General Jackassery

So I’m sitting in Mo’s cube talking to him when our Secretary comes over and says, “Hey, want to hear a really funny story?” We tell her sure tell us what you’ve got. She starts telling us that this friend of hers was dating this girl for a week. He thinks that he really likes her so after a week they sleep together. He comes back later and tells our secretary that he wants to break up with this girl. She ask why and he basically blows the question off and asks how he should break up with her since they’ve slept together. A couple of days pass and he hasn’t done it, she asks that the deal is and he finally says that she has a tail. Like that guy in the movie, “Shallow Hal.” I was like, what’s so funny about that? Her response was, “She has a tail, I just think that’s funny.” Then she get’s made a me because I’ve been supposedly acting like I’m better than her. Doesn’t that seem a little hypocritical? Here she is acting like she’s better than someone else just because they have a physical deformity and she get’s mad at me because I’m not really interested in hearing her talk about things that I can’t relate to in the least. I’m not interested in sleeping with every woman on this planet and I certainly wouldn’t be sleeping with anyone after just one week, let alone one night. She does that crap all the time. I’m sorry, I know that I have my own issues so I certainly don’t think that I’m better than anyone else, but there are somethings that I don’t agree with. I’m not interested in partying every night so that I can’t get up and be at work on time. I’m not interested in sleeping around. I’m not 21 anymore, I did my fair share of drinking when I was younger, but I don’t care to do it anymore and I don’t really care to be around the people who do. That’s just not who I am. But to get mad at me because I supposedly think I’m better than you when you don’t even give someone a chance because their different from you? That’s a total load of crap. No, I don’t have a tail, and neither has anyone that I’ve ever dated (to my knowledge) but I’d like to think that it wouldn’t matter. By the time I got to the point where I discovered that you had a tail I would think that you would have told me and I would think that my emotions for you would over ride the importance of any physical feature. I guess I’m just weird, I care a lot more about personality than physical features. She thinks that people want her because she’s so beautiful, she doesn’t realize the only reason people want her is because they figure there’s about a 90% chance they’ll get laid. She says she’s not proud of the things she’s done in her life, but I see not effort to change coming from her. If you know and feel that what you’re doing is not right yet you make no effort to change, I have a hard time respecting you. Don’t think I’m the one being a hypocrit now because I’ve had a very hard time respecting myself in the past. I’d like to think that when someone helps to take the blinders off and show me who I really am and not what I think I am that I have the ability to understand that and to change. I’ve already done a good bit of it and that’s probably why I was so offended by her being mad at me.

A little story: One day several years ago, I think sometime back in 1999 or so I met this girl, we were in a Karate class together. I had decided to take Karate just because I’d spent my entire college career taking classes that I was supposed to take and I’d never taken a class that I really WANTED to take. Anyway, I met this girl in my Karate class and we got along pretty well, but she was involved in a long term relationship with another dude. In what has always been my normal operating procedure I developed a significant crush on this girl. I thought to myself, “Man if I ever had a chance with this girl I would make her love me, I’ll be the best boyfriend she’s ever had.” Anyway, the class ended and nothing ever happened between us. Several months later I walked into an Economics class that I was taking for my Liberal Arts degree, sat down and settled in for what was going to be an extremely boring class when she walks in the door, sees me and comes and sits right next to me. I thought, “Wow, this is great, now maybe I’ll have a chance.” The class came and went and nothing ever happened. Finally, several months later she got involved in the ASCE and started paddling. One Saturday night after the ASCE regional conference banquet I finally realized that I was going to get my chance. We dated for about a month and in that time I went all out! I feel head over heals for her and I did everything I could to make her fall for me. Unfortunately I fell so hard and so fast that it scared her off. While she never said it directly, she broke it off with me by just not coming around or calling anymore. I was absolutely crushed. Really mad! I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t good enough for her. What it was about her boyfriend that was so good that I didn’t have. I stayed pretty mad for several months, through Nationals and I had the summer to pretty much cool off because I graduated and took the summer off. (I say I took the summer off, I went and worked on my Dad’s Catfish farm for the summer. Not exactly taking the summer off.) So I came back the next fall and things were a little better between us. Far less awkward, but I was still mad and hurt. I was too stubborn not to be around her though. I would stop by paddling practice despite her being there and I would do my job as President of the ASCE regardless of whether or not she was there. I guess that contact made things easier over time, helped me get over her quicker. (Or so I thought.) One January Anthony decided to buy a car in New Jersey. So, me, Anthony, Justin, and this girl loaded up in my old white truck and headed to New Jersey. We had a great time, we went through Washington, D.C. and up to Atlantic City (to the Casino’s) and then into NYC. It was a lot of fun, tiring, but a lot of fun. I realized during that trip that I never had gotten over her and I really wished things had worked out between us, but I realized another thing too. Things NEVER would have worked out between us. There wasn’t ANYTHING I could have done to make them work. It had NOTHING to do with whether or not I was “good enough” for her or if she was “good enough” for me. The fact of the matter was that we simply weren’t meant to be. While there were things that she liked about me, there just wasn’t the connection between us that I thought there was and that I wish there was. A couple of months after that trip to get Anthony’s car, things started to change between Sarah and I. Now, that other girl is sweet and fun to be around, but she doesn’t hold a candle to Sarah and looking back I really am glad that things DIDN’T work out.

