Home Again, Home Again

Being home again is really nice. The familiar sights, sounds, and smells remind me of how home sick I really was. The last time I was home was at least a month ago and it had taken its toll on my psyche. I now feel much more clear headed and calm. It is good to see old friends again. We get together to do all the usual things. I took my customary trip out the peninsula and took several pictures out at the lookout at Chateau Grand Traverse (I think).

Tonight was dollar pint night at the Loading Dock and they had my most favorite beverage on tap! Leininkugal Summer Shandy is a delightful drink that is 2/3 beer and 1/3 lemonade. It is the perfect drink when at the beach, or at any point during the summer. I had my pint and called it a night. I know, cheap date, but I needed to make my graceful exit before anyone else found out just how little it takes for me to lose my inhibitions.

I am glad to be home. I like waking up with nothing to do and the most pressing issue on my mind being how to make a decent pot of coffee. The only things I have on my agenda are to get my hair cut on Friday and to have my final chat with my boss in Key West. There is much anxiety surrounding that conversation but I am still excited for it. Now, it is time for bed. Night!

The End of an Era?

The semester is over. I passed all my classes, including my accreditation exam. I walked across the stage at the graduation ceremony. I even did a little celebrating. But can it really be the end of my college career?

I was unsuccessful in my attempt to actually graduate this semester. Despite my passing the accreditation exam I was still not allowed to join the ranks of my fellow graduates. Although I understand the need for the university to impose certain criteria for obtaining a degree, I do not think that they need to be interpreted so rigidly.

Clearly I have shown competence by the simple act of passing my accreditation exam. I even found out that at least one of my class mates, who is graduating, did not pass the accreditation exam. That fact alone was enough to beg the question of what the real 6requirements for graduation are. Even my capstone professor concedes to my expertise in the degree program, but there is simply nothing he can do to expedite my diploma. I just don’t have the right classes to fill the mold of the GVSU IS degree requirement. What a load of crap.

As far as I am concerned I am a graduate. I am officially a member of the alumni association as was stated in their welcome email to me shortly after I walked. I passed my accreditation exam. This tells me that I am just as competent as any other IS major graduating this semester. Now it is time to decide what to do next.

I have been waiting for weeks for word from my boss in Key West to talk about the details of my new position at his company. However, with complications in his private life as well as complications at work, we have yet to talk about the job at all. This puts me in a very uncomfortable position. All of my sources tell me that the job is mine and that it is just a matter of working out the details. However, for me the details are everything. I need to know exactly what my salary is and benefits will be so I can weigh the costs and benefits of transplanting myself half way across the country.

My only other alternative is to sign up for the last semester of classes I have to take and really graduate. The biggest problem with that is that financing my illustrious educational career has become a bit of a strain. The government apparently will not be helping out anymore as they believe that it is time that I get out of school and become a productive member of society. I think it would be nice if they and GVSU got together and talked. It might help my case.

None the less, it is good to be done with this semester. I am excited to see what the summer months bring. I can tell it’s going to be very interesting either way. I also sense romance in the air. Yay for young love!

When the Universe Attacks

Sadly, on Thursday morning the hard drive on my computer finally gave out. Ironically, at that every instant I was in the process of opening up a homework document that I was going to print out for class later that day. I could sense the impending doom of catastrophic failure as the atmosphere around me became heavy with dread and anticipation. First, a flicker from the screen indicating there was a glitch within the video card. Then, the mouse froze. The hard drive light lit up and stayed solid for several seconds as the operating system began a memory dump. And finally, it came; the blue screen of death indicating some critical system failure had occurred. The computer then restarted and a message popped up saying that a critical windows file had been corrupted. The file was the “System” file which, come to find out. held a major part of the registry. I was sunk. Son of a bitch!

So, I hopped onto the laptop to send my professor an email to plead for an extention on the due date of my assignment and explained my situation. The professor understood and granted my request.

I spent the rest of the day in a depression trying to figure out how I was going to recover the data off of my old hard drive that would no longer boot properly. Thankfully, I was due to spend some time with my new friends Amber and Bob. I explained my situation and they felt aweful for me. So much so that Amber offered to purchase a new hard drive for me while I was waiting to RMA my now damaged old hard drive. At first I resisted the offer thinking that there would be almost no way I could repay her save using my body as collateral.

As we discussed the hard drive issue further they both decided it would be a good idea to go out for dinner. Locking up the apartment, we hopped into my car and we headed to a wonderful little Italian restaurant. We ordered drinks and an appetizer, and shortly after my good friend Chad texted me to see what I was up to. I explained where I was an invited him to join us. Happily he agreed and a few minutes later he was sitting at our table enjoying a tall glass of Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy, quite possibly the best beer in the known universe.

