David's Tangled Thoughts

Remember that scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off where he gets up out of bed, opens the window and asks how anyone could go to school on a day like this? That's exactly what I was thinking as I got up this morning. Within two days, the temps have shot up to the mid 70's (or 22-23 for you metric people). I love it and had to go out an experience the sun. I went over to the Niles library and sat out on their out door tables and did some of my job search work. I made my call to MI Rep. Hansen's office to see if that Legislative Assistant position is still open. The office must not have been open because I kept getting their messaging system. When I was through, I went into the building briefly to check my email. While I was checking my MSU account, I saw an odd message that came from a guy I knew from AFROTC. Totally odd. I thought it might be a virus but I sent him a message on my own. Who knows maybe he'll respond. I haven't spoken or seen him since I left 3 years

Season and I went out to see a movie at Wonderland last night. There really weren’t any good pickings so I let her decide what she wanted to see. After all, I didn’t care. She went ahead with “Guess Who,” a comedy. The movie is about a white guy (Ashton Kutcher) who meets the family of his black girlfriend. Bernie Mac plays a father who is expecting his daughter to bring home a well-to-do black man but instead gets a white guy. The movie was entertaining. Most of the comedic situations seemed rehashed but still I got some chuckles out of it. I was entertained by the overprotective father stints. The racial jokes, I still felt uncomfortable with. As some others have already mentioned, this was another “Meet the Parents” movie- just with a new twist. The issue of interracial marriage is something that still made me uncomfortable. I don’t know why it should since I am the product of one. There was a girl that I would have liked to have dated back in high school. Unfortunately,

The game against Kentucky was one of the most exciting and gut-wrenching that I have ever seen. The lead see-sawed back and forth but never by much. For most of the game, you could never be sure who was going to come out on top. In the last few minutes of regular, Kentucky attempted a 3-point shot to tie up the game. The first and second attempts bounced but the third attempt they managed to get it in, sending the game into over time. That shot to tie up the game kept me on my seat because for a few minutes, they had to decide whether that was really a 3 pointer or if it was really a 2 pointer because Sparks looked like he was stepping on the arc line. The 3 points were awarded. In first over time, the wildcats clawed to the lead and my stomach probably hit the floor. As the announcer said, that shot that took the game into overtime had energized the team. And after some mistakes by Hill that gave turnovers to Kentucky, I was about to go to my knees and pray. Final moments and Kentucky

….I’m back. Church was crowded. I’m such an idiot sometimes. Duh! It’s Easter, of course I have to get there early. The parking lot was full and I had to park halfway down the block. Well at least I was able to find a seat by squeezing in next to a family who I don’t ever recall seeing. It was little nearer to the front than I would have liked, but it would do. Although none of my family was there, my grandmother was singing with the choir. I think she noticed that I was there. She probably talked to my parents at first service and probably wondered why I wasn’t there with them. I wonder what was said. As for the rest of the day, I’m not sure. I’ll see the game tonight but honestly, my heart’s not in it.

I went to bed last night, looking forward to Easter service. Interesting, since I always feel like I have to drag myself to church. But there are times, when I feel compelled to go and it is always on Easter. Today, though, I am writing in a sort of stupor. You see, my family left me. It’s 9:45 on a Sunday, and they’ve left for the first service. We always-always go to the second service. I had to blink a couple times at my clock to find out that my mother’s shoes were making clatter at 6:45am. My parents and sister were just leaving as I got up. I saw them pull away from the living room curtain. “What the hell!?” I said aloud. Maybe they would hear. I had pushed the issue with me deciding not to go to communion anymore. I suspected that, perhaps, my suggestion of going to Notre Dame for Easter Mass probably didn’t go over too well either. So did my suggestion of going to a Catholic church have something to do with it? Maybe there’s something more than that? I don’t know

I was planning to do a long entry for this, but I decided against it. Plus the headache isn’t helping either… So last night, the game was terrific. For the first half, Duke remained ahead of State. Although State were always on their heels, for a moment, I thought that this game was following the historical precedent. Once again, we were going to loose. I think it was the State News that mentioned that this was our first win against the Devils in 46 years. 46? I’m glad that I didn’t miss this game (because I almost did.) So on to the Elite Eight! …actually, I’m going to go back to bed.

