$76.50

Yeah, so that is how much my ticket is going to cost, for having my license plate lights burn out on my Explorer without my knowledge. Here's the best part, the cop who pulled me over on the side of the road because of this told me if I got it fixed and showed it to a police officer it would be reduced to $7.50. Turns out first of all she wrote down the incorrect statute number which is not a reducible one and even if it were it would be reduced to only $54. So, guess how much the light bulbs cost to replace: $3.50. WTF! If I would have known they needed to be replaced I would have done so, it took me a whole 10 minutes to do it. Its nice to know in a town that is filled with theft (I don't know if I told you guys, my office was broken into in the first month of working there), drugs, murders, and prostitutes (a couple have tried to get me to pick them up, I didn't if you're wondering, and I've seen one be picked up by someone else) they have time to hassle an honest tax payer who has never gotten a ticket before because his frickin license plate lights burnt out unknown to him. I'm a frickin great driver and safe too, it even says that on my license which is a CDL Class A. I drive for a living almost, this is ridiculous. Here's the best part: I got the ticket last Tuesday and on Friday after three weeks of waiting I finally got my Camry. Its really nice, but could have come 3 days earlier it appears. I left a message for the officer who pulled me over, but she doesn't get back to work until Friday, and even when she does, I don't know if there is anything she can do about it, I at least want to inform her of her own penal code and what it means to have something be reducible because she obviously doesn't know.
In other news, some of you might have noticed that I now have a girlfriend listed under my status on facebook. This is indeed the case, although it happened fricking fast. I had only known her a week when we became "official" but we've been hanging out almost every night. She likes the Office too so we've been watching that together. I'm already having doubts about the whole thing, which I don't think is a good sign. I like her, but I get the feeling she likes me a Lot more and that kind of bothers me. I'm already over analyzing things, like her height--she's 5'4" which why that bothers me, I don't know--and silly little things like that. So, basically I have no clue what I'm doing and she has had multiple boyfriends and--gulp--even been engaged once and has been hurt because of some of those relationships. She's 23 and currently a kindergarten teacher in Ormond Beach. I just don't know what is normal...I mean I've never dated anyone before and I was at Taylor for the last 4 years where the girls didn't want to date you unless you were a stud or future president of a fortune 500 company (ok, slight hyperbole but you get my point). Obviously, its too soon to tell about anything, but I definitely think I need to be doing a lot of praying and talking with her and others. I think things should slow down a bit, but I guess for her this is slow, so I got to figure that out too. I'll probably get in trouble just for posting this, but I trust all of you guys and really value you're opinions on everything.
I wish I could have made it back for Silent Night, I hear it'll be like Homecoming x2. Anyway, I hope that those of you who still have finals and paper coming up get everything done and I'm looking forward to catching up with you guys during Christmas break, even if its only on the phone. ~Hoseef

Hoseef is now fully a trucker, and has the gut to prove it.

So, I passed my CDL Class A drivers test on Saturday. That was pretty cool. There were 3 parts: a pretrip, vehicle control, and then on the road. I got a 40 out of 47 on my pretrip (which I only needed a 35), hit only one cone for a 2 point deduction on my backing part (I was allowed to miss 12 points and I just barely hit the last cone, didn't even knock it over), and aced the on road portion. The on road portion was the one I wasn't the most sure about, but I think the tester must have been with new driver students all day, so I probably seemed great at shifting and turning and everything else comparatively speaking. He actually said if things don't work at Cast-Crete I could try becoming a driving instructor. I don't think I am going to take him up on that though. So, I'm thinking great I passed in one try, we submitted the paperwork for my company car a week ahead of the test, I'll probably be getting my car sometime this week, I mean it was probably the largest reason I took the job in the first place, even more so than the salary which I could have gotten at a couple of places. BUT, it turns out that the regional manager (the guy who is my boss's boss's boss and reports directly to the owner of the company) had his lease just expire on his 700 series BMW, so until he gets another one, he'll be driving MY car (which I just found out is a silver metallic car :). NICE! Really though its not that big a deal, I shouldn't have to wait more than 2-3 weeks before I'll be able to get it and I've already waited 5 1/2 months so a couple more days isn't that big of a deal. I have been getting more and more paranoid lately though, because things have slowed down so drastically, even since when I started I am wondering how much longer the company is going to want to keep me on the payroll when I'm just learning things and not making them all that much money. Then again there has got to be a dumber trainee than myself out there, well I hope at least.
Anywho, now I'm focusing more on the delivery part of the job which means I still have to drive my semi and this time with a load on and take it to job sites. At least I don't have to work weekends more than once a month now. The day of my test was my 13th straight day of work and a 10 hour day at that. Good to hear you were all doing well and homecoming was an absolute blast. Same thing next year? And as always if the 40 degree weather up there isn't treating you well, you should know its 80 down here, if you ever wanted to visit and go to the beach that is, granted it has been getting down to about 45 late at night so bring at least 1 long sleeve shirt. :)

