No, not dead in life, just online. ;)

A wonderful young woman was playing the piano here, it was very touching to hear the melody. Made this piece of junk boil in my head. :? Read and suffer. :)

Soundwaves - By John C.

Sound is just vibration,
moving through the air,
no greater purpose, or hidden mysteries,
that's what science tells us,
and that's what we believe,
but now to ask a question out of you.

Why can music move us,
and leave us far behind,
or feel things we've never felt before,
to make us laugh, and make us cry,
to make us feel whole,
my friend, how could vibration do all that?

Off again all, off again.

Intelligence For Your Life:

A. The security guards at John's college do NOT like him...
B. John has not been, and will not be, going online, bar rare occasions...for some weeks at the least
C. The guards REALLY don't like John...
D. He wishes you all a happy holidays, and apologizes that his microphone has died and carols are out of the question.
E. The guards regularly disbatch a team to go after John...
F. John has secured four A's in college...again...and can now attempt certification with Cisco Networking Systems if he wants.
G. John also has grown to dislike the guards...

-John

...9 out of 10 doctors advise against it...and the rest of them just hate people in general. :lol:

-

Hello All,

I'll get back to thingets on here soon, like a song for Alex to sing his heart out with. ;) But for now, time to vent out a couple of odd happenings in my day. :P

The biggest one was getting my first 'surprise' final exam...you see, the teacher decided that schedules are boring, so he told us at the last class that our hands on final was due during the same class period. Then he prattled off entirely, and insanely, random teams for it. Somehow, I guess by the grace of god or something, I actually didn't get an idiot. :shock:

Oh, I also got a bit of an offer to come apply for a job...its with a rather large and successful company, with the products they market being sold in, um, 70 something countries by vendors, with branches of the actual company in places from Australia, to the USA, to the UK, to India...yeah, big place. I really have my reservations that I would get the job if I applied...but I do have a contact within the company who said he would vouch for my skills and abilities. Not sure if I will...I'd hate to pass up a rather golden opportunity, yet I am not really in the position to go for a full-time job with a major corporation. :?

Well, thats about it for the night...wanted to vent about the job thing, but nobody I know around here is awake. :lol: Now its time to force myself to sleep, though it may prove impossible, as I have a poem (of all blasted things), bubbling in my head, and it doesn't want to go away, but I don't entirely want to write it either. Anyways, enough babbling, why do you people even read this slop anyways? :roll: A goodnight, good day, good morning, good noontide, wherever you are, whenever you are, a good something with my best wishes attached. ;) (oh, thats why you read it...cause I'm just such a sweetheart :roll: :lol: )

- John

Hello All,

Weeupdate of something.

My computer is atiny bit old *cough*100 BC*/cough* and its been a tempermental little blighter as time has worn on. Now, well, the bugger has gotten a bit more tempermental, and I no longer have internet access at my apartment...since I rarely come here at remotely normal times, that probably lowers my chances of seeing your witty blogs. ;)

Its problems,including the obvious kicker of old age, are getting beyond my ability to repair...and that is honestly saying something. Especially "lovely" is the lack of internet access, as more of my classes have internet components than not. :?So, time to tighten the old belt, got to save money somewhere. Parts aren't cheap after all, we all know that.

Anyways, best wishes all, since I may not be around,hope you have a MerryChrismakwanzhaunadan seasoneverybody...I amusing that to make sure thatI alienate and insult everybody I can at once. :lol: :D Now off to do four tests that I had yet been unable to do because of no connection...and then the pages of darn work. :?

- John

Happy Holidays, dead in it's grave,
Season's Greetings a faint memory,
Merry Christmas insults too few at a time,
so Chrismakwanzhaunadan for me. :P

Hello All,

Been a bit since I have slung something out onto this chunk of webspace that cnet has foolishly allowed me the use of. So I guess I will give a bit of insight into some of the many happenings in my life, things have possibly slowed down a little bit, but my life is honestly still akin to a rollercoaster in a land without laws against endangerment or indirect murder. :D

First off, a bit of gaming news I think would be warranted.

