So a while back a friend recommended I listen to some music by The Spill Canvas.  I started listening then but never really paid attention to the lyrics.  Today I decided to pull them up and read through them with the song.  One song, The Tide, had some really good lyrics so I thought I would share!  Here they are.

And there’s three, count ‘em three
children playing on the beach
They were eager to learn,
to be taught and to teach

No, heaven’s not a place that you go when you die
It’s that moment in life when you touch her and you feel alive
So live for the moment
And take this advice, live by every word
Love’s completely real, so forget anything that you’ve heard
and live for the moment now

Great Song!!!

John

OK - so theres still a while left but with my weekdays taken up working 7-3:30 and all my weekends booked from here on out, and going back to school 2 weeks early there isnt really much left.  Here’s the breakdown!

Weekend of July 3rd - Mineola fireworks and celebration of the mothers birthday which happens to also be the 4th!
Weekend of July 10th - Road trip to ISU with the Nate to visit Neil, Jake, and Karen.  Along with other summer/towny ISU peeps.
Weekend of July 17th - Camping trip to Wisconsin with the Rob, the Katie, and other people I have yet to meet!
July 23rd - July 30 - Out of the US visiting warm sunny Cancun Mexico.  Let the fun begin!
Weekend of August 7th - Another trip back to ISU to start RA training. End of Summer.

On a side note my birthday falls in there.  August 5th to be exact!  Just figured I’d mention it!  But yeah, that’s the rest of my summer in a nut shell.  Other various events will be taking place on weeknights so if you you’ve got an idea shoot it my way.  Away I go for now!!

John

People I’ve Seen Since May (most recent first)
Neil
Jill
Katie
Danny
Charity
Stef
Bill
Karen

PS - For any soccer person reading this…jerseys are in the making…more info to come!!!

To make this easy on myself, because I am quite lazy I will submit to you the following conversation for your viewing:

me (1:29:43 AM): so are there any plans for this weekend…the jill was talking about something i guess
neil (1:30:16 AM): i had considered taking a road trip tomorrow evening to see her
neil (1:30:21 AM): meeting somewhere
me (1:30:30 AM): i see isee
neil (1:30:30 AM): if you’re free we should all go to her house :0
neil (1:30:31 AM):
me (1:30:55 AM): do realize that she is on the opposite side of the state as me! lol
neil (1:31:05 AM): well..yeah
me (1:31:57 AM): that would be cool though

….

neil (1:46:50 AM): lol
neil (1:46:57 AM): i will call her if you want to
neil (1:47:13 AM): i say we be crazy
neil (1:47:14 AM):
me (1:47:19 AM): i was about to, lol…wake her ass up

So, we woke her up from her slumber and told her the plan.  I think she would have rather been sleeping but was excited that we were coming to visit.  The next day the Neil and I drove there and got to the Rock Island within minutes of each other.  I would have been there sooner but I kinda missed the road I was supposed to turn on a few times and, as Jill informed me, I ended up in the ghetto!  Eventually we were all where we were supposed to be and kinda hungry.  I had never been to Iowa so it worked out well that we went to eat at Old Chicago in Iowa.  Nice place that Iowa!  After crossing the state line we went and played a round of the putt putt golf.  It wasn’t a real competition, we just played for fun, but just in case you were wondering, I WON I WON I WON.  OK Im done!  After that we were off to Whitey’s.  To quote Jill, “it’s [Ben and Jerry’s] crap compared to whitey’s.”  So I just had to have this amazing ice cream!  Turn’s out it’s quite scrumptious!  I would have eaten more but Neil and I gorged ourselves on pizza and there really was no room for it.  Which is wiered because usually I can eat ANYTHING.  Afterwards we concluded the tour of Rock Island and had one more mission.  Return Jill’s computer back to normal and get the camera to work.  I had taken my stab at it and managed to worsen the problem so it was Neils turn.  A while later we got it working.  All I have to say is working with computers is fun! 

At 9 Neil and I said good bye to the Jill and headed for Kewanee.  We tried to suprise his parents but our plan was foiled when I scared the shit out of his mom and caused her to run out of the living room after knocking on the front door.  Yeah, I would be a little scared to if someone knocked at 10pm!  We chilled there for a while talking to his rents and then Neil took me for the grand tour of Kewanee at 11:30 or so.  Always fun to see a new town and hear some of the stories that go along with it.  We then headed back home and hung out because everyone had gone to bed.  Neil started passing out on the couch so it was time for bed.  In the morning I had my chance to get the World Famous Wilson Sunday Morning Waffles!  We shot some hoops outside after bringing Neil’s brother some food at the radio station.  Then alas it was time for me to journey back to my tiny corner of Illinois.

This was officially the longest trip I had ever driven by myself.  400 miles in all on my lil ole Subaru.  I think I will start calling it Champ!  Anyway, I do like driving down the highway.  Gives me time to think about things and to be alone with my thoughts.   Not that I had any personal discoveries.  My brain really just wanders from thought to thought in some sort of random fashion.   Anyway, that was my trip.  If the summer wasn’t so short I’d do it again but for now I’m pretty much booked the rest of the summer with other adventures.  That’s really all the news I have for now.  Over and out!