Still no car, but i had to share this

http://www.wesh.com/news/14589276/detail.html

I definitely do not live in Iowa any more. And is it horrible of me to think this is funny? Maybe there is such a thing as cosmic justice, though its a little harsh.

What DOES Scr0d do???

My sources tell me that Scr0d works for a web development company named Ascedia (www.ascedia.com) in Milwaukee as an Application Developer, or web programmer. Much to Slinky's dismay, he actually doesn't make pretty pictures. Instead, he writes the "behind-the-scenes" code that makes interactive websites work.

Depending on the project, he uses one of many programming languages: PHP, C#.NET, VB.NET, ASP, or ColdFusion. He also uses these languages to interact with databases such as MySQL, Sql Server, or Oracle.

... at least that's what my sources tell me.

Slinky - keep spicin' it up!
Hoseef - good luck on the CDL! Kiss that truckin' goodbye!

Take care, guys
- Jarrod

My 1st Bolg Entry Ever, I Think

I'm not much for this blog stuff, but I want to keep up with everyone. And I happen to have exciting news to share. I "caught" the woman I've been pursuing since the end of last spring! Her name is Julie and basically everything about her is amazing. We made the dating relationship official about two weeks ago (you may have seen my changed status on Facebook), and it's going pretty well. Nathaniel has been patiently listening to me talk about her for the past two months every time we have our weekly accountability meeting. Thanks, Colson. I could go on about how God has worked in the relationship so far, but I want to keep this short. The rest of life is going OK, but it is way too busy and I should start looking for a job for after I graduate, which I don't really want to think about right now. See y'all in Florida over spring break when we go visit Hoseef?

Back to Craming!

I am taking my CDL test THIS Saturday at 3. I am really nervous about it and have only been driving for the last 3 months, so I hope its been enough time. The test has 3 parts: 1. Pre-trip: identify 100+ things that I should check before leaving on a trip in a semi 2. Basic Controls: Straight line back up, off set backing left and right, alley dock, and parallel park both driver and passenger sides (I think the last time I parallel parked my own car was in driver training) 3. Road test

I'm most nervous about the road test as I am not very good at shifting, especially down shifting and could run into problems in certain circumstances, right turns are also giving me problems, apparently you aren't supposed to run over the curb in order to complete your turn, or something like that. Anyway i would appreciate any prayers and I'll give you all an update Sunday.

Musings from the working man

Musings is an interesting word. I don't know what it means or the context it was used it but I heard Daryl use it once and since he likes to write I think I'll use it.

So my life is slightly different from the other posters, most are in grad school, One pastor in training, a truck driver, and a guy who tries to make pretty pictures. Actually I have zero idea of what Scrod does but i remember it has to do with web designing thus the comment. I am the 7:30-4:30 or 5 man.

My job is interesting because right now my job is to make this large 40lb box do something it wasn't meant to do. Fun I'd say and I enjoy it. However in between phases of getting this box to do my bidding I take little sets to eliminate myself. I help ship packages to Russia and create programs that allow them to do my job easier. It makes my job easier as well but it's dummy proof for them. Why do I do this you say? Well I wish to leave this current department of mine and move on to the next generation technology. The best way I see to get there? Eliminate myself from the old technology.

This of course begs the question. How do you know you'll be moved to the next generation? I don't. I hope that my work here has impressed my management and that when I am no longer needed here that they need me in the next generation to develop it for a short time and then ship that over to another country while I move on to the NEXT technology. It's a vicious cycle but so far I like it.

And no I can't get you guys sweet phones. Motorola doesn't have sweet phones at the moment..... don't get me started on our mobile devices branch.