We had a great time chatting and munching on food until it was time to go. We all headed back to my apartment for a bit to relax. Amber and Bob decided to bow out for the evening leaving Chad and I alone. We relax together for a while longer, discussing the day and such topics of interests but soon, he had to leave in order to get enough sleep before work the next morning.

April Fools!

So I found out today that I am actually going to graduate this semester!! April fools!!! Hahaha!! Wait… That’s not funny.

Anyways, it is another wonderful day in the land of crucifixes and religious zealots. It was cold, rainy, and windy. My only class for the day was junior writing. As usual it was not mentally taxing but I still had to drag myself to Allendale to attend it. With each passing day I find it harder and harder to justify getting up in the morning and going to class. I have a clear case of seniorities, minus the eventual satisfaction of actually being done with school. GVSU are a bunch of chumps anyways, take that! I managed to score a pretty darn good job regardless of their approval.

In lighter news, I have been instructed by several friends to at least say hello to someone I find very attractive. Granted I will have virtually no chance of making anything of it, but they say that it will build character and will be good for my psyche. I suppose I cannot disagree with the logic behind their statements. And I will also admit that as time goes on I have become more and more frustrated.

Tomorrow begins the longest day of my week. I am not looking forward to it. I can’t wait for it to be over.

Weekend Shenanigans

My mom stopped by my place Friday night while on her way to Detroit to see a Detroit Pistons game with my little brother. It was very good to see her. She even accompanied me to the bar with a couple of friends of mine. We had an excellent time. My mom loved my friends and my friends, of course, loved my mom. My bartender, of course, was happy to see us. He was actually so cute when I introduced my mom. He seemed nervous. Still, that didn’t keep him from showing his affection throughout the night. Good times were had by all and eventually I had to carry my poor mom out of the bar or she would have fallen asleep.

I have to admit, after that the rest of the weekend seemed terribly unsatisfying.

New Friends Rock

The other night I made several new friends!

Friday night I did made my ritual pilgrimage to the bar to have a drink and chat with my bartender friend, who is always glad to see me.

I met up with Rob upstairs. He was scoping out the best seat to chill and listen to karaoke. Amber on the other hand was nowhere to be found and according to Rod was down on the dance floor making out with some girl.

On my way down to the dance floor I stopped at the back bar to say hello to Chad. Always happy to see one of his favorite customers, he greeted me with a kiss over the bar and asked if I was well. He handed me my drink and I headed out into the dance floor to find Holly.

Long story short:

Found Holly, checked our coats, lost my drink, and was given another.

Went upstairs for Holly to smoke, met up with my new friend Amber, they all got me drunk, we got some sweet pictures of our friend Shea the server… HOT

Ended up dancing like a fool with Amber until the bar closed when Chad came out to give me a kiss and Amber, not wanting to be left out jumped on my back and would not get off, still made out with chad. The night gets a little fuzzy then. Something about McDonalds and plans for dinner…. I hope I didn’t do anything bad. ^_^

Academically Inadvisable

A major victory was scored today with help from my writing professor. After meeting with him before spring break, he agreed to help me. I had explained my dilemma which has caused me untold emotional distress; that I will not graduate because of technicalities. Today, I went to speak with him to see if he had gotten a response from one of his friends in the registrar’s office. I was pleased to find out that they had accepted his recommendation and accepted my credit!

This means that there are only two more classes standing in the way of my graduation. One is a speech class, which I should not have any trouble taking care of. I got the name of the chair of the communications department and will be making an appointment this week to meet with him. With all the extra documentation I will bring to the meeting and seeing how this is on of the only things that stand in the way of my graduation I do no think the chair will want to make too big of a fuss. However, one can never tell with administrators. Sometimes they are very easy going and other times are stubborn and tyrannical. I am hoping for the former.

There is still a long way to go before the end of the semester. I have dozens of documents that I have to create, review and edit before my IS project is finished. Also, I was just informed last week that we will also need to prepare a one hour presentation to be given to the professor and the executive staff of our NPO. If this doesn’t count for a speech credit I don’t know what would!

I cannot wait to return to Key West. I hear there will be plenty of work for me to do. And I was pleased to find that I am still remembered. Good friends never really forget! W00t!

The Home Stretch

The LAN party went very well. My apartment was filled with gamers, geeks, and dorks. We were up into the early morning hours having fun and sharing generally good cheer. I was even asked if I would consider hosting another before I leave for Florida. The highest complement I could have received I think. I will do my best to accommodate their request.

However, now that Spring Break is over I am on the home stretch. I can see the end approaching. Faster than I expected, and catching me unprepared as usual. I will be spending these last few weekends catching up with homework, reading, and writing. I have so much to do before my final presentation for my IS capstone class. I swear to god when I get this degree I am going to put it in the most expensive frame I can find.

