What a Game!

So last night, as I prepared to watch the University of Oklahoma Sooners take on the University of Missouri Tigers, I wondered what it would be like if Missouri (Mizzou) actually beat the Sooners. Something Mizzou hasn't done for several years. Well, being a HUGE Mizzou fan, I was absolutely ecstatic last night watching my Mizzou Tigers lay a lickin' on the Sooners of Oklahoma.

Mizzou started the game by returning the opening kick off 85+ yards for a touchdown! That definitely go the crowd into the game and pumped up. Oklahoma battled back to tie the game up at 7 but Mizzou quickly jumped on top 14-7. At halftime Mizzou was up 17-14. After some back and forth play, Oklahoma lead Mizzou by a slim margin of 21-20. But the gritty Mizzou defense held their ground often in the red zone and forced Oklahoma to try for field goals, one of which Oklahoma missed, wide left.

MIzzou opened the game up after that missed field goal by the Sooners and won the game 36-27.

This is the 3rd straight week that the #1 team in the country has been defeated. Mizzou is now ranked #7 in the country. GO TIGERS!!

A full bodied parakeet barked

I am looking for new ways to try to start generating a little extra income, so I decided to sign up with Pay Per Post. It looks quite interesting and the way it's set up, it seems like I have nothing to lose to try it. So I am going to give it a go and see how it works out.

Oh, and the crazy title to this post, "A full bodied parakeet barked", that is a sentence generated from Pay Per Post that I needed to paste into this post so they can verify that this is actually my blog.

Crossing my fingers!
Mike

Waiting for their turn to talk....

If you've read my below post about my pet peeve of "talking while yawning", well, I have another annoyance that I must write about. I get extremely frustrated and annoyed with individuals in a conversation that are just barely listening to what you say and waiting for their moment to talk. I work with a gentleman, my boss as a matter of fact, who is notorious for this! It happened just today in a meeting. His wife works here as well as the second in command and we were in a meeting about a web design project and she was talking about why a certain piece of functionality wouldn't work on the website. Well "the boss" didn't like that he was being told that something wasn't going to work. So he was fighting tooth and nail to make the case that the functionality was going to work just fine. His wife was arguing back and as she was making her very valid, rational points about why this functionality won't work, every 2 seconds, he was say "right.....right....right....right...." then the moment she took a moment to breath he would say "....right" real quick and then start on his own train of thought. Generally when you're saying "right" to someone that means one of two things....1) It means "right" as in you're correct! Or 2) It means "right, I understand your points, but..." With the way he says it, it's just him acknowledging that words just came out of your mouth, but he didn't register a single idea or thought that you just spoke. He is also one of those type of people that stop listening when they have heard the information that they want to hear. Then when they repeat back the information or try to recollect what was said in a conversation, they look and sound foolish for stumbling around on their words and thoughts trying to grasp for all of the facts that were said. The truth is, if he'd just shut his trap for 5 seconds, take the time to process the coherent thoughts we all put together here that make logical sense, maybe it would register to him that we all know much more about what we're talking about than he gives us credit for. That's the bad thing, he thinks he's the end all be all on technology based creative and development practices...wow, I've kind of skewed my rant here...but this is good venting people!

This particular company that I'm working for does not have a good reputation here in Nashville. Everyone that I talk to, recruiters, fellow creatives, etc., they all know the reputation that "this place" has (and will remain unnamed for now), and they all ask generally the same, heart-felt, sympathetic question: "Oooo, yah...how are you doing there? What is it like to work for (Boss' name here)?" It's actually quite humorous after reading some of the blogs about this company and reading other people's experiences here and how parallel my experience is to theirs.

Just the right music...

...at just the right time! the Lord of the Rings soundtrack always comes through for me at just the proper moment when I need just the right music to listen to at just the right time. You may be thinking to yourself "what a nerd", to that I answer 'see the post two below this one titled "I'm a nerd."'

Howard Shore is such an amazing composer...(he composed the LOTR soundtrack if you didn't know, hence why I'm referencing him). His work on the LOTR soundtrack is just incredible because it really takes you back to a medieval time period feel. If I had a time machine, the first place I would travel would be to the medieval period. I am enamored with castles, kings, queens, knights, the whole thing!

Back to my music now....ahhhhhhhhh

Pet Peeves

Yep! I've found it! My biggest pet peeve. When people are yawning and they are determined to try, I repeat, TRY, to keep talking while yawning! The babble just comes out as high pitched, muffled, annoyance! All it takes is 3-6 seconds to finish the brain-refreshing, oxygen infused yawn...why ruin it with unrecognizable words?! UH!

...ok, I'm better now...

I'm a nerd.

Yes my friends, it is winter once again, quite possibly my favorite time of year. Odd, you may think, however there is something special to me about the weather outside being chilly, and sometimes down right bitterly cold. But after the kids have been put to bed, the dishes are washed, dried, and put away, toys that have infiltrated the family room are stowed away in their proper places, it is at that time I