Progression

The last few weeks have been nothing short of enjoyable. At points they have been confusing on a personal level for multiple reasons, but I’m not one to let confusion damage my frame of mind. Most of my life on earth thus far has been confusing, and I don’t see that stopping anytime soon. Things of note that have taken place in the past couple weeks include:

- Jamesport trip with Mike
- Kings of Leon with Avery
- Movie / Random Internet Videos Night at Crystals
- Mike’s Going Away Party
- Random awkward evenings at Kaylee’s

I’ve decided that I am going to work on my health and that since I didn’t make a New Year’s resolution that I would just make it about 32 days late. I was making steady progress on this before I moved up to KC and then it all kind of fell apart. My diet on the non healthy lifestyle plan usually consists of random frozen foods, cheez its, lots of soda, fast food and random snacks. My new diet will consist more of a balance. I’m not exactly out of shape nor am I anywhere near overweight … actually just the opposite as I want to gain about 10 – 15 lbs. It’s more a way to take care of my body so when  my metabolism decides it’s time to stop working at a satisfactory rate I won’t just keel over. I’ve long been a proprietor of the thought “Enjoy life now, worry about consequences later”, however I figure I can give my future self a break in the diet area.  It is time to teach myself how to cook…

Then there is the working out, getting in shape category of my health.  I found that living in KC makes it trickier to find an outdoorsy work out option.  In St. Joe I was doing sledge hammer workouts mixed with Parkour training and some heavy bag training.  I have done little in the way of physical training for the last month and a half.  That is over starting now, I’m bringing my Muay Thai gear back with me to KC and am going to start a daily routine.  If anyone wants to learn some Brazilian Jui Jitsu (any real life friends that read this anyway) let me know.  I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on the art but I know a few things and have plenty of material and brains to pick for assistance.  One of the main negatives for BJJ as kind of an anti social person, there isn’t much to train without someone to train with.  That can be said for most martial arts but I think BJJ, Judo, Sambo and basically any submission / throwing skills are pretty impossible to practice without another person.

Lots of things are going to be taking place this month, both work related and on a personal level.  Business wise I’ve always been sort of oblivious to things.  Not really on the terms of not understanding, but more in the not caring.  I’ve always accepted the role of playing for the team as opposed to leading the team.  However this new venture probably won’t allow me to just sit around and do what I’m told, it looks as though I’ll have to be able to control my domain.  Luckily I’m not the main controlling entity of the business and since I’m really just coming in to assist, I don’t have to explain much to anyone and can just kind of do my thing at the moment.  Here’s to hoping this thing takes off and I am forced out of my own little work comfort zone.

Top Albums of 2008 and the disappointments

2008 was pretty hit and miss with music I think. However there were plenty of good albums to help me fill my list. My descriptions will be very short as I am not feeling like going into much detail.

Lykke Li – Youth Novels

I had higher hopes for this album when I heard the single “Little Bit” but overall it is still a solid album. It was much more mellow than I anticipated. This year is going to be chalk full of Swedish music on my best of list.

Tiger Lou – A Partial Print

Another Swedish band and another great album. I am still undecided on whether it is better than their previous work “The Loyal”, but either way it is better than most of the music that came out this year.

Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend

This album is just very catchy. It was a very early 2008 release but still managed to make my top albums obviously.

The Republic Tigers – Keep Color

I did a write up on this album awhile back, and everything I said about it still holds true. Great album from a band that also happens to be from Kansas City.

Kings of Leon – Only by the Night

This album is one of those, nothing on it stands out in particular, but put it together and it sounds amazing. I’m excited to seem them live at the Uptown on the 23rd.

Bloc Party – Intimacy

I was very happy with this album, especially in comparison to their last work. Their last album was by no means bad, it just was not what I expected I guess. Intimacy brings back the energy from their first album but also blends some of the substance from A Week in the City.

I’m From Barcelona – Who Killed Harry Houdini?

The 3rd Swedish band on this list and a very fucking good album. I was fond of their first album “Let Me Introduce My Friends”, but this album is 10 times better in my opinion.