I've been a gamer for a small bit of time now, about the entirety of my life, but my family has only a spotty history of gaming. Therefore, it is my sworn and solemn duty to convert them to "see the light, and hear the siren call, of gaming." ;)

Its gone well, what with my brother following in my footsteps (when he gets a little older I'm introducing him to shooters so I can take him online and laugh as he pwns n00bs :P) and my dad liking the Mechwarrior games. But still, imagine my surprise when I get an email from my folks, saying that they are trying to buy a Wii and cannot find one. :shock:

I, obviously, braved the stores of Northern California to find them a Wii...which was mostly a losing battle since they sell out within minutes at most stores in my city. But, I have connections, and eventually tracked down a Wii in another nearby city. So, for this week, I've had a Wii sitting in my apartment for "quality assurance testing," alongside Super Mario Galaxy. No, I didn't think they would be broken...but could I still be a card-carrying gamer if I had NOT offered to test it? I think not! 8) By the way, if you have a Wii, get Super Mario Galaxy, it is a GOOD game. ;)

Hmm, school...I'm very happy about one thing in my Russian History class...it will soon be over. The text is pretty much garbage, and the teacher...lets not even go there. :| As for grades, they've been the normal kind for me, so my GPA of 4.0 is going to stay intact. (For those unknowing of what I mean, GPA is an American measure of how well you have done during your entire career at a school, 4.0 is the highest and means nothing but top marks on all final class grades.) I also found out that, by some insane bit of luck, I got the very last room in the college dorms...means I will be moving again, but also means I'll be shelling out less rent, and won't have to drive through rush hour to get to class.

Now you might wonder what the singing up there in the title is...my dad tossed a box of old computer junk at me, and I found a wee little microphone in it, and I might be taken by my special sense of insanity and end up singing ya'll a Christmas carol...yes it is a threat. :P On a side note, do people normally know what they sound like personally? Because whenever I hear a recording of myself, I barely recognize it.

I also just picked up a book, "Horus Rising" for all you 40k'ers out there, its a Sci-Fi novel that had gotten allot of acclaim from those I've talked to about it. I was skeptic even with their support, as the few Sci-Fi novels I've seen have normally been *insert bad word here*. However, this book was very skillfully crafted, and entertaining enough that I finished the 412 pages in the evening I bought it. May have to get the next in the series now, then again, I have always been much more interested by good books than most other forms of entertainment, including games...

On the last note of insanity, I just got my picture taken with Santa for Christmas. :P

Hope you all have a good one, I'll be back to stalk the comments eventually, and maybe add things I totally forgot. :roll:

-John

Hello All,

I had said that I was planning on telling a story from my past, something to entertain the masses. Tonight finds me a wee bit down, rather sore, and just a tad exhausted, so I'm not up to telling one of my stories...but late this evening I was reminded of a story I heard a long time ago, and its one that deserves retelling so I am not the only repository of it.

I first heard this story, related in part, back when the better portion of the readers of this blog were very small children. But it is far older than that short stretch of time, most of those here were not yet born, and I would venture to say that even the eldest were but babies when it actually happened if they had been born at all.

-

On the streets of San Francisco there was a young man, a worker in his heart, but the rest of him had become haggard by the ministrations of an unkind world. Life had honestly beaten him, he had no money, no job, no home, and no person to turn to, not even to merely talk with. He had not given up fully on life, but it was impossible to think that it might start being kind...it would have just been too much of a change.

He lived on the street, just one of many whom were too poor to do anything else. Unlike many of the others though, he tried his best to find a job, but no employer would look twice at the man before them...too unkempt, too ragged, for them to waste their time upon. He had not been on the streets long, and each failure took away a bit of his drive to press on, and added to the growing chance that life merely would not let him get by.