John

OK, so I’m sure the majority of people that know me know that I’m a rather laid back person.  That being said there are MANY things that IRK me!  Here goes!

1. When you pull up to a fast food joint.  Most of the time you have a pretty good idea what you want to eat.  They don’t care though, they play that damn recording, “Would you like to try a ______ today?”   Just let me order.  Don’t confuse me by suggesting something I probably don’t want. (Justin this ones for you!)
2. Along the same lines we have number two.  I’ve dealt with customer service for all sorts of things.  Most recently DSL and my cell phone.  Anyway the problem with these people is that after there done helping you there really not done.  You always hear something along the lines of, “I noticed that you don’t have the _____ feature added to your account.  Would you be interested in trying that out?”  NOOOOOOO.  All I wanted was a little help, I dont want free long distance from 7:00am - 7:30am on Monday through Wednesday to Juneau Alaska.  If I wanted these extra features I would have called and asked for them.  Quit trying to always sell me something damnit!
3. See March 1st entry entitled “Stupid People Part 1″ (Hint: it’s waffle girl!)
4. People that break while doing 10 under the limit in the first place.  Simple enough!
5. Finally for tonight.  People that like to pretend to be the “Boss” in the absence of the real boss.  If you don’t know this guy I work with is a total knuckle head.  He tries to get everyone else to do his work for him or just doesn’t do his at all.  Well the boss was out of town 2 days last week and 2 days this week.  He thought he would play boss.  Even had the nerve to say “I said so, I’m the bo….”  Never finished what he was saying when questioned but we knew.  Another coworker let us know that according to the “boss”  “when talking to us (the three college kids employed outside at work) it’s like talking to a brick wall.”  There’s a reason for that, no one listens to him anyway.

That’s all for now.  Now I have a few good lyrics from Anberlin.  Blueprints For The Black Market is a great CD by the way! 

"The closer I come to you
the closer I am to finding God
You're a miracle to me"

"However far away, I will always love you
However long I stay, I will always love you
Whatever words I say, I will always love you
I will always love you "

"Your actions write the melodies
To the songs that we sing
And you just sing along out loud"

Well I'm out!  Goodnight all!

John

Keep in mind these do not fall into the category of realizations.   Just a few obvious facts of life that I felt needed to be put into words. 

1.)  The most undeserving people get everything.  99% of the time these same people do not appreciate what they get in the least bit.  Now I’m not gonna complain about how things should be fair because they aren’t.  That’s just how life is.  The best part is that life has a way of balancing out it’s fairness.  Eventually the undeserving person will end up on the other side of the fence.

2.)  Time is the answer to everything.  Again, quite obvious but worth mentioning again.  The answers to the folowing questions all have the same answer.  Will it work out?  Is it worth it?  Did I make the right choice?  In todays world everyone wants instant gratification.  We want our pizza in 30 minutes or less, our pictures developed in an hour, and we want answers NOW.  Well, sometimes the best things in life just take time.  That’s really all there is to it

3.)  Finally, there really is no predictability in life.  Yes everything happens for a reason, but that reason is not always crystal clear.   The only way to truly figure out the why is number 2!

I think that just about sums up a big portion of life.  Since it’s midnight that’s where Im gonna end it for now!  Night!

John

So now that I have my own domain it’s time to create a new website to put on it.  Enter Teach Yourself PHP in 24 Hours! Just trying to toy around with new things.  The book covers the PHP language as well as a little MySql and XML so I thought it would be worth while.  I’ve spent the last half hour, though, trying to get the current date to show up in my new webpage.  The code works by itself but refuses to work when I put it in it’s home.  Oh well, I’ll figure it out eventually.  Probably something stupid, always is!  Not much else going on today.  It was pretty shitty considering it rained ALL day.  Just what we need, more rain.  Time for me to retire to my bed though.  Night!

John

Imagine you’re having a great Monday.  The sun is shining bright and early, the temperature is finally starting to rise to more of a summer level and birds are chirping away.   Just another relaxing day with not a care in the world.  Your just wandering around looking for something to do moving from here to there.  Resting a little and then taking off again not knowing where you’ll land next.  Then you see something out of the corner of your eye.  It’s rather bright and looks like it would be a good place to chill for a moment.  You finally get all settled and then WHACK!  Your a stupid bug flying on my monitor and your Monday just went down the shitter.  Poor bug, if only he had opted to fly somewhere else.  Message to all bugs out their reading.  Stay off my damn monitor.  Better yet, stay out of my room!  That’s all.

In other news…hmmm…there really isn’t any.  Just a boring Monday.  I was rather excited when I got my online banking setup and then set it up to work in Money.  That’s some cool shit!  Now I can find out how much money I have, or don’t have for that matter anytime I want.  Less motivation to balance my checkbook of course but I intend on keeping track of all that now that I have it all setup.  We’ll see how long that lasts. Yesterday I had my formal dog walking training followed by 3 hours of  walking dogs.  The biggest thing I learned was that dogs do a good job of giving you the sad doggy  look.  They act all innocent and such and then soon as you unlock the kennel bam they start pushing and shoving.  I shoulda seen that coming!  Oh well, it was fun to walk them around.  Picking up their shit, however, wasn’t so much fun.  That’s all for now! 

John