The point is, you can sit there and say, “Why did she pick him over me?” “What’s so much better about him than me?” “She just want’s him because he has this or that.” But none of that is anywhere near the truth. The truth of the matter is that it simply wasn’t meant to be. I’m not “better” than anyone else, I’m just different and somethings fit better than others. It’s like comparing apples to oranges. The question is are you man enough to turn around and face that fact? Are you man enough to take her for what she is, a great friend? It takes time! It took me nearly a year. But, in most cases, it has nothing to do with you, and it has nothing to do with her being a bad person. Though for a while a really did think she as a real bitch. She knew where she had me and she stomped on my heart like it was roach crawling around the kitchen floor. That’s how I felt anyway. In reality, she probably thinks that you’re a great guy and she loves spending time with you, but when it comes down to being in a really serious relationship it simply doesn’t fit and you aren’t what she wants. If you were on the other side of things it would be a lot easier to understand that.

Don’t compare yourself to someone else, you’re always going to find differences. There’s no way to measure a man’s true worth when compared to that of another, there are too many differences. I never claimed to be “better” than anyone. Sure, there are somethings that I can do better than others, but I have enough skeletons in my closet that I have no right to judge or compare myself to another man and try to claim that I’m better than him.

What you do with your life is your own decision, you choose who you want to be and you can choose how you want to be, but you can’t change the things that happen to you and you can’t make decisions for other people. Be yourself, don’t compare, do what’s right for you and you will eventually find what’s right for you. It took me 27 years and I’m still learning and changing. I’ll never stop and I don’t think anyone should nothing in this world is perfect. Nothing in the world will ever be perfect, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t try to be as close to perfect as possible.

Okay, so remember how I thought it was going to me a nice easy pace up until the final design submittal was due? Yeah, not gonna happen. I took off early on Friday afternoon because I already had 106 hours in for the pay period, normal pay period 80 hours, last pay period normal would have been 72 because Monday was a holiday. So I put in about 34 hours of overtime. Anyway, while I was sitting on the tailgate of Mo’s truck waiting on him to get done at the vet I recieved a call from Thad saying that he’d already put us in for overtime this week and next. “Oh hell, why?” “Rodney says that we can’t have the radius curves that we have without superelevating them (banking for non-civil engineer types)” That means that we have to go back in and replace the line work for the road, do further annotation and replace the road cross sections in those areas where we have curves that need superelevation. Anyway, that means quite a bit of work for us since I’ve never done superelevation with InRoads. That means I have to learn more about the software. On top of that I have yet another software package that I need to learn. The software developers for this package are coming on Thursday and Friday to install and teach us how to use this new Range Design software. Since I have one of the three most powerful machines in the building, it’s going on my computer. That means that Thursday and Friday are going to be Range Days while the rest of the week and Sunday will be Pueblo days. Then there’s the hockey game Friday night, after the hockey game I’ll be at Johnson helping to get the mold and the cross-section ready so that we can lay up the Concrete Canoe and the layers for the cross section on Saturday. Probably be there all day an well into the night Saturday and then I’ll be coming into work on Sunday and could conceivably be here all night Sunday night. It’s “B” “E” “A” utiful man! When this is all over what do I have to look forward to? Another week in the office. But atleast the cross-section will be to the point that I won’t have to work on it every night. One day I’ll have free time again. But for now, I’m not complaining, it pays the bills and that’s something that is of incredible importance.

