Year in Review 2006

January
• I cancel TiVo, and later cable. I start Netflix.
• I start working on Step Four.
• I establish a firm desire to make a micro-budget film in 2006.

February
• I celebrate my 24th birthday.
• I discover the website www.memory-alpha.org (a Star Trek wiki). Which takes a lot of my free time and influences my desire to write.
• After renting Sliders and Earth2 from Netflix, I decide these old sci-fi shows, from the 1990s, aren’t as cool as I remember them.

March
• My sister Judy turns thirty.
• My brother Jeff turns thirty-four.
• I celebrate two years clean.
• I post on my blog that Netflix a rip-off, after discovering their throttling technique.
• I try a competitor to Netflix, GreenCine, but am not satisfied with it either.
• A girl from work I sorta-kinda had a crush on, moves to Virginia.
• Mom gives me a CD worth $5000. She tells me it was money I had received as gifts as a child and some money I had made with my earliest jobs.
• I buy something I’ve always wanted, a big screen TV.
• I find Star Trek: DS9 seasons 1-7 on eBay for $300. I buy it with my tax refund.

April
• I finish watching DS9 season one.
• I discover Peerflix as an alterative to online rental stores. I post on my blog that I’ll be using it to supplement DVDs I rent from Rentertainment.
• My interest in writing continues with a renewed effort in freewriting.
• I buy and finish the American Dad season one DVD.

May
• I join the crew of the Welcome to Tolono movie, working as a PA. I learn a bit about film making but never feel quite comfortable.
• I begin increased duties in the Art department at PubServ.

June
• I discover Futurama is coming back, in 2007.
• I apply for and am offered a job at Parkland College. I accept the job offer, and give PubServ my two weeks.
• I finish watching Enterprise season four on DVD, crying my eyes out after the emotional finale, “Terra Prime.”

July
• I have my first day at Parkland.
• I watch An Inconvenient Truth, and grow angry at stubborn politicians.
• I travel to St. Louis to buy an electric scooter, an E-max Sport.

August
• I grow frustrated with my business casual wardrobe at Parkland.
• I discover I have very little to fill my time at Parkland, and start taking classes in HTML.

September
• I finish season 5 of DS9.
• I attend my best friend’s wedding as a groomsman and DJ. The event gets me thinking about my love life. I get a little envious, telling everyone that I fell like my life is a sitcom in it's final season (the characters are pairing up).

October
• I get fired from Parkland, due to unacceptable performance. I’m angry at first, but later decide it was for the best, since I was really not happy there.
• In an emotional rebound from Parkland, I consider a career in the military, even taking the ASVAB.
• I finish the last season of DS9, and greave a little.
• I’m offered job at Illinimedia.
• A few days before I start at Illinimedia, I start smoking again.

November
• I start my new job at Illinimedia, watching election results from the newsroom.
• A good friend from PubServ, Kelly Digges leaves Champaign for a job on the west coast.
• I finish Step six.
• I spend over $700 on my car, replacing the master cylinder and fixing the breaks.
• After getting nothing from Peerflix for a while, I decide it’s not a very good option either, and abandon any hope of getting something in the future.
• I email the E-max scooter dealer and ask why I haven’t received my replacement parts yet, they respond that the manufacturer has abandoned the product and no replacement parts are available.

December
• I watch Who Killed the Electric Car, and get angry at evil oil corporations/corrupt politicians/greedy car companies.
• I and several of the professional staff members get iPod shuffles for Christmas from work. We are also treated to lunch and given lots of time off.
• Christmas with the family is again declared way over the top, I receive many lovely gifts I’ve wanted for a while: an air compressor, a shop vac, a garbage disposal, many tools and lots of clothes. My brother’s family asks for scissors and receives the same pair from everyone, getting a total of six pair.
• I get a renewed interest in getting a roommate after becoming financially strapped after the car repairs, unemployment, and Christmas spending.