...for the Spartans to beat the crap out of Duke! No. 5 seed, MSU plays the No. 1 seed, Duke tonight. Join me tonight and cheer on the Spartans (hey, we're the underdogs here). It's on CBS. Then on Sunday, the Lady Spartans will play Vanderbilt. MSU is the No. 1 seed here while Vanderbilt is the No. 5. If both make it, it's onto the Elite Eight. Go Green!

I was heading to the post office to mail out another resume when I got behind a middle aged woman. Clearly, she was a conservative Republican. She had the Bush/Cheney ’04 sticker (probably on top of her Bush/Cheney ’00 sticker), a yellow “Support Our Troops” ribbon, and a black “POW/MIA” ribbon. That didn’t bother me as much as the two other decorative items she had on her car. Across from her Bush/Cheney sticker, was another that read, “Don’t Burn My Flag.” Then attached to her rear, passenger side door, was an American flag. Okay, by themselves that shouldn’t have bothered me but together, it got on my nerves. The “Don’t Burn My Flag” bumper sticker is reference to the ability of the people to burn flags. There used to be state laws that forbade anyone from “desecrating” the flag. Well some idiot decided to burn a flag and was arrested and charged with a crime. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Texas v. Johnson, ruled that burning the flag is protected under the First Amendment’s freedom of

In the last election, Michigan had a proposal that banned gay marriage (worded differently, but it is still the same.) I split from most others in my party, and from a good chunk of the Democrats, to vote down Proposal 2. Unfortunately, however, Proposal 2 passed with over 60% approval. Ingham County, which is where I am registered, was on of only a handful of counties where Proposal 2 was defeated, thank you MSU students. Although same sex benefits that had been established for couples before Nov. 2 are still intact, new contracts will not be offered. I am still amazed at how easy it was for Michigan to amend the constitution. Think about it. It takes only 50% + 1 of the population to do it. A few hundred thousand signatures and an amendment proposal is on the ballot. Contrast that with the federal constitution and how difficult it is to amend that sucker. There have only been 27 amendments. Interestingly enough, the 27th Amendment was first proposed along with the Bill of

After my family makes spaghetti, we usually have it for leftovers for two or three days. We just reheat the sauce and boil up some new noodles. Today, though, we had left over noodles but no sauce. Not wanting to make something for lunch, I just headed into town an hour earlier so I could pick up some lunch. I was about to pull into Arby’s when I spied a car that was driving on the sidewalk. It was lucky that I saw it, because I would have hit him. Apparently this old geezer had pulled into the entrance to the next business. So he missed Arby’s. What he should have done was pull out into the road and attempt to come in the correct way but he decided that since no pedestrians were on the walk-way, that it would do. So he manages to pull in and I follow him. Then, this guy stops. Is he still confused? Is he still in the wrong driveway? I see him look over to his wife and they start to have a conversation! I was about to honk the horn at them but his wife noticed me and urged

I am puzzled as to why the Terri Schiavo case has been blown up to this proportion. I have known about this unforntunate woman for a very long time and I never would have imagine that it would have come to this. At the time I first heard of this story, I thought that Michael Schiavo would eventually get his way and let his wife die. I still do, but it's amazing that it had gotten this out of hand. Most people who know me are aware that I am a conservative. So I am a pro-life advocate. But what I am about to say is going to seem contradictory. To my satisfaction, I have been convinced that she is brain dead and that she will not come out of this vegitative state. She had not written down that she wanted to be kept alive. So that leaves us with the wishes of the husband. Michael Schiavo, as her husband, trumps the parents in this case. That is the law. This case has recieved due process and the state courts have all said that Michael Schiavo has the right to decide. And he