Black Kids – Partie Traumatic

Easily the funnest album of 2008. If I enjoyed indie dancing, this album would always be playing when I entered a room…or something like that. Even without the added allure of the dance, this album is still amazing.

Drew Andrews – Only Mirrors

This album peaked my interest because Drew Andrews is a member of the Album Leaf. I was more than pleasantly surprised when I put it on.

Sigur Ros – Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust

Obviously I don’t need to say much on this album either. Easily number one album of 2008. I feel sorry for any band that puts out an album the same year as Sigur Ros.

The Disappointments
Death Cab for Cutie – Narrow Stairs
Mogwai – The Hawk is Howling
Weezer – Red Album
Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes

In 2009…

The last 40 days of my life have been quite hectic in comparison to the 23 years 325 days prior. I’ve been bouncing back and forth between working for my brother in Kansas City and back to my old job in Saint Joseph as the tech guy for Allied Home Mortgage. This wouldn’t be an issue except for the fact that I am having car issues…meaning mine is not on the road currently. Who knows when it will be up and running again, but once it is, my life will become 100 times easier.

The farther I get from the poker lifestyle the more interesting the compare and contrast becomes. Personality wise I don’t think I’ve changed all that much. Something feels different though. I know I’m way less dependent on money, learning to work and entertain myself within my own means. This would definitely be a plus in the growing up part of life thing.

Even though poker is out of my life, it seems to be the thing I’m connected to the most in the definition of who I am. Any time I’m introduced to someone the very next line is typically something along the lines of “Oh and he used to play poker professionally”. People like to ask me questions about it and get stories of a young degenerate gambler. That’s all fine and stuff, but you know, it’s also somewhat weird. I think it’s weird mostly because I don’t really think of it as special, I mean yeah I did something a lot of people will never experience…but at the same time I just really stumbled into it. Don’t get me wrong, it was definitely a fun time and allowed me to do a lot of stuff I wanted with travelling and such. Financially it was a variable, but I really never worried about that as much as just being able to do what I wanted with the people that I enjoyed being with the most. I guess my question is … How long will I be defined by something that is no longer and will probably never be a part of my life? My guess is probably a long time or until I do something that is perceived to be more interesting than professional poker.

I’ve been fortunate enough to find someone to hang with in Kansas City and actually enjoy myself. Don’t get me wrong, there are some good people in KC but I’m weird and very rarely connect with someone and have no problem hanging with them whenever / where ever. This is only regarding my guy friends, the whole other spectra of dating and find a girl is another story. There has only been about four, maybe five people that I have really been good friends with to the point of never getting tired of them. This is one of the aspects of sociology that has always intrigued me. What factors play into real friendships, the ones that really connect people. Common habits, interests, social settings, humor, economic settings? As someone who believes more in science as opposed to some force that works mysteriously in the world, I could probably come up with some combination that connects me with all of the four people on that list. However as someone who wouldn’t necessarily be against a mysterious force at play, I can see how that can be an alluring thought.

On that thought, I have been pondering religion more and more lately. Most likely because I just watched Religulous the other night. I found it entertaining, but at the same time it didn’t strike me as something that will actually make people think about religion and really question whether or not it is beneficial. Don’t get me wrong, Bill Maher asks some great questions and the religious people looked like complete ass hats, which always makes me smile, but at the same time you can find people on the other side of the coin with just as few answers as these folks. I’m not going to go into my thoughts on this right now, I’ll save that for another post.

Time for a quick wrap up in overview form …

- Holidays were fun, family always entertaining.
- Turned 24…FUCK I’m old…not really, but it still feels weird
- New Years partied with Mike and some other friends
- Random nights out drinking with new friends good times
- Traversing back and forth between STJ and KC is a bitch, need to get my car back on road ASAP…I miss driving my Saab.
- Lots of European history reading, and I can almost do a full introduction in Farsi with no assistance…Farsi is a bitch.