My goals/wild dreams for 2007
• I want to quit smoking.
• I want to get a roommate to share rent and utility bills.
• I want to start working out.
• I want to get a girlfriend (sort of).
• I want to establish a savings plan for a new car, hopefully buying one in 2008.
• I want to explore the possibility of buying the house from my parents.
• I want to add to the living room, making the TV the center of the room again, and building shelving on either side, with a new couch replacing the recliners.
• I want to paint the garage, and build a replacement for the “Calvin McDaniel drawers.”
• I want to paint the kitchen and add a metal backsplash to the wall behind the sink/stove.
• I want to buy a gas-powered motorcycle for long range, high speed trips.
• I want to make a short film this year (I didn’t get to it in 2006).
• I’m going to try to get to at least Step Ten this year, maybe even step 12.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I got an iPod Shuffle for Christmas from work! It was quite the surprise. After a staff meeting, where we watched an important humans resources video—the Christmas episode of The Office—gifts were handed out. The head honcho received a video iPod from “all of us,” and everyone else in the room got an iPod shuffle and a $50 gift certificate to a fancy restaurant.

After the meeting our office Christmas party started at the next-door bar and restaurant. I felt incredibly blessed to have found this job as I ordered my free meal. My office mates started drinking beer and liquor, I stuck to diet coke. I was a little worried someone would ask why I wasn’t drinking, but no one did. They have no idea!

After a few hours of games and secret Santa gifts, work was declared over, even though it was barely 4:30 and I was scheduled till 7. I waited until just after 6pm, when I could take my car out of the lot for free.

Coming home with this amazing experience and the unexpected, expensive gifts, I felt even more blessed to find a Christmas card from a friend down the street and a Christmas letter from a friend across the country. I read these thoughtful notes and remembered another thoughtful note I had gotten the day before—a thank you note I got from a friend who recently got married.

I felt really blessed, but in mere moments I was watching some DVD and veg-ing out. I felt a hint of jealousy, or maybe it was envy, for my friends who have found love and marriage. I even resented one of them or a moment. When I woke up this morning that feeling was gone. I’m glad I can be glad for my friends, and remember the blessings I have today.

Thank you all for the gifts, cards, and letters. They make me feel special. God bless, and Merry Christmas.

Greatest President

In response to the “Bush might be among greatest presidents” Letter to the Editor of the News-Gazette that Javajunkee emailed me a link to, I have to agree, and disagree.

As strongly as I disagree with the war in Iraq and George Bush’s war-on-terror policies, I have thought that maybe, just maybe the ends will justify the means at some point in the future. I am saddened and angered by the news of continuous death and destruction in Iraq, but I hold out hope that something good will eventually come of it.

It’s impossible to predict how history books in the distant future will portray George W. Bush. The content of E.N. HETHERINGTON’s letter suggest that she/he was writing about what children’s history books will record. It’s no secret that we as a society keep some details about our national heroes from our children. We have decided that some such material is inappropriate for children. E.N. HETHERINGTON’s letter doesn’t mention George Washington’s slave-ownership, Lincoln’s suspension of civil liberties including Habeas Corpus, Woodrow Wilson’s stubbornness, FDR’s paraplegia, the horrific aftermath of Truman dropping the Atomic Bomb, JFK’s infidelity, or Ronald Regan’s senility and Alzheimer’s.

Furthermore, this letter proclaims that only Presidents who faced an unpopular war as a testament to their presidency, qualify as great Presidents. It doesn’t mention Nixon opening relations with China, Jimmy Carter’s futile struggle to change U.S. energy policy and protect the environment (which included installing solar panels on the White House that Regan removed); nor does it mention Clinton’s 8 years of economic prosperity and desperate attempt to improve healthcare. I guess Nixon’s conflict in Cambodia, Carter’s hostage crisis in Iran, and Clinton’s covert search for Osama Bin Laden and mutable humanitarian-based conflicts don’t quality them for the “war club.”

E.N. HETHERINGTON concludes her/his letter by suggesting that Bush should be included in a list of great Presidents, since he too faces an unpopular war. I humbly suggest to E.N. HETHERINGTON that Bush does not belong on this list for several reasons.

1. With the exception of Washington all these Presidents were elected.


2. Bush is the only President on this that chose to enter a war he could have avoided.


3. None of the other Presidents on this list were motivated to war by the money and power that they could gain for themselves and for their business partners.

E.N. HETHERINGTON thought that this list would make the “Bush-haters” happy since they love to hate Bush and can now apply their hate to these Presidents too. I have to say to E.N. HETHERINGTON that what would make me most happy is George Bush being impeached for his crimes, which far exceed “unpopularity.”

hey mom, is this right?

States I've visited

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Soon to be off the web

Here's an interesting site full of links to videos of copywrited content, I'm guessing it will be sued off the web soon.

Peekvid

You killed the electric car, apparently

See this great movie, please! Who Killed the Electric Car?

Now out on DVD.