My meeting with Mrs. Hess went pretty well and she gave me some good advice on how to spruce up my resume and cover letter. I’m still not sure how I will incorporate all the suggestions but I’ll fiddle with it latter tonight and tomorrow. I was hoping to get it out by Saturday, but that’s a little too optimistic. Instead of going back home after the meeting, I drove into Niles to browse through Wal-Mart (probably my future employer.) While I was driving, it struck me that I do have an odd behavior. Let’s back up… When I was over in the Philippines in the fall of 2003, I was talking with my friend John. When I first got there, I was the only American there. After a couple of weeks I got really, really nervous and I just had to go find my people. I had to go find some Americans. I was all set to pack my bags and head into Manila… maybe try to storm the American embassy there. I don’t care! I’ll put on my horribly fake Filipino accent and try to ask for a visa just so I can talk to someon

Well, let me tell you about my St. Patrick’s Day . First of all, I did nothing for the holiday so if you are expecting a story of me getting wasted, you’re wasting your time. Well, you’re wasting more time than you normally would on my blog. My mom gets up for work early and leaves around 6am. Usually, I’m not awake when she goes but this morning I was. I heard her mumbling and by the sound of it, she was complaining about something to my dad. Then I heard him say, “He’s trying. He’s trying.” I knew what it was about. She’s wants me to get a job now and move out of the house. She’s is right. I should be out on my own and supporting myself. Since my job hunt began though, there hasn’t been one place that expressed interest in me. Most had never even acknowledged my application. Two were kind enough to at least say, “We’re sorry, but you just don’t have the experience.” Like I said in an earlier post I am this close to just taking a job at Burger King. Okay, okay… it was m

Well, today I am 23 but it feels like another day. I think my family had forgotten about it. It wasn’t until late before anyone said anything. As I walked into the kitchen looking for dinner, I caught them quickly signing my card. I just shook my head. Nice try. I was thinking about finding some people to out with for the night. Maybe get a few free drinks out of it? But, who does that on a Tuesday night? Damn… I am behaving older. Well, St. Patrick’s Day is coming up…

It’s morning and I’ve been up for a couple hours now. I’m so sore! I haven’t exercised since the beginning of fall semester and I started up again yesterday. It was horrible to realize just how much I have declined. After 20 minutes, I was ready to puke. Now, I’m dealing with all the sore muscles. I’ve had worse but still, my abs are screaming every time I get up. Okay, time for the drugs.

Communion was held at service today. In our church, communion is given every other week. I’ve decided that I will no longer take communion. It’s a decision that I know will cause my parents and the rest of my family some discomfort. This would be as if I was rejecting my faith, being defiant, living in open sin, yadda yadda. No. The reason is because I no longer believe the church doctrine on couple of subjects. In a way, I suppose that I would be doing the three above, but I don’t feel I am. Don’t get me wrong; I still consider myself a Christian. I’m just not as “Lutheran” as I should be. For quite a few years now, I have been realizing that my own personal beliefs were at odds with what the church was preaching. In some way, it had to deal with the Trinity. I’m actually quite closer to the Judaic or Islamic view of just one God. Sure, I believe in Jesus Christ but if he is God, then what difference would it be if I prayed to God or if I prayed to Jesus? None. Why do I

Sorry to say that I didn’t do much over the weekend. Saturday was my highlight. I hurried to get my chores done so that I could get to the Niles Federal Credit Union before it closed at noon. With my wallet fattened, I was now ready to go get some drinks or whatever. In the end, I ended up hanging out at Rachel’s (Adam’s sister) house. There, I watched the second Kill Bill film. I’m not into mindless killing films but since there was nothing else on, I watched it. Still, I can’t say that I am compelled to watch the first one. Hell, I figured out how Bill was going to die as soon as I saw the seen where they were talking about that pressure point move. I made some loose suggestions that Season and I should make plans to go see Europe. Lately, I’ve been itching to do some traveling. Assuming that I get a job within the year, I’m hoping to see a plan to go by 2007. Since I’m probably only going to get about a week, I was thinking about sticking mainly to England, France, and maybe Germany