Recent Bands:
The Colour Revolt
Why?
Cherry Tree Parade (Local)
Jens Lekman
Laasko

MMA: Going to Open Mat Judo Club
UFC 93 & 94 / Affliction: Day of Reckoning main picks
- Rich Franklin vs Dan Henderson: Hendo by Decision
- BJ Penn vs Georges St. Pierre: FUCK… Either BJ wins within 3 rounds or GSP by Decision or late round stoppage. (I know this is a pussy call but fuck I can’t pick between them straight up!)
- Fedor Emeliananko vs Andre Arlovski: Fedor by sub (I’m going with Kimura from side control) RD 1

Hello December…Oh Fuck!

Typically my Decembers are nothing but positive, it is my birth month after all. Also Winter is probably my favorite season, and I’m a huge fan of snow…which is on the ground already. Everything was looking pretty good coming into the month. Unfortunately I woke up this morning to a very unwelcome surprise.

I rolled out of bed, put on clothes to go to work and walked out the door to find that my car was no longer in the driveway. First thought is one of my parents took it for something this morning as is the case many of morning (but they typically let me know ahead of time). I give my dad a call and he says that he thought I had already taken off for work because it wasn’t there when he left this morning. “WHAT THE FUCK?!” was basically the only thought in my head at this moment.

Let me paint a picture that will let you know the unlikely hood of a car being stolen in the middle of the country in a smaller town like St. Joseph. We have always, for the 12 years my parents have lived at that house, left keys in cars, unlocked, windows down in the summer, etc etc. It just doesn’t happen where we live; Cars are not stolen.

Now fortunately I have another car but it has to be licensed and all this other shit to get it on the road, like a grand or so worth of effort to get it ready. It’s definitely the nicer of the two cars so I win there, but with it not being legal and all, it doesn’t really help me right now.

After I get it figured out and come to the solid conclusion that the car was stolen in the middle of the night, we call the police. I apparently know the sheriff (or rather my parents do) so it was easy to work with him and get to the bottom of it. I guess there has been some kind of ring going on where people drive to the country and look for cars to steal (keys in car, not locked etc). However they mainly still pick ups and other such vehicles. They had already found our car abandoned in Amazonia which is 20 or so minutes in some direction from my house, so I was like “Sweet I’ll get my car back today and it’ll all be cool”. Unfortunately the thieves had a habit of burning cars they didn’t scrap (I guess to kill evidence or just because they are dicks). So we call the place it was towed unsure of the condition in which it arrived only to find that it was completely torched. Luckily it was paid off completely, but unfortunately the insurance was just switched to liability only a couple months ago.

Now I’m feeling that whole Vigilante Justice thing in my veins. I really just want to go drive around various country roads at 4am and randomly run into them during said robberies and beat the living fuck out of them. Not like, turn them into the police and see them put where the belong. I want to break bones and you know inflict massive amounts of pain before the cops come.

Life is annoying already. Do people really need to steal cars just to set them on fire. Like honestly I would have been OK if they never found the car and assumed it was scrapped and sold for parts. I can respect that in a thieves world, I don’t like it, but I can respect it. But to steal a car, just to get to another car and then burning it to a crisp…that is ridiculous. The police weren’t even going to check it for evidence, they were just going to let us pick it up and take it back home. What is the purpose of the blowing up of the car? Did I personally piss on your family or something? I don’t think I have done anything to these people, so I’m just curious what is wrong with them mentally. Must be something. I won’t be going all vigilante, but if I do happen to stumble upon them late at night I will definitely make sure they are caught, and hopefully it’ll be the sheriff I know who picks them up and he’ll allow me to break a knee cap or something .

I know this is poorly written…it is a rant…I’m already over the car thing as it is just a material item and it has served me well for many years. Now it is just like a moral thing, that whole fucking with other peoples shit thing. I’ve always respected other peoples property and it just baffles me.

Kansas City Wrap Up

Five days in Kansas City makes me realize that I need to get my ass moved there asap.  It’s nothing particularly special about Kansas City that makes this come to mind,  it’s more the lack of substance in St. Joseph.  The funny part about it was that I actually was quite sick and I worked three out of those five days while battling a nice throat cold.