OMG It’s A Leap Year

I wanted to do something special this year since there is an extra day in February. So I decided to have a LAN party! A bunch of friends are coming over today and we will have ourselves a geek party!

At first I was not really into it, but now I am really excited. Happy 29^th day of February!

Lightning Fast Update

So the weather has been wickedly cold the past few weeks. They have canceled night classes at least once again that I can remember. I have only been to my Wednesday night class 4 times this semester!

The pressure of administration has become very apparent. Now that I am the team leader for my IS project capstone course I am charged with not only meeting with the professor every week to give updates, but to meet with the director of our non profit organization as well. In addition, it has become my responsibility to coordinate the projects that the other team members are working on. I will grant that it is a lot of fun being the boss, but my god the time I have to waste in meetings and writing email correspondence to keep everyone informed and apprised is exhausting.

Wednesday just plain sucked.

A botched paper in Classical literature began my day from hell. It ended with a professor telling me that I would never be able to convince my advisor to waive my speech requirement. “It just isn’t done”, he said to me as my blood pressure began to rise. I am continually astonished by the shear lack of compassion at the university. Ego is the culprit I suspect. No one wants to make an exception because if they let one person get away with it, then they will have to let someone else do it to. Ridiculous!

I was able to contact an old professor at NMC and got a copy of a syllabus that should count as my speech credit. It was a presentation graphics class. Good god the class taught me how to effectively use PowerPoint in a business presentation. Could it get any more perfect for a major in Information Systems?

I am exhausted from this week. I am very much looking forward to the weekend and to a few tasty cocktails at the bar. This week I earned them.

No School Tomorrow

As if to reward me for my hard work this week and as a present for Valentine’s Day, the professor of my only class for tomorrow, Friday has canceled class. Sadly she was not feeling well and I am sorry for that, but her loss is happily my gain. I have been working very hard all week in not just her class, but in all my classes. As this is my final semester, regardless of whether or not the University agrees.

Birthday Week

Officially it was my birthday yesterday. Yay! Another year old, and another year wiser I say. Since I am a firm believer in the idea that knowledge is power and that being wise is the ability to use information effectively I don’t mind another birthday. The festivities actually started last weekend when I went to the Detroit auto show. That was my dad’s big idea he wanted to do for his birthday so I obliged him.

Yesterday in keeping with the tradition I had begun in high school where to my delight one year, it was a blizzard the night before my birthday. It snowed all though the night and well into the morning dumping many inches of snow. So much snow fell in fact that they cancelled school! How excited I was to be able to say that school was canceled for my birthday. It was one of the best birthdays ever.

Unfortunately, even though the greater Grand Rapids area public schools were closed for my birthday, the university was not. The elementary and high school kids thank me still. Sadly I still had to attend my one class in the snowy nastiness. But despite my frustration of having to go to school on my birthday I made it though class and began celebrating my day. I went to dinner with my friend Holly and later that night went to the bar with another friend of mine, AJ, where we spent the rest of the night chatting with the bar tender until 1am. Good times were had by all and I even got a couple of free drinks out of it. Depressingly, no one wanted to come home with me. I will have to start investing in just for men.

This weekend brings another round of festivities. I will head up to Traverse City as it has been far too long since my last visit. I plan to drink and be merry yet again in celebration of my birthday. There is a new restaurant that my mom wants me to try out and I hear that there will be a few drinks bought in my honor by a few friends who will be around as well. It sounds like a good time to be had.

Sunday I will head back to Grand Rapids to have dinner yet again with another friend whom was sadly indisposed all week and was unable to help celebrate my birthday. He insisted that we have dinner and then perhaps catch a movie. Who am I to argue with dinner and a movie, especially when the movie is Cloverfield? I hear it’s an excellent movie. I cannot wait to see it.

Making out is fun.

Quiet

It was a very quiet day. Waking up late in the morning I looked through my sliding glass door to see several inches of fresh snow had fallen since last night. That coupled with the fact that today is Sunday seemed to create a thick buffer of silence around my apartment. I didn’t hear anyone moving about. I barely spoke a few sentences on the phone all day. Sundays seem to be like that around here. It makes me uneasy. I get a sense of foreboding, like I missed something I was supposed to do. But thankfully I got all of my home work done and my Ancient Literature paper is coming along nicely. It is my birthday this week so I am guaranteed excitement, even if I am another year older. As long as no one notices the gray I will be happy.

Detroit Auto Show

I spent the night at my brother’s place last night in preparation for an early trip to Detroit. We arrived at Cobo Hall around 1130am and entered the auto show. The Detroit Auto show is a chance for all of the major auto manufacturers to show their stuff and to showcase their new concept cars and to vie for the consumer’s favor.

