Spring Break

Sorry it has taken me so long to post, but there is a good reason for it: I have been busy getting a job. Yeah, I know I already have two, but those are just college jobs and this one is the start of a career. This has been a very hectic few weeks as I interviewed, waiting for callbacks and doing even more interviewing. I even had a business ethics choice to make already and while I had a difficult choice, I had a lot of great people behind me, most of all my fiance. Speaking of my fiance, it has also been a rough week with her; she lost both dogs that she grew up with in less than a week.

So what this career thing means is that I will have much more time to spend working on Valarie because I no longer need to go to class all day, only to come home and have to worry about homework or tests. I work from 8am until 5pm and when I come home, all the rest of the time can be spent doing whatever I wish. The only downside is, because I will no longer be receiving student loans, I will be technically be getting less money, so I won’t have as much to go around to work on Valarie, especially since I need to be saving for the wedding and a home. As always, family come first over possessions, I would sell Valarie and everything else I owned before I put my family in any financial struggle.

I start my new career on Monday, so I will be busy learning the ins and outs of the job for a little bit and once school is out I may be able to really get a lot of work done. I hope to drive Valarie around a little bit this summer at least – and if I can’t do that maybe it is time to admit defeat.

Apparently I am about to join the rat race
–Sooner Dead

Hold On

Hello from New Orleans, or as the locals say “N’awlins.” The food down here is, in a word, amazing – assuming you like seafood. I haven’t stepped outside the seafood / Cajun / creole genre since I never get to eat this food at home. If it wasn’t for the fact I don’t much care for anything else in the city, I would live here just for the food.

Of course N’awlins isn’t all fun and clogging one’s arteries! I am very very busy while I am down here. I am always very busy. Why is that, you may ask? It’s actually very simple. Meteorology graduates out-pace demand for meteorologist on the order of 4 to 1. Well, jeez, that kind of sucks, that means for every job for a meteorologist, there are 4 meteorologists to fill it. That means to be competitive, I have to be one of the top 25% of meteorologists, in my national graduating class of ~600, that means I have to be one of the top 150 students. But wait, there’s more! Private companies (the ones I am interested in) only employ 30% of the total jobs. So, 30% of 150 is 45. So now, statistically, there is only 45 jobs available per year for me. Let’s have some fun and say about 50% of those jobs are purely forecasting, which is not what I do, 50% of 45 is 23 (rounding up). 23 jobs left. I think I would take those odds, be one of the 23 best meteorologists in a group of 92. Here is the big rub: I have to stay in Oklahoma, eliminating 90% of my potential job base, 10% of 23 is 2.3, and since there is no such thing as a 0.3 job, we are down to *TWO* jobs. Now I have to be one of the best *TWO* meteorologists in a group of 92, that is much harder, and the reason as to why I have to work so hard. But all this work will be paid off in the end you may say, right? WRONG. A BS in Meteorology pays, on average, slightly *LESS* than a secondary school teacher, and is one of the only sciences where the pay difference from a BS to MS isn’t enough to justify the extra time spent. It’s fun finding out how choices made so long ago can so greatly impact the rest of your life – and for the negative. The previous post said it best: “House of Cards.”

Sorry I went all emo, but these blog things are sometimes the best way to complain out loud and pretend someone actually cares, when, from what I have seen, not even the people closest to you do. I will try not to take it as personally that perfect strangers don’t care than I do when people close to me don’t care.

My survival, still so uncertain.
–Sooner Dead

Michigan Adventure

I have been on a well deserved ‘vacation’ and visiting my family back home. As always, Shelley came with me and – as always – the snow melted just before we came up. Featuring I have been wanting to show Shelley a true ‘Michigan winter’ for some time, this was very disappointing. Luckily for both of us, however, unlike the previous years, this year had snow in our future. And not just a little snow – a lot – of snow. A front came through and dropped about 4-6″ on top of the ~2″ base of snow we already had. This isn’t anything to write home about, at least until the lake effect snow machine started up in high gear. Once the lake effect snow machine got going it started snowing heavy and it didn’t stop for anything. When it was all said and done we were sitting around 2.5 feet of snow.

We now had plenty of snow to go snowmobiling and plenty of ice to go ice fishing – and did we ever take advantage of this opportunity. In fact, Shelley found her new favorite hobby: snowmobiling. We really had a blast, but like all good things, it had to come to an end and now I am back home and it is time to start working again.