That’s all I have for now. Just realized I hadn’t posted in a while.

Todder, Out!

Okay, I admit it, the concrete canoe is in my blood! I realized this weekend when I didn’t get a chance to work on the cross-section that I’ve been building that I actually missed it. I’m not sure if it’s becuase I didn’t want to be here at work or if it’s because I really wanted to work on the cross-section. I think it’s mostly that I wanted to work on the cross-section. I have a goal of being done with the mold part of it by the time the club is ready to lay-up the real boat. That way we have plenty of time to make it look perfect. I believe for the first time in the history of the competition the cross-section is actually being judged for craftsmanship, so it’s sort of important that it be done right. I’ve got a really good start on it and we’re looking at doing something pretty diffrent with it from what we’ve done in the past. I think it’s going to be pretty awesome when it’s done. Anyway, I’ve started looking forward to going to the competition in March. I mean it should be really fun to get to go to Tampa, FL for a couple of days, but I think the kids have a pretty good chance of winning this one. They have to get their collective butts in gear in the water though. It’s really time they started practicing a little more seriously and getting into better shape, but they have a good bit of time to get in shape and get good.

In other news, we got the 95% submittal for the Access Road we’ve been working on done this weekend. The cost was Thad and I were here virtually all weekend. I worked 9+ hour days on Saturday and Sunday, then got here at 7:00 Monday morning and worked until 9:00 on Tuesday morning, but we got it done. There is still one more iteration, the Final Submittal, so we’ll have some clean-up work, but there shouldn’t be any major changes. It’s looking like Thad and I will have to go to Pueblo one more time to pick up the last bit of survey for this project, but it should only be a couple of days. Anyway, we should have this out of our collective hair in a couple of weeks. Then it will be time for the next Pueblo design, upgrading the roads in the area where the weapons that we’ll be destroying are stored. So for now I get a little bit of a break. I’ll be working on creating new files and preferences to make my life easier when we start new designs, and I have to do some touch up work on the design that we have to get it ready for the final submission, but things should be much slower for the time being.

I started the morning out by playing hockey, nice thing to do at 6:00 on a Friday morning. Blake (my old roommate) came out and played so we got to chat and catch-up a little bit, it was pretty cool. The team I played on won 3 of 4 games to 5 goals and I scored a pretty nice little grinding goal. I had a dude drapped all over me in front of the net when the puck slid through and out of Blake’s site, I got a piece of it and slid it underneath him and in the net. Later in the game I missed the most beautiful scoring opportunity I’ll probably ever have. I was on the right side of the crease when one of my teammates slid the puck across from the other side. I was all alone in front of the net and Blake went down to cover the bottom half of the net. I took my time (an amazing thing on it’s own because I usually freak out in that situation, “Gotta shoot, gotta shoot now), look where I want to shoot, draw back and fire the puck. Just half an inch to the left was all I needed, instead CLANG, Metallurgy save! It was good crisp, hard shot and the ring off the post would only be rivalled by the bells of a cathedral. I shook my head, Blake laughed, and one of the guys on the bench was like, “Dude, that was beautiful………until you hit the post!” Jackass!