Courtesy of Sang-Hoon Lee 

A product review: My dad came back from the store today. (Geez, I made that sound as if he goes away to shop for days at a time.) Normally, he or mom will get some pop that will last us the week. For those who aren’t in the know: “pop” is the Midwestern term for a carbonated beverage. In other places it can be called “soda-pop,” “soda,” or “coke.” Anyways, usually we’ll get whatever is the cheapest or on sale. Most of the time, it ends up being Meijer brand. Today, however, we tried something different. Coca-Cola has come up with something new: Coca-Cola with Lime. The company has been touting the new stuff for a couple weeks now. So we tried it. Dad liked it. Mom didn’t mind it. I didn’t like it. The lime taste wasn’t nasty (unlike Pepsi’s attempt at lemon). My problem was that it interfered with my expectation of what a coke should taste like. My conditioned mind was still expecting the regular coke taste and it just wasn’t happening. In addition, it seemed to me, th

Arrggh!! I wanted to go out tonight. CMU’s spring break is coming to an end and Sara will have to go back in a couple of days. I was planning to do something tonight with her and some others. Maybe I could have enticed them to try South Bend’s branch of Rum Runners. The Rum Runners in East Lansing has a great dueling piano bar upstairs and a dance floor downstairs. But no, a snow storm decided to come in and fuck it all up. It’s hovering just below freezing and the roads are pretty slick. Sorry, it’s just not worth the trip. Maybe we can get together tomorrow night. So instead of drinking it up, I’m sitting here watching CSI with my family. Oh well, it’s not so bad. On tonight’s episode, I noticed that Wil Wheaton was guest starring. Yeah… I watch Star Trek; I’m a geek. Anyways, I thought the guy didn’t act anymore. CSI is a great show but I don’t watch any of the spin-offs. There are too many damn copies of that show. Same thing with Law & Order. I tried CSI: Miami, but I can’t st

Roe had an interesting topic on his show today. He mentioned some news clip about some ornithologist talking about how seagulls have adapted to inland life. It’s something that my family has commented about every now and then. Growing up by Lake Michigan, they were just there. However, I didn’t see them that much around Niles, where we lived. Other than the lake, the only other places that I really noticed them were near the dump or at Grape Road. (Grape Road generally refers to a large shopping district in Mishawaka, IN.) When I went to college in East Lansing, I actually noticed that those birds were there too. East Lansing is in the middle of Michigan. Like the ornithologist mentioned on the program, these were one of the generations of gulls that have never seen the water. So how did they get here? The guy said that gulls will go anywhere where there is flat land and there is plenty of food. Still, how did they come from the sea coast, to the middle of the country? On

Disclaimer: The following post is a harsh opinion. If you are a local resident of Berrien or the surrounding counties of Michigan, please do not read. This post and the associated pictures do not reflect the official view of the Ms. Galien or Ms. Blossomtime pageants by anyone mentioned in this post other than myself. Most people in the world are familiar with beauty pageants. They are practically everywhere and unfortunately my hometown is not an exception. Every fall, without fail, the Ms. Galien pageant is held. A half dozen or so girls go out, buy dresses, tan, put on makeup, and sharpen their claws to win a crown. When I was in high school, I actually liked the idea of the pageant. These things are supposed to showcase upstanding young ladies from our community. Beauty, intelligence, character, blah, blah all rolled up into these select ladies. Yeah right… this was a yearly fight between the girls to see who could be top bitch. The crowd that I hung out with would just s

F-you.

Sing.

Grin.