As for the rest of life. Day in and day out it's the wife and myself, cooking, cleaning, watching TV, and other things (yes that thing). I can't say I mind the cycle right now. It gets repetitive after a while but thats when you have to spice it up every once in a while. Get peanuts for the chocolate sundae, go out for dinner someplace night, midnight cruise on Lake Michgan (actually really affordable). The people here are my high school friends but like I said before you beat the group I had at Foundation. The one thing I wish was if there was a place that I could just go to and chill with all of the Foundation guys w/o having anyone flying or long trips. That would be sweet.

Well back to work,
Slinky out

Med School so far

Wow, I didn't realize the last time I posted was two weeks before school started. It's been a month since anyone even used this but I'd thought I'd let you guys know what's up, mainly cause Fredrickson's addition to the journal this week reminded me. I haven't studied at all today and thought I'd cap it off with posting, to feel a little productive.

This week we had our third test, indicating my first semester of medical school is 3/4 over and going pretty decently. Sadly, I don't just have to get 50% to pass like Nathaniel but I have enough of a buffer between a failing grade that I hopefully don't have to worry about screwing it up this semester. I'm only concerned about the finals which are all cumulative. Being able to recite everything I've learned this semester in three classes just seems insurmountable. Luckily 2 of the 3 are nationally standardized so I can buy review books but Biochemistry has been ridiculously hard this semester and could get me. Still, I'm passing everything by at least 10 percent, which I'm very happy to report.

As for the rest of life, there isn't much to say. I study a lot (to be expected, I guess) which doesn't leave too much time to socialize. Our class has melded pretty well so we find time to socialize together, especially after the tests. They're definitely not the same as Taylor, but some of the guys are pretty cool. For all the stress that runs rampant, there have been no major blow-ups, at least not yet. As the semester ends, that could change. Most weekends I've found some excuse to leave, which has hurt my studying but helped my mental health. I usually just go back to Indy for a few hours to see friends, but I'm definitely trying to find some time to make it up to Purdue before the semester ends. I might even have the chance to get to Taylor cause our semester ends a week before they do. (But it would mean being there to distract people during finals week.) Just thinking back, Homecoming was definitely the best time of the entire semester. I'm hoping we can all do it again next year, if not before then.

Only five more weeks. I just have to keep reminding myself, only five more weeks.

So the semester's almost halfway over, I've got midterms coming up. This week was our fall break, and I spent most of it in the apartment studying. The rest of it I spent finally buying a car, a '99 chevy prizm. It was relatively cheap and seemed to be in pretty good shape, which is what I was looking for. The interior's kind of beat up, but the engine's clean and runs well. I'm a believer in the chevy prizm/toyota corolla duality thing, so I expect it to go for quite some time. You can look around and find a number of parts that say toyota on them. I feel like now that I have a car I respect I'll actually take care of it, unlike some other cars I've owned in the past.

I think I only have to get 50% on my midterms to still be in good shape as far as passing, so I'm not stressing too much about that. I left my motivation to get good grades at Taylor, every last bit of it, and it's everything I hoped it could be.

I found a church here that I've been going to, but lately the pastor's been striking out. I really like the worship and congregation, but he talks a bunch about parenting and family stuff, and sometimes I don't think he knows what he's talking about. He's not a very organized speaker. He talks right out of the bible, but sometimes he goes on rabbit trails that don't really go anywhere. The pastor is actually Jeremy Camp's dad, and sometimes he talks about raising Jeremy to illustrate points and stuff, it's kind of funny.

Hoseef's Summer

Wow, what have I got myself into??? I thought this job had to possibility of being sweet right out of college but so far it has been really tough. I thought college was supposed to keep you from having to do manual labor, but thats almost all I do right now. I work in the yard, drive trucks, and every once in a while get to sit in the office to do management type things. The first couple of weeks I worked almost 50+ hours and was really just killing myself trying to learn everything, the products and cutomers and all of that. Right now I am in what is called a Branch Manager training position which basically means I do everything no one else wants to do. I have to drive a Ford F-650 truck that has a 18ft. flatbed on it to take materials all over the county (about a 45 minute radius in 3 directions and sometimes up to Jacksonville or Orlando), I've also had to learn how to drive stick in a piece of crap F-350, I really should have been rear ended several times when I started going and couldn't get into the next gear for several seconds or stalled out. Also, part of the reason I took this job was the fact that it would be possible for me to have a company car as part of my "salary" but in order to get it I have to learn how to drive a semi-truck with a 40ft. flatbed trailer. Right now I am learning how to just drive the semi without the trailer and it has been rough going so far, better than the 350 but with 10 gears to shift through its a littler more complicated, especially turning and down shifting. Hopefully I'll be ready to take my drivers test in about 2 months otherwise I may be in trouble with my bosses. The worst part is the randominity of the hours, most days I don't have to be in to work until 8 but on Tuesday and Thursdays I have open the branch at either 5 or 6 a.m. more often then not at 5. Its not bad when I can get off at 2 in the afternoon but the branch manager usually tries to get me to stay later driving and such. I feel like I am sometimes a work a holic but there are guys who work 12 hours a day at my branch and I sometimes feel as though I need to keep up with them. Anyway the first couple of months are supposed to be really tough I think and I am looking forward to the time after I have my license so that I don't have to drive as much and will be trained more in the office.