So anyway the game’s over, I get everything put up, get my shower and head for work. I decided to stop by the bank to check my account balance because I need to make a car payment and much to my surprise the balance is FAR lower than I thought it should have been. So I spend the morning shitting bricks sideways and I finally decide to head out to the house. I needed to feed the dogs and I could kill two birds with one stone if I got on-line and check my statement to see what happened. Aparently about 2 seconds after I got my $20 out of the bank, the other money that I was expecting to arrive yesterday, finally showed in my account and because Microsoft Money is evil and screwed something up, it turns out that I have a good bit more money in my account than even I expected. Must check on Microsoft Money and find out why it made me worry so much when it shouldn’t have.

Okay, so that’s all settled and I’m much happier now than I was about 3 hours ago. I was doing pretty good though. I was following through on my previous post and despite being upset about the banking situation I was still pretty happy all together. I just decided that was how I was going to be!

Has anyone picked up on the fact that it’s ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS outside today. I wish it had been 60 degrees when I was out riding my bike, but it wasn’t too bad since I had my cold gear on. I’m still pretty darn weak by my standards, but yesterday I was able to top out at 37.4 mph on flat land. I still have the power, I’m just lacking in stamina right now. Need to get this weight back off. Granted I’m still 32 lbs lighter than I was this time last year, but I’d like to lose another 40 lbs and get done to 225 ultimately.

Okay, I’m done rambling, I need to get some work done.

Todder, OUT!

That’s a question that’s been going through my head for a couple of days now. Seems like most people think about what they want or what they want to do, but they don’t really think about how they want to be. Life is nothing but a series of choices that you make. Sometimes there are things that affect you that you have no control over, but for the most part in everyday life there is little that should affect us to the point of altering our actions or emotions because of that one particular input. So, baring the death of your best friend, there’s no real reason why you can’t choose to be happy everyday. I’m of the mind that if you believe in something strongly enough you can make it happen. So, instead of thinking of three words that people would use to describe you, start thinking about three words that would describe how you want to be. Everyday, think about those three words and make it happen. If one of those words is “passionate,” find something that you can be passionate about and make it happen. If one of those words is “loving,” then show your friends and family that you love them everyday! Life is a series of choices, make the choice to make your life your own and choose to be whatever and however you want to be. Believe in it, and make it happen.

How do I want to be today? What words would I use? “Loving”, “Passionate”, “Determined”, “Devoted”, “Caring”, “Accepting”, “Patient”, “Dependable”, “Responsible”, “Excellent”, “Hard Working”, “Dreamer”, “Creative”, and “Happy”!

Good Lord! I’ve gotten really weak! I haven’t really been motivated to ride lately. I pretty much explained what was motivating me to ride when I posted this . Lately I’ve been having to come up with new motivation and I think that I’m just going to have to remember how much I enjoyed watching the weight come off and how much I loved the feeling of accomplishment when I would get to the top of Bankhead Pkwy or when I rode the 105 miles in Claxton, GA for the Cruisin’ in the Country Century that I have every intention of returning to next year. That was very cool!

Okay, that’s all.

So, remember that post about looking forward to the three day weekend this weekend? Yeah, the one where I said that I wanted to split wood and clean gutters and maybe do a little painting. Well that’s not happening anymore, apparently I’ll be in the office all weekend. Thad told me yesterday that the good news is the County doesn’t want to change the alignment of the road we’re working on. The bad news is that we’ve been waiting on them to make a decision before we proceeded any further and we’ve lost a couple of days work but we’re still expected to produce the package by the 19th (read 20th because the due date falls on a Federal holiday). So, Todd get’s to bust his ass for the next couple of days to try to limit the amount of time spent in the office this weekend.

CAUTION: This post contains some boring Civil Engineering blather! Those who feel they can get through it may continue to read, all others should turn back lest they loose brain cells!

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Has anybody else noticed that it’s an absolutely GORGEOUS day? I just looked at the weather forecast for Huntsville and it’s looking like highs are going to be in the 50’s for the next 10 days or so. AWESOME! That’s warm enough to ride, so I get to bring my bike in tomorrow and I’m going to try to ride for the rest of the week and the weekend. Time for Spring Training!