It did not take long before he was forced to ask any he saw for help, not for a handout, but for a chance to work at any odd job...just for a bite of food. Few, as is the norm in San Francisco, would give him the time of day, but he had no choice to the contrary, a man must eat. The requests worked, rarely, but, on occasion they worked.

One day he asked a man for something to do, hoping for perhaps a sandwich in trade for some menial labor, and the man said he would help, asking him to get into the truck. The man took him back to his home, and gave him lunch. Then the man told him to get cleaned up in the shower and showed him clean clothes he could put on. After dinner the man gave him a small sum of money and sent him back into the world once again, only smiling with a twinkle in his eyes when asked why, and saying he respected a man who work instead of handouts.

-

In many stories the young man would now go on to become something great, or he would repay the other older man in time...but I do not tell fairy tales, and this is no exception. The young man went on to get a job, nothing spectacular, but he would be able to support himself and have a place to live. Perhaps he found a wife in time, perhaps he made a family, the only thing I know is that he would always be able to remember kindness and what it can do, that even the smallest bit of kindness paid can change the world of another person.

I will never know the young man, nor even his name; but the other man, the older one with the twinkling eyes, was my grandfather, a man of kindness...

-John

Hello Once Again,

This one will be broken into sections, take it slowly, or not at all. :lol:

Edit: Forgot to thank you all for the lovely kindness about the poetry-thing bloggy I did the other day. :P

So the apartment...not quite as nice as the family kept saying it was. Sure, I had been here to look it over too, but I only had a few minutes to look it over, so I missed a couple of things. A quartet of gems for your amusement:

[spoiler]

The stove, that blighter has issues with controlling its temperature, when I put it on 400 it apparently stayed within about 50 degrees of what I set it to, 50 higher, 50 lower, makes cooking like a game right?

The dishwasher, this one has aspirations of being an automatic-floor-washer, only problem is, it doesn't have a mop built-in. Found this out during mid-operation when I noticed a sound a water trickling...I'm going to take the guess that the water gushing under the counter is likely not a good thing. ;)

The air-conditioner...I cannot adequately describe it without profanity...suffice it for me to say that it has been 80+ degrees (27+ celsius) in here (minimum) all day, and a fair bit of the night...take into consideration that its about that hot outside, or cooler...

Finally, the front door. Um, normally the point of a front door is to keep things out...the deadbolt does this job, but the other one? I think it really likes having guests. :roll:

[/spoiler]

Other apartment stuff

[spoiler]

Oh, I am posting this from the 'comfort' of my apartment floor. For those not reading the comments in the other blogs, I happened to gain access to a nearby wireless connection. :D One of the side-effects is that the connection has filtering software, therefore all my postings are coming from tv.com...and I cannot see any emoticons...GS or photobucket ones. I must applaud the maker of the filter...because it does not hurt online gaming or MSN in the slightest. :lol:

Some of my friends, reality and internet, have developed the opinion that my neighborhood here is bad. It may be, but honestly it doesn't seem too bad to me, just a few lackluster people around and all. I've told a couple of them a simple reasoning behind me thinking it not too bad. Where I am now I hear police with their sirens all the time, but that means they are doing something. Where I used to live (back when I was in a 'city' ), if gunshots went off, if people had fights in the street, screaming about fouled up drug-deals, just about everything...the cops wouldn't come. It says something about a place when the cops DON'T go there, and I personally like hearing the sirens here. :lol:

[/spoiler]

Life

[spoiler]

Now a little about how life has been treating me. The important things are that I am alive, and things should lighten up eventually...though that hasn't been the case as of late. A friend of mine has been needing some help, and coupling that with school, moving, and everything else, has been hard. The pressure got to me, and when something came up in conversation with someone, a little piece of John broke into way too many pieces and little bits of it got stuck in my mind's gears. :lol: I started to slip into a powerful depression, but my stubborness kept it from getting too much control, as I felt I had to help my friend and that there would be time for sulking later. It was fairly bad depression...the kind where your body aches some, can't sleep, don't eat, don't want to get up. Bad part was that I was already aching, couldn't sleep, and didn't want to eat naturally. :P