I should be able to see you all in October for homecoming I got the day off even though I don't think I was really supposed to, more on that later. Anyway I didn't want this to seem like all I was doing was complaining, I mean I did get a decent job just a week out of college, but as my district manager said the first six weeks are going to be hell and then it'll go down from there. Hopefully I'll be able to post more later about work and evertyhing else that is going on and it won't seem so "depressing," but I miss all of you guys and look forward to catching up with you soon.

Hoseef

Homecoming!

Hey guys, homecoming is coming up October 19-21. I'm definitely going to make an effort to make it out. Bring frisbees, I want to get a couple games of golf in.

2 Weeks

Truthfully, I have mixed feelings about the summer ending. I have approximately two weeks before classes start on the 13th. I realized last night that I'll finally be going to school "for real." I'll actually have to concentrate on learning the material to apply in life and not just for periodic tests. Basically everything is falling into place for next semester except for housing. There were a few delays and I received an email from my roommate today that said the apartment complex would have a place available for us by mid-August. I'm hoping it's a generous estimate because we have to move in earlier than that otherwise we'll be camping for the first week of medical school.

I've successfully avoided having a job this summer which gave me the time to go with my church's youth group on a bike trip to Knoxville, TN. I drove the support vehicle for the week long trip, meaning I drove 60 miles a day at 10-15 mph. Everything went pretty well and the trip was fun. The only complication arose on the way back when the truck I was driving broke down about an hour north of Knoxville, forcing me to stay in TN until I could find people from church to drive down and haul me and the truck back to Indy. Luckily, the youth group was spending the week at a conference so I was able to camp out with them. The whole thing set me back 3 days and I had to rush around once I got back to get med school paperwork in. I'm caught up now but it was hectic.

Adding to the craziness was juggling getting the paperwork done and hanging out with Peter and Josh. Actually Peter called me within five minutes of returning from TN last Thursday because he had just gotten into town as well. Josh came down on Saturday and the three of us got to chill for about four days. We fished, bowled, shot pool, gambling at the local Catholic fair, and hit up BW's more than once. (There may have been some alcohol use involved as well :) ) Josh and I also accompanied Peter on gun buying binge because he couldn't go more than a few days without having one. Peter's still in town until the 7th so if anyone's coming through Indy soon, he'd love to see you.

I'm hoping to enjoy the next two weeks before this Med School nonsense starts. Slink, I'm looking forward to the wedding because it's conveniently the weekend after our first major test and I assume I'll need the break.

Updizzle

The summer is drawing to a close, hallelujah. My job hasn't killed me yet, but there's still a week left so I won't speak too soon. Last week a guy running the machine I run lost the end of his finger doing something stupid, but it's the same stupid thing all of us operators do to get stubborn parts into the machine. But fortunately I don't work in that area anymore, cus I passed my welding test and I'm officially a welder now. The started me out doing tig welding, which is easier than mig welding. My boss is a big black guy with corn rows and every now and then he refers to me as "my tigger", which makes me happy, especially cus he doesn't get why it's funny. Basically I babysit a giant robotic arm the size of a small house and clean up its welds when it's done. I also change its tips when they get dirty and clean the spatter off its dies. They've got me on third shift, but since that's only 8 hours (before I was working 10-12 hour shifts) I've been staying over for a couple hours in the morning and helping at my old job, which involves lifting 40-50 lb parts onto a air check table and then off again into a rack. This is by far the hardest I've ever worked in my life, and the longest hours. I have very little trouble getting to sleep at night.