We spent well over three hours there walking around to all the displays and showcases. Some of the more note worthy cars were from Toyota, Saab, Scion, Saturn, and Mitsubishi. Toyota had an impressive array of cars and trucks. The Sequoia looked very impressive. It is exactly what every man’s man would desire in a full size SUV. It is truly enormous. Of course they had a few different kinds of Prius’, one you could plug into a standard 120v outlet to charge the batteries for short trips.

The new Saab 93 was amazing. I got a few pictures of it and sitting in it made me feel like a rich snob. Scion on the other hand had an entire wall of cars. Seriously, they built a rack and had their cars packed into it like match box cars. Most noteworthy was the new xB which is much larger and rounded now. Also I learned that Scion means “descended from, or heir to”, interesting. Saturn is starting to create some nice luxury and full sized cars. They are getting really good at making a nice front end that catches the eye, but keeping their cars reasonably priced. Mitsubishi decided to go retro this time around and make their GTO look like an old 1970s barracuda, or so my dad said.

All in all it was a great little trip. We had dinner at the Parthenon which is right across the street from the Greek Town Casino. We road the people mover over to the casino from Cobo Hall which in and of itself was an experience. You can really tell this is a car town. No one likes it and it is a really short loop.

Now I have to get started on a paper for school, so that I have some direction when I try to finish it tomorrow.

Bar Employees Are Fun

I went to an employee party for a friend of mine who is a bartender for a bar downtown GR yesterday, Tuesday. It wasn’t the best idea to go out on a school night, but with the promise food and drinks, how could I refuse? After class I came home, worked out and got a bite to eat before cleaning up and finding some cloths that I thought were appropriate for a company party. Did I forget to mention that this was for the employees of a bar?

We ended up having a good time. At first it was hard to mingle. No one seemed to be talking about anything I could join in with. It was mostly chatter about who is up to what and where people are and what they are doing. Since I had no idea who they were talking about it was next to impossible to chime in.

One of the employees came around and handed out free drink tickets. My friend got his tickets and immediately ordered a couple of drinks for us, love that boy! As we were chatting the owner came around and my friend introduced us. After that he made some comment on us not drinking enough and handed me two more free drink tickets. Smiling, he told us to have fun as walked off to mingle.

We finished our dinner and we both received a to-go box with more food. The owner had prepared a full turkey dinner for the party and there was plenty left over. I thanked the owner, Rob, for a wonderful dinner and a fun evening and we left.

A Day With out Water

I received a letter yesterday evening after getting home from a very long day of school. It was from the administration of the apartment complex where I live. In it was a simple yet powerful message, “The Water will be turned off”. Apparently something was wrong with the plumbing and it needed to be repaired. So, from 9am this morning till 4pm this afternoon my entire building was without water.

It’s really weird to be without such a basic necessity. I even made the mistake of going to the bathroom, without thinking about how the fact that there was no water would affect the ability of the toilet to function properly. Thankfully I got one free flush. I did however store a gallon or so of fresh water in an old milk jug and a large cup in the bathroom so I could make coffee and brush my teeth.

It felt very odd to me that I was now forced to do with out a convenience that I had taken completely for granted for well over the two years I have lived here. And that it was only unavailable for a few hours over that span of time I was still very cross that I was forced to do without it. Then I began to think about why I was cross, and I realized that it was simply fear, the fear of being without water.

Back Into The Groove

I am getting back into my old routine now that school has started once again. Hopefully this will be my last semester. In fact I know it will be my last semester. For one, I am running out of financial aid. Apparently the federal government thinks it knows more about how to get a degree and the schedule for its completion better than I or the CS department of GVSU do. The other reason I know this will be my last semester is because I already have a job waiting for me. My internship in Key West went better than I could have hoped. They were impressed with my skill set and have offered me a position within the company.

You would think that GVSU would be pleased to see that their curriculum has created an individual who with his first experience outside of school did so well as to elicit full time employment. I would expect the faculty and administration to be overjoyed by such accomplishment and would do their best to hurry me along the program so that I can get out into the workforce and become productive. However this is just not the case.

The university is fighting tooth and nail to keep me in Grand Rapids for as long as they can by claiming I do not meet graduation requirements, General ed requirements, and even major requirements. Sadly, what they don’t understand is that I am paying them for a service. Up until now they have controlled the scope, schedule, and time of this project. Well not anymore. There is a new constraint in place, time. So they will either change the cost or the scope of my degree. Since I highly doubt they will create a new degree just for me that leaves cost. I fully expect this last semester to be the most expensive semester of my college career. Hopefully it will be my last and thankfully the next phase in my life is already waiting for me.