Now that I am getting some hour cuts at my real job, I have possibly picked up two more jobs.  I think I’ll be going up to KC every other week to work for my brother at the print shop; then there is the CAD drawings that I will start working on for my Dad.  I also have to get more familiar with web design and find someones brain to pick.  I have the basic skills for it and plenty of extra time to pick up the rest.  All this plus my personal studies is keeping me quite occupied which is new for me.  Usually I have far too much time to kill, and far too few things to kill it with.  I guess this will be a trial run at KC living, though I will be basically at the beck and call of my brother due to lack of a drivers license, and sleeping on his couch.

Other happenings during the KC trip was the original reason for going, and that was a show at the Riot Room with Flee the Seen and some other metal bands which I didn’t really listen to.  I got a fair bit intoxicated by no fault of my own.  Apparently since I am rarely out in public it means that I must be given shots by anyone who knows me.  Who am I to turn down such gratious offers?  I think at one point I was even doing shots with the owner of the joint and my brother.  Overall it was a good time, super crowded but still fun.

Then Tuesday night I got to hang with Crystal and have some sushi.  Did some catching up on lifes happenings.  She is in the pro move Micah to Kansas City area, and is wanting to find a nice pretty girl as leverage.  Unfortunately I have no time for a girl in my life and I really don’t see a time opening up anytime in the near future.  I can’t even remember the last time I was dating someone during the holidays, I don’t think it has happened since high school.  After our sushi we went to The Brick for Bingo with Alicia Solo hosting and Kenton met us as well.  We enjoyed a few drinks (well actually I didn’t enjoy mine at all) and some good free bingo action.

Wednesday night was spent mostly on the couch because RL kept delaying my pickup so I could work.  I ended up not working and just watched a few movies til he got home.  We decided to have dinner and drinks at McCoys with his girlfriend Lisa.  McCoys is a very solid resteraunt if I do say so myself.  Usually very attractive waitresses and hostesses (our hostesses was a 9, but out waitress lacked and was probably a 6.5 maybe 7) and great beer and food.  I had Mom’s Mac and Cheese and one the brews and was more than satisfied.  After dinner and conversation we opted to go see Quantam of Solace on the Plaza.  The movie was quite entertaining, but I felt it didn’t really explain what the fuck was going on for the most part.  I’d give it a 7/10 for action and for Daniel Craig being a bad mothafucka.

That’s the wrap up for my little outing, it has been awhile since I’d left the house for social events.  I forgot how much I enjoy good social outtings.  Let’s see I guess I can leave with a jam I’ve been listening to recently…

Tiger Lou – The Loyal

Ten Bands / Albums in My Music Rotation

Just a quick list of the bands I am listening to right now, there a couple more in rotation but these are the main ten.  It will be listed Band (with myspace link if available) and then album.

1. Efterklang Parades
2. Detektivbyrån Wermland
3. The LK Vs The Snow
4. Fredrik Na Na Ni
5. God is an Astronaut All is Violent, All is Bright
6. Lonely China Day Sorrow
7. I’m From Barcelona Who Killed Harry Houdini?
8. The Twilight Sad Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters
9. The Lymbyc Systym Love Your Abuser Remixed
10. The Album Leaf Sealbeach EP

I may do a short review on all these but I will probably post them on Blackenheimer (the other blog I write for occasionally).  I will finish this post with a song that is getting the most play right now on my Ipod.

God is An Astronaut – Suicide by Star

Memorization

Over the past few weeks I’ve been working on memorizing every country on the planet and all the capitals.  It took me a little less than 3 days (probably an hour a day) of working on the countries with the help of this game, though it leaves out a few of the occupied territories and such.  However, learning the capitals is a little bit tricky.  I’ve yet to find a game or program that helps learn the capitals in an efficient manner.

It is not the most useful of skills, I know.  It was more to keep my brain on its toes.  I won’t say that I haven’t been actively learning during my travels and poker days, but unfortunately my book smarts still need some work.  My brain is really good at hearing something and then forgetting about it the next moment,  unless I’m actually focusing on said information; fortunately when I do concentrate and really work on something (and it can be for a short time), it stays with me.  Basically anything that helps me concentrate more on the information I am attempting to stuff into my brain is usually visual.