A few years ago, my dad got sick of paying for our trash removal. One day he just showed up with a fire barrel and we’ve been burning our trash ever since. Now if we were living in town, this could be a problem… ordinances and such. Living out in the country does have its advantages sometimes. All materials that can’t be burned such as cans, metal, glass, and whatnot are stored in our out room. It’s sort of like any regular room except that it links our garage with the main house. It’s not heated or cooled so we just store things in there, including all our frozen bulk food which is kept in a freezer chest. When it gets filled up with junk we then pay for a one time dump. So, my dad takes out the trash today for a burn and I didn’t think anything of it. I just sat down and watched a movie on Showtime. Showtime and Dish Network are allowing free viewing this weekend and Monday to promote Kristy Allie’s new show. I’m not going to watch it, but since a few other movies are on, I

(Pictures at the bottom) President Bush came to Michiana (the local designation for the region on the Michigan/Indiana border) to deliver a speech on Social Security at Notre Dame today. WSBT did a horrible news cast of the visit. The speech was barely discussed. Instead, they went to locals and asked them about social security. They interviewed kids to see what they thought. What was really covered in detail was footage of Air Force One and how crowds came out to see it. C’mon people, let’s focus on the speech—not the plane that the President arrived in. While they were interviewing some of the adults, one guy in particular annoyed the hell out of me. He clearly did not like the President’s plan to allow private accounts. He asked, “who is going to manage the private accounts?” --Depends, on what plan gets passed. Could be the individual, could be the government, could be a broker. “Regular people have no idea what to do with the stock market…” --Well, then they should opt out of the

Since no one probably took the time to read the above, I thought that I would pull off a WSBT and just show you some pictures of a plane. This, my friends, is Air Force 2. Okay, okay, I know that there is no such thing as Air Force 2 but this is the plane that was used by the Vice President and Secretary of State or possibly other important officials. It is in a hangar at Andrews AFB.

Understandably, we weren't able to see one of the modified 747's that the President uses. Instead we had to settle for a view of its hangar. We weren't even allowed out of the bus for this shot.

I thought that there would be bigger bathrooms on these planes. Poor Vice President Gore had to cram himself into this. Incidentally, the officer that accompanied us said that Sec. of State Madeline Allbright had to have one of these planes fitted with larger facilities. She couldn't fit into this one. lol.

Here am I in the office where the Vice President or Secretary of State could sit.

Here we are in the back of the plane where the press were seated. It's not a large section. Right behind the photographer, the offices started.

"Thank you for visiting." Sorry for the bad quality of the pictures. That's what I get for buying a disposable camera.

This past Tuesday, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a ruling that bans the execution of minors. My post, however, is going to be about the death penalty in general. My own feelings on this subject are rather complicated. I respect the rights of the individual states to decide, for themselves, whether they want to have the death penalty. For me, it’s a state issue. Personally however, I do not approve of the death penalty. My distaste for this form of “punishment” doesn’t go so far as to go against the majority view of society, however. I live in Michigan, which is a non-death penalty state. It is written into our State Constitution. A proposal must be presented to the voters and passed for that to be changed. There have been many efforts by both state legislators and other groups to put a proposal on the ballot. Thankfully, their efforts have failed. Even if they could somehow write the proposal, I don’t think that the state citizens would approve of it. I know I certainly

from MSNBC (Click for original article) I was browsing through The Geek Crew , a forum that my cousin, Jason, is a member of. Once in a while, I will drop by there and see what is going on. He and his friends are well versed with anything having to do with computers, the internet, gaming, and more. I figured that the guy from the pervious post would probably have been seen by them. It turns out that I was right. One of them actually had a link to a MSNBC article on this guy. So if you are interested, just click the link.

King of computer dancing. Sara and I were talking on AOL IM this morning. She said, "David, this is my new boyfriend. Check him out." My eyebrow raised for a second. She did say a while ago that she was going to give online dating a try. I honestly didn't believe that she would actually go through with it. Then I thought that she was just pulling my leg when the page was continuing to load. There must have been a big file on the page because it was taking its time. "Oh damn," I thought, "she's going to give me some kind of embarrassing webpage." I was thinking along the lines of a chimp masturbating himself or something equally disturbing. What I got was the above. Now that was some hilarious shit although my Dad and sister didn't think so. (I showed it to them later.) I shared it with some of other people but it turns out that I was the last to see this. Why am I always that last to see this stuff? Apparently, it has already made the internet