A time or so later, don't really know how long, found me praying as I sat alone in a chair. I have never prayed like a 'normal' person in my life, its more just me talking to myself without a hint of reverance and wondering if something is listening. I don't care what transpired, if you're religious then you can say God saved my ragged butt, and if not, you can say my mind started to come to grips with all the grim things in my life. The important thing is that I had, I guess, a sort of ephitany (I'm sure veni-vidi-vici would be thrilled :P) and started to piece myself back together. I doubt anybody around me (barring a special few) even noticed my trouble, as I keep this kind of stuff on a John-to-John basis.

[/spoiler]

Pretty soon I plan on just taking some time to sleep and recover from all the abuse I'm putting my body through. ;) The good news is that I probably will be slightly more together after I am done putting glue in all the cracks. :lol:

That covers WAY more than any of you want to know, so I'll finish off. :P Oh, nearly forgot the most lovely part of today...a new computer table I bought...I would have been better off buying boards and making one. :| When I tightened one of the fasteners, by hand, I ended up breaking the metal into two pieces...I did this lovely trick twice before I decided to stop. :lol: Its getting returned tomorrow, and then I might look at boards at Home Depot. :P

Anyhoo, best of luck to all of you, hope things are going, or will start going, well for you all...I imagine this gives a little reasoning to my spotty posting. ;)

-John

"In the journey of a hundred years, do the miles really count?" -John

- John

Hello All,

Yep, me again all.

Ya'll might remember that I've been trying for an apartment so I don't have to drive quite as far, I've found one, and its waiting for me. Going to go down tomorrow with a fistful of dollars...and then some...and claim it as my own, then I'll start moving what I own down to the city. No internet at the apartment, unless I can steal someone's wireless, so less John, especially at insane hours.

I've finished one of my college courses now, still waiting on the final grade, but the second half of it has started up, so my schedule is still full. I actually expected to fail the paper final, as I first tried to study the review sheet about 10 minutes before I left in the car, couldn't even understand the questions. Apparently the review was just garbage though, the 50 odd question test took me next to no time, and I got a 90 something out of it.

After that they made us do a hands-on final, in teams. Out of my team, one was diabetic and suffering from low blood sugar at the moment so all he got done was making a cable, another ran the cabling between a couple of the switches and whatnot, and the other two just stood there, not having a clue of what to do...I obviously took up the slack because I didn't want to fail horribly. I actually feel bad because the two slackers got a perfect score due to the work of the other members...I still don't think a final should be team-based. :|

I guess one of the next things I'll be doing is seeing if I can fit a job in my schedule, and seeing if I can find one that wants me and doesn't want experience or full-time hours. A couple of note on the college's job board: Gardener, Network Technician, and Nude Model. The gardener is self explanatory, the network technician would be part-time for a church (I do not know why a church needs a network big enough to have a technician), and nude model is for the figure drawing class at the college. The technician has the exceptional bonus of being really good on a resume, as I would be helping a church and working in my field at the same time.

More probably happened, but its late and I have to get up in a few scant hours to be back on the road again so I'll leave any good bits for later. Wondering why I wrote this much then? I took a medication to help me sleep, but I didn't take enough so its not fighting the insomnia, and if I take more it will still be hitting me while I'm driving...ergo my only hope is to pass out before the sun rises or something...

- John

Hello All,

Yes, it is me again, don't worry, should be the last one for a time or two. :P Just figured that I had to add to the latent whirl of psychosis, that some tell me was supposed to actually be the second week in October, with my story.