Purdue plans are going smoothly. I've signed my lease with my new roommate (although danny will always be number one in my heart), and I'm putting together first semester classes. I'm going through my old control systems textbook and actually learning all the things that got replaced by a crap semester project by one V. Diddy, because that's just the kind of classes I will be taking.

The funding I got is a teaching assistantship, so I will be working for a professor apprx. 20 hours a week and they give me a complete tuition waiver and a stipend to live off of. I'll have to budget pretty carefully, but it's not too bad. Especially if I can get a sweet summer job next summer. My car doesn't need replacing quite yet, but I think it's getting there. I was hoping I'd have enough from this job to buy something better, but it doesn't look like I'll quite get there. I could buy something, but it wouldn't be much and there's such a huge risk when you start scraping the bottom of the used car barrel.

In other news, I got a cell phone! It's a motorolla KRZR, so you're welcome for the business slinky, and if I have problems I'm complaining to you and holding you accountable to know everything about my phone. I haven't really played with it yet, haven't had time. I'm on AT&T/cingular, and I have free nights and weekends and free long distance. See facebook for number.

Keeping it going

Well if no one else wants to post up things then I guess it's up to me to try to keep this thing alive. So now I'm going to request information from the other two people using this thing. So people tell me about your summer what your currently doing and how it's going for you.

My summer has been going alright. First month or so at Motorola proved exciting and challenging. I was labeled as the expert of a IT environment because I worked with it last year and the old expert moved to a different division. So my first job was setting that environment up and shipping it over to Russia so they can run it there. Apparently lots of things got outsourced since I left. After that project I started working on some Nextel specific issues and whatnot. It's been slow but it's slowly picking up so it's good. Not the work I want to be doing but right now I can't complain.

As for not work things. I moved into an apartment July 7, 2007. It's a two bedroom apartment with a large kitchen and a fireplace. The location is halfway between my house and my work so my commute has shortened from an hour home to more like 20-30 minutes, much more manageable. Last weekend Mindy and I got some couches for the apartment and some barstools for the breakfest bar. It's been quite a ride with all the wedding things and it's only going to get crazier.

Alright guys let me know what you've been up to!

Chiming In

Slinky - thanks so much for working this out!

I'm sure I'll see many of the guys either this weekend at T3's wedding or next weekend at Caleb's but I'll just let you all know - I got my acceptance letter from IU Med School yesterday. I got pulled off the waiting list relatively quickly, which is nice cause I have a lot of time to plan. I've been selected for the Terre Haute Campus so sadly I won't be in either Muncie or West Lafayette, but Terre Haute's only an hour or so from Indy. Plus I think ol' Hoxworth is out there so I should be able to see him.

I've tentatively accepted the position but am still waiting to hear from Trinity up in Chicago. If I get a load of Financial Aid from them, I might withdraw my name from IU and do the Trinity Master's program for Bioethics, then go to IU next year. In the mean time, I've got quite a bit to do - find an apartment, car, loans, etc. etc. Maybe even a summer job, but with school starting August 13th, I may not have a lot of time.

I hope to see you all soon!

and so it begins

In getting things started I'd just like to link back to the original centerfoundation blog at centerfoundation, so you can see what's going on there. I'm anticipating this being a great way to share information about getting jobs, moving, having weddings, meeting hot chicks from daytona beach, etc etc. Or just your thoughts on life, whatever you want.

I will start by saying I am putting my 4-year degree to good use by getting a job in a factory for the summer, as no one else in the area will hire me for 2 and a half months. Actually the factory hasn't even called me back yet, so I may not even have that. I also have a lead on a job soldering together computer boards near cinncinnati, so I could live with my grandma and commute in. That pays better, so wish me luck. I miss everybody! Hopefully I'll see a lot of you at caleb's wedding in a week.

Getting this thing to work

Hey Foundation,
While it is true I may have never actually "lived" on center I was invited here and if no one is going to take the point here then I will. I did some poking around on this site (it's amazing what you can do waiting for a UNIX account) and I figured out how it works. Basically if you have gmail then you have a blogger account. So if you want to add things to this blogger thing then you either comment on this (not sure if random people can) or email me and I'll invite you to the blog. So yeah.


BLOG AWAY!

Slink

Quick Edit: In order to be added to the blog I need your email address.