Learning straight from a book can be a bit tricky for me, especially when it comes to history.  Part of reading history is understanding the movements of the people you are studying, and the area in which this all takes place.  Unfortunately a good portion of the world has undergone various name changes and require you to have knowledge of not just the current names of the countries, but also the past names.  This leaves me constantly flipping to the back of the book where the maps are and then back to what I was reading.  Fortunately my office has plenty of copiers and I can just copy all the maps and then have them next to me.  Another major learning tool for the Reformation era is, well the Bible.  Understanding what these people actually believed in.

Catholic, Calvinist, Protestant, Anabaptist and then in the middle all the other religions that aren’t Christian based.   Understanding how religion played a role and helped shape Europe into what it is today is quite fascinating; especially since all the major religions are, like I said, Christian based.  I’ve made my feelings about religion (Christianity especially) known quite often since I left St. Joseph.  I have in fact taken a lighter feeling towards them, almost to the point of giving Christianity an actual retry in my life; not in the devoting my life to God or anything of that nature, but more in an observation role.  However, I also opened up to a lot of other religions and may approach a few others this way.  Richard Dawkins has said many times that to say you are 100% sure on any of the unknowable factors in life is ridiculous.  No one can claim that there isn’t a God with 100% certainty and vice versa.  I am going off base a bit, as I usually do when I blog, and I will probably blog about my current views of religion in a much nicer post then usual (in context to religion).

The main point of the above paragraph was just to shed some light on the period of time I am focusing on.  It is honestly one of the strangest eras in the sense that everyone held a fairly similar faith, yet their faiths were used for war and control.  I’ll concede the point that religion was in fact a disguise for real intentions in some of the cases.

I’ve gotten so far off topic that I’m just going to end it here.  Give the game a try and see how many countries you can get.  I can get all 195 in about 10 minutes.  I’ve memorized a little over half the Capitals of the World, but they are taking me much longer due to lack of a solid visual aide.

My Current Reading List

Currently Reading: The Reformation by Diarmaid MacCulloch

The Order in Which I Will Read the Following :

1. The European Dynastic Stats 1494 – 1660 by Richard Bonney
2. Seventeenth Century Europe: State, Conflict, and the Social Order in Europe, 1598 – 1700 by Thomas Munck
3. The Old European Order 1660 – 1800 by William Doyle
4. Europe: A History by Norman Davies

How Hard Could Life Planning Be?

That is the question I have asked myself for over a year.  How depressing.   Good thing I may be locating the light at the end of the tunnel; at least the end of the thought tunnel, not the actual plan tunnel.  I guess I should say it is very depressing that it took me over a year to even come to an idea of what I would like to do with my life.  So what is this big plan that I have come up with for my life? (I enjoy thinking other people have any interest in my thoughts!)

A career in International Relations.

I know that is fairly vague considering there are many different areas that you can use an IR degree.  I’ve been leaning and focusing my studies on the Middle East in hopes that by the time I am prepared to go into the business, the Middle East will still be a hotbed for International Relations.  Obviously that is hardly something to worry about considering the Middle East has been a mess for years.  Everything I am doing to prepare for this right now is on my own time.  I haven’t registered for schools or any thing of that nature for a multitude of reasons.

1. I didn’t do all that great in high school;  it wasn’t because I couldn’t but more along the lines of just not wanting to.  I have always had issue with busy work and school is the epitome of busy work.  Rarely are you taught something that you actually want to learn.  Gaining acceptance into University will take some preparation on my part and hopefully I can manage to learn enough to slip in.
2. General dislike of College.  I’m all for learning, however I enjoy learning on my own terms as opposed to someone dictating what I should and should not be studying.  The idea of being back in school and having to do work that has nothing to do with what I want to do with my life frustrates me.
3. This is more of an issue towards my choice of International Relations.  Obviously there will be a lot of communications classes for such a major and I’ve always had issue with these sorts of things.  I am not a public speaker.  When I was younger I had a speech impediment called ankyloglossia or tongue tie.  I still have issues once and awhile and I absolutely hate the way I talk because of it.  It is just one of those dumb psychological things that is caused by stupid childhood happenings, but it still bothers me.  I could get a very easy and quick surgery to fix it, but it may or may not even help at this point.  This issue brings up lots of problems considering I find it almost impossible to give any sort of public speech.  I guess this is one of those things I’ll really have to work on and maybe even see a speech therapist about.

