tomorrow.

The part that baffles them is that they remember being good at something very similar to this. "I was able to handle X why can't I handle Y?" Thoughts of failure and impotence flood their mind. They can't do it. It doesn't matter what or how they try... They are going to fail tomorrow. Just like today.

They ask for help, people assume they mean advice, but what they really want is a way out. Immediate comfort is nice for the right now, but it won't help them tomorrow when they have to face it again. And they feel like such a burden bringing this up all the time. They're supposed to have their life all figured out by now, and the reality is that under it all they're looking for that child who always hid behind the furnace downstairs to cry... but the child is gone. There's an adult standing there who won't fit in the cubby hole anymore.

I'm a fixer. I want to help, it's my nature as a man. It's hard when I can do nothing, sometimes the person has to and sometimes the person wants to do it on their own.

Maybe I'll just sit still and shut up.

Technorati Tags: advice, problem

Post take 2

Ever start writing a post and get about half way through it and realize it's really stupid? Man, I just wrote a really crappy post. Ick.

So, Jeanette and I came up with this fun game awhile back, when we see someone who really catches our eye, we make up some dramatic tragic story about them and how they ended up here. Like the mexican guy who walked up and down the road in our apt. complex every day on crutches. He became more than just "That Mexican on Crutches" he was Miguel, who broke his leg after saving 4 children from a burning apartment building on the 3rd floor. The crazy guy i see most mornings leaving that gas station talking to himself becomes Steve, the genius who worked out for himself a working do it yourself cold fusion reactor but because he looks crazy no one will listen when he tries to tell them about it.

It's a lot of fun and if I ever get time to be a famous writer I'll totally write it all in a book and make 100's of dollars.

Technorati Tags: Jeanette, Games

Flock!!

Ok I just found this.www.flock.com. It's a new browser, and for those of you that blog this thing is great! It has a built in Blog editor that you just give it your blog URL and your user name and password and you're in! THEN when you get in, you can switch the TOPBAR to Flickr and you can login to your flickr pictures!

Ya this is seriously cool.

How can we understand our path?

This verse popped up this morning in Proverbs 20 and it caught my eye because it's totally what i need today.

"How can we understand our path, when it is God who directs our steps?"
It made me stop and think about what that means.
When you go somewhere, it's not the path that matters, it's the destination that you're concerned about. The path is a temporary thing. It's the constantly changing circumstances that we're surrounded with. As we walk we start looking down at the path and wonder how the heck we got here and why we have to walk through this mess...

A job we hate
A job we don't have
Losing a loved one
Sickness
Fear
Depression

The list goes on, but we're all there. Life doesn't make sense to us if we're looking at the path.

But the problem comes when we forget the other half of the verse, "...when it is God who directs our steps." God doesn't just give us an address and tell us to find our own way. He'll never say "well just head up over that hill there, then take a left, then you're gonna head on that way for a fur peace then you're gonna come to a fork in the road..." It says He directs our steps. He takes you to the destination but he tells you where to step every step of the way. "Step here. ok, here. alright step here..." God isn't the Yellow Pages, that give you an address and makes you figure it out for yourself. God isn't the old codger at the gas station that gives you directions based on markers. God is more like the Seeing Eye Dog for the blind guy, He knows the destination and how to get there and He sees things you don't. Sometimes He'll take you the long way 'round, and sometimes he'll shortcut you through the woods... But He knows what He's doing, and He's not going to leave you.

Even if you let go of the leash.

The State of The World

Tibet may never become a fully recognized country. China keeps saying "Solly we waiting on paypa' wok"

What China doesn't seem to get is that Tibet's been going through the ringer on this for along time now and is gettin pretty fed up with getting pushed aside. China would benefit greatly from recognizing Tibet, but the way it's going it might not happen.

Tibet just might stop caring what China thinks and start talking to the U.S.
Tibet really likes China though.

Update? Update THIS!!!

Hey wanna know what went on this weekend? Check out the Wedding Blog! You can be the first to comment!! Do it. Do it.

Anything for a friend

Today a very close friend asked me to post something funny. So i will forego my usually rants about employment and lack there of, and give what i can.

I'd like to start off with a quote from Jeanette, tonight while talking about the new movie "Just like Heaven" she said that Reese Witherspoon was totally "Anal Redemptive." I haven't seen the movie yet, but evidently her butt is able to forgive sins. (I'd now like to welcome the perverts who searched for Reese Witherspoon +Anal to my site, you're not gonna find what you were looking for, but hopefully you'll enjoy your stay)

Here's an unrelated link to a friend's site with thought's on Women's hair loss This is very funny. Read it.

ok i'm really not that funny today, so i'm stealin from others. I attribute it to an overly intense drama this weekend, filming last night in the rain for 4 and a half hours and then filming a commercial tonight.

Love ya Jon, We're praying for you both.