There is so much to do between now and the next month it is almost sad, but there is great opportunity to be had as well. I also really want to change Shelley’s favorite hobby from snowmobiling to drag racing, as she has never drag raced before. I want to get the car running soon, I need to get the car running soon – but this is all reliant on that little thing I previously mentioned called ‘will power’.

I slam the gas down and hear just stuttering
–Sooner Dead

Winter Intersession

Well it is that time of year again, when there is a nice gap between semesters so I can rest my busy head again. Unfortunately, this intersession is a little different from the last. I am very busy trying to get my AMS paper finished, withdrawing another paper, and also hoping to get far enough along with the tornadogenesis project that we can write a paper to KDD. That is a lot to have on my plate in the next couple months, all the while keeping an eye out for potential jobs and preparing to graduate.

I do have some ideas on how to work on the car between now and then though, so I am getting my mind all gathered up for a big push before next semester begins since I never know how much free time I will have after that. The one good thing coming up is that after I get a job and do the 9-5 thing, I will have much more time to actually work on the car. One other piece of good news is that I finally found the time to write up not one, but *two* more guides for your viewing pleasure! The new guides are replacing the license plate lens and installing a valve cover breather, as you can see all the guides I have posted here.

Just keep on trying ’til you run out of cake
–Sooner Dead

Atrophy

I was driving home yesterday, tired from yet another day going to school and working for over 12 hours again. It was around 11 o’clock at night and a fresh mist was falling on the ground, leaving a glisten on the roads indicative of traction begging to be broken. While Katrina may not be a muscle car, lots of low end torque and very little weight on the rear allows for some fun. It was at this moment I was about to put my right foot to the floor when my calf started to hurt. It was then I realized just how much I missed driving a muscle car around. Many fun times were had with Shelley and I in a muscle car, and I feel many more will be had. So now, as I work and go to school, it is as though every time I see or think about a muscle car it is just a dream I cannot reach.

Though with this school semester coming to a close, I hay have some good news soon.

I think I need to exercise my accelerator foot some more
– Sooner Dead

PS: I’m Still Alive

Typical… silence on the wire… I apologize… Like what happens every time in school, I overload myself with promises and guarantees that I just can’t backup if I give myself any time to just relax. This is the same problem that has reoccurred each semester. I think it is because by the time I enroll into classes and pick my work hours each semester, I forget what a nightmare the last semester was and in a moment of weakness or stupidity (or both) I try to do too much. Oh well, such is the life of me.

There are benefits to me probably cutting a couple years off my life from a bleeding ulcer or something – I have one really, really nice resume; and as such, I should get a really good stable job. So I guess losing those years aren’t so bad, they crappy ones in the later years anyway where I would probably spend all day drooling on myself anyway because the government would have already of permanently banned me from driving (and probably deservedly so if all goes as planned). Either way, this good stable job that exists in theory, will allow me both time and money to work on the car, save for a house, and buy things for Shelley (I trust she will read this, so I must put this in here). Give it time, the holidays are coming, and I will soon have a little bit to work on Valarie. Until then:

I’m doing science and I’m still alive
–Sooner Dead

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

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

Da-Da-Da-DaDa-Da-Da-DaDaDaDaDa

Saturday, Shelley and I decided to go to the new Simpsons movie. We were both concerned that it just wouldn’t be very good and it would be the Fox network squeezing out any cash they could from this very popular series. Boy were we wrong, the movie was absolutely awesome. I enjoyed myself thoroughly, and most of the movie was spent picking myself off the (admittedly dirty) movie floor from laughing so hard. If you like the Simpsons at all it is a must see. Below is a picture of me as a Simpsons character from the site SimpsonizeMe; while the site isn’t the most accurate when it comes to portraying you as a Simpsons character (it gave me brown hair?), you can make changes to it.

Other stuffs going on: I am sick with a little bug, probably a cold or something. Work is going well despite having to re-extract 6GB of storm data, twice. Shelley will be going back home for two weeks, which sucks because now I am going to be lonely. And I am trying to make myself better around the house by choosing chores to do after I get home from work, but when I do get home from each day I just want to relax. As the 9-5, 40-hour work week is going to be getting pretty standard from here on out, I really need to get used to it and find the energy do help around the house so I can do fun stuff besides cleaning up all weekend. Tomorrow I hope to get some cool news about work, stay tuned.

Spider-pig, Spider-pig, does whatever a Spider-pig does
–Sooner Dead