It mostly is the peak of a build up of forces that have been churning for awhile now, and for those with short attention spans I will summarize: John worked himself PAST his limit to near insanity; he apparently angered his mother; he is now going to live in an apartment 90+ miles away for awhile; he finally got paid his rightful financial support (3 months late); and he didn't quite f-up his major project that he has been slaving on for weeks. :| Ok, now all you short attention span people go look at a pretty butterfly. :P

Ok, for those who want to read a little more. :roll:

Apartment :| [spoiler] I've been having escalating problems with the family, mostly with my mother, and they came to a head a short while ago. I still have no clue whatsoever (yes I did ask them) why exactly they got so very angry, and at times very nasty, so quickly.

One night, after returning from cl@ss at the normal time of midnight, I found my mother waiting for me, a few words that were normal were passed around, and then she let loose. I think she was rather confused, because no matter how low she hit with her words, I would not say anything back. (John's anger was too close to boiling to safely say anything) I was a bit hurt by the comment that I have done nothing useful at all for well over a year, I personally would say I do have some uses...like providing free technical work, normally running $50 an hour easily...they would probably have had to pay thousands in just a year for what I provide on just that. Still, I am happy to say I held my tongue the entire time.

That led to the decision that I am going to be staying down in the city in an apartment, probably a one bedroom from the looks of it, for some reason they would be cheaper than a studio. :? That was a bit distressing, because at that point I would have had to break into my long-term savings in order to pay for anything. Now I'm in a bit better shape financially, and on Tuesday I'm going to go look at a couple of places, and if I like what I see, I could be moving on the weekend. [/spoiler]

Project :D [spoiler] My project for school, I think I have referenced this allot, was to re-do the entire computer and networking system for a small corporation, along with a team-mate. Last Thursday happened to be the day we presented what turned into a large and very complex design, it was a oral presentation, given as if you were attempting to sway the company's administrators to hire you.

Most of the presenters, as would be expected of aspiring network technicians, were as compelling and exciting as long dead fish sitting in the sun. I was, extraordinarily energetic that night because of a good morning, and injected what was already a compelling project with tasteful humor, intelligence, and backstory behind our choices...in the end, it seems we had over-thought the project, but we also knew that we would have gotten the job with no contest had it been real. I also found that I can place rather exceptional confidence in my ability to speak in public, because it is extremely natural for me. :) [/spoiler]

Tuesday o_0 [spoiler] Ok, now Tuesday, the 9th, of last week...most of the people I have talked to in person, and many online had something odd happen that day, or in some cases, a whole hell of allot of odd somethings. :lol:

Personally, I woke up feeling not as bad as the day before. (when I nearly had a breakdown when a couple hours of hard work got destroyed on my computer :|) But it really was still a pretty bad day in the beginning, until I got my mail. I actually got a couple very nice things in it, and the one I will tell you all about was getting a check for my financial aid, probably the moment I most needed good news to prevent a total brain crash, it came. (mind, it should NOT have come by any means when it did, 99% chance of NO)

That lifted my spirits for the rest of the day immensely, and marked a point after which my life has become more manageable. Later that day I ended up having a row with my parents, again, and this one ended with them being dead-set on still wanting me gone for awhile, but also wanting to help fiscally with my departure. o_0 Later still, I ended up getting some of my most important work done...yet I found a hole in the project's development that could have destroyed it and had to stay up till 4 to fix it. :?

Overall, the day had many, many, many, big things happen, some good, some bad, some that I will not even venture to guess upon. :lol: [/spoiler]

So, yeah, lots of stuff happening, not sure if I will be able to be online much because my apartment will not have internet as I will be too poor :wink: (unless I can leach wireless :D)...so those with my MSN, I may not be on much, though that may become the best way to contact me, so ask for it if you want it...though I only give it to special people after my experience of getting bugged allot. :P

Oh yeah, the title comes from the Jimmy Buffet song "Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes," not a bad song, I know it fairly well.

- Sincerely, Best Wishes, and Love, (pick that which applies best to you :wink: ), John

(P.S. Yes Orkhammer, you are probably the only one to notice that this blog is categorized as fashion. :wink: )

(P.P.S This took me less than ten minutes to write if you wondered why I spend so much time making blogs. :lol: )