Willpower

I’m broke. Not the ‘I quit, I cannot do this anymore’ broke, the ‘I have no money’ broke. It is kind of the reason for me being so quiet; I have been locked down in tests from school and had no money to get anything done on the car. I paid off Katrina, and bought a new computer, so that quickly drained any funds I could have had. The good thing with paying off Katrina was that I am not losing a 1/3 of my monthly car payments to interest! I have saved myself about $800 by paying the car off early. Sure it was a risk running myself that low on cash, but I am very careful with finances and figured it would be alright, and it was.

Onto the actual title of the post. I am actually quite frustrated with myself, as for some reason I cannot find the willpower to do things I think I want to do. Somehow I get caught up in something else, lose track of time, and end up getting nothing I wanted to do done. An example would be watching TV or playing a computer game instead of working on the car, working out, working on code, or doing homework. I know some of these things aren’t fun, but some of them are things I really really want to get done, but I can’t get started and keep working on them consistently and I don’t know why. The problem is is if I am not consistently checking myself to make sure I am doing what I should or doing one of the harder things I enjoy, I slide right back into basically doing nothing productive and it is getting frustrating. I wish I had more to say but I don’t, I just need to just keep at the more difficult things I want to do and force myself to do the things I have to do.

Will you defeat them, your demons?
–Sooner Dead

Burnout

Burn-Out, noun: (1) Spinning the tires of a vehicle faster than it is moving, causing smoke to come off the tires. (2) fatigue, frustration, or apathy resulting from prolonged stress, overwork, or intense activity.

Since my last update, things have just got more and more stressful and the combination of work and school is quite a bit more than I expected. I think I am getting sick, but not the normal sick where you feel bad for a couple days, the exhaustive annoying sickness that is kind of in the background but lasts forever and it is merely making things worse. This exhaustive, stressful state seems to be my constant plight, so I am not surprised by this, but remaining steadfast with a shoulder lowered toward the coming impact remains more and more difficult.

Last of my whining for this post, I promise, as things aren’t all bad – in fact, some things are quite good. I am ordering the rest of my new gaming computer tomorrow, hopefully it will all come together well next week and will keep me up to date for the next couple years. I have spent less than $1000 building it, making it my cheapest build to date, but it is surprisingly powerful as I didn’t really skimp in any area. I can’t wait to have it together as Team Fortress 2 is being released Monday, BioShock is already out, and Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and Portal are being released October 10th. I am very excited, though I am still greatly anticipating the release date of Spore, which looks to be one of those market changing games.

You gotta be bigger, be faster, be stronger, if you’re going to survive any longer
–Sooner Dead

No Brakes!

As was the focus of the last post, life has been busy, hence the lack of recent posts. Shelley and I got to go out to the car on Saturday, she secured the ram air vents and we worked at troubleshooting the parking brakes. While we didn’t actually fix them (hence the title of this post), and now are searching for how to fix. I am hopeful that the car will be running soon and be able to drive around the parking lot or something.

On to other news; I am building a new computer here in the next month. My old computer is now two years old and there are some awesome games coming up like BioShock, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Portal, Team Fortress 2, and Spore. Needless to say, my old computer won’t run 4/5ths of those games at least, an depending on the system requirements of the one I think it could run, it may be all 5 not being able to play. So I am building a 2 core system built primarily for gaming for approximately $1000. Not too bad if I do say so myself.

Why am I fixing brakes on a non running car? It isn’t like it is going to go anywhere!
–Sooner Dead

A Side Of Life

I have kind of neglected posting anything remotely related to my personal life in the past couple posts, and it is something I will try to avoid posting about because most people could care less; though every now and then I do actually have something worth posting about. I am currently going on a diet, I have been on it for a little less than a weak. For the most part I have ignored my poor physical condition because I enjoy food and it really hasn’t affected me. Being short-sighted common problem with people, myself included, and I am finally realizing the consequences my life will have if I don’t start changing my habits. An added perk of the this weight loss is that after I am able to lose all the weight I need to to be at a healthy weight and Valarie is running, I will of dropped a tenth of a second of the quarter mile time just by my own weight losses.

Both of my AMS abstracts are now done and submitted, and I should hear if they are approved in a month or so. School is starting on Monday and I expect the free time I have enjoyed with working full time over the summer will disappear as I still work part time and have a full load of coursework. If history is any indicator, this will hurt my work on Valarie, but like my previous attempts at auto restoration and dieting, this time I am really really serious. I have thing set up pretty good in my life so now I am going to focus on the things I have let slip to the side in order to better round my life. A good career and a wonderful woman is great and can really make life worth living, but there is health and that little place you need to go to relieve some stress and clear the mind that is also important to have

One final note of temptation: Valve (makers of the Half-Life series) have announced they will be selling BioShock, an absolutely amazing looking first person shooter hybrid through Steam, Valve’s internet distributed gaming software. I was going to avoid going to the stores and picking it up, but now I don’t know how I can resist.

Oh yeah, and I am marrying a model – booyah
–Sooner Dead

Keep On Rollin’

What is this? Three journal entries within nearly one months times? Brilliant!

Tons of stuff to update, so let’s get on it. So far Bridgette is still around, but the end of school is approaching as of next week Friday, so that is when I will be going to buy a vehicle – assuming I find one. Also, the weekend after finals are over I plan on installing the gauges – bringing yet another in-depth guide – and this one will be take more than one ‘beverage’ probably. I have received the 15×8 snowflake wheels, along with the lug nuts and center caps. I also have saved around $200 from what I expected to pay for them, not including the equipment I have to buy in order to restore these, which will probably be $100, but still save me $300 from buying them refinished. When I visit home this late summer I will stop by The Tire Rack (~30 minutes from my house), and pick up some big tires to put on the newly refinished wheels, all shipping and handling free I might add. A guide that covers changing door locks has been posted in the automotive guide section. Overall it is about an hour or so worth of work if you have never done it before, piece of cake assuming nothing goes horribly horribly awry. With finals approaching I will probably not be able to update anything on this site until at least 5/15, but I guess that isn’t so bad as it is only 12 days away. As always, once this semester breaks I should have Valarie at my apartment complex and be able to get started on the list of around 30 items to work on and finish by the time next semester begins. This summer should be a real good staging point to get a lot of little stuff done as well as kick up some momentum, even though my next semester looks to be my hardest.

I also hope I will not be locked onto my computer for many weeks on end while playing Half Life 2: Episode 1. While this will in all likelihood be an excellent game, being only 6 or so hours in duration will allow me to finish playing it (three or four times) in only a couple days time – thusly allowing me to return to working on my car and preparing for next semester by relearning all of calculus and ordinary differential equations.

This week is called ‘dead week,’ and it is kind of like calling a huge guy ‘Tiny.’
–Sooner Dead