Just a few things I have to deal with on my road to the world of government affairs.  It’s ok though, I have plenty of things to keep me busy while I work on all those issues.  Currently I am studying European history, where I had a friend of a friend who goes to Harvard get me a syllabus for a class taught by Steven Ozment.  The class is on the Reformation era and thus far is very intriguing.  I’ve always had a major interest in religion and its effects on humanity, and there is really no time more interesting in the scheme of religion than the Reformation.  As for my Middle East research, I figure I will follow up with that after I cover a good amount of European history.  I am currently learning Farsi on my own, and have the necessary learning tools for Arabic after or with Farsi.  I figure if I become semi fluent in a language such as Farsi, my chances for acceptence into an International Relations program will be greatly increased.  It took me a year to figure out what I wanted, but I have a feeling that a year will be nothing in comparison to the time it will take me to actually make it into the field of International Relations.

Starting from Scratch

The past year of my life has been fairly stagnant compared to the four or five preceeding years.  I’ve accomplished very little other than living the normal paycheck to paycheck life.  My days consisted of waking up late for work; Arriving at work; Working til 5pm; Driving home from work; Cooking dinner; play World of Warcraft; Sleep; Repeat.  This was my routine up until about two months ago when I decided to leave my house and head back to live with my parentals (Yeah I know, very loserish eh), quit World of Warcraft, and actually start trying to figure out my long term life plans.

A brief background on my life before this.   After graduating (barely) from High School, I ended up becoming a semi successful online poker player.  I say barely graduated because I had missed so many days of school my Senior year, they really didn’t want to give me my diploma.  As for the online poker front, I really only got by because of friends.  There was a lot of travelling that took place during those four years.  The people and the places I saw helped shape my world view and overall personality.

I made the decision in March of 07′ to return to my home town (St. Joseph  MO) from San Jose  Costa Rica and to figure out what I was going to do with my life as opposed to just living off of someone elses.  Thus far I have made little progress, hence the statement about the stagnant life.  I have a round about plan, or rather a plan that isn’t going to be exactly easy to accomplish by any stretch of the imagination.  Unfortunately it is the only one that has any appeal to me at all, other than give up, work at a gaming store of some type, and disappear into gaming until I die.

A big part of life that is hard for me to fathom giving up on for however long is the travel.  Honestly, staying in one place for any long period of time is tricky for me.  I’m not the most social of people, and on many occasion am known to declare that I hate everyone.  This is usually in jest, so lets just say I’m not very big on socializing.  I have no issue dropping everything and going to some random country on the map.  There is a big portion of the world that I still would like to experience, and by experience, I mean before I am 35.  I figure at some point that whole get married and settle down thing might actually make sense to me, so I want to get the travelling out before that part of my life kicks in.  That isn’t to say that I won’t want to travel when / if I have a family and kids, but obviously there is a difference between family travel and single travel that I don’t need to explain.

I guess this can be called my new beginning, at the age of … well 24 in about 39 days.  I’ve tried on multiple occassions to start a blog, but typically for the wrong reasons.  The right reason I guess would be for self improvement.  I’m not really writing this down to entertain others, but more as a reminder to myself that this is what I am doing.  If someone were to read this and find it entertaining or helpful or whatever, then so be it.  However, if I write to entertain I will quickly run out of things to say and realize that my life is not all that entertaining, and it is in no means special in comparison to anyone elses.  Lets see if this will help me keep the blog in motion, or if it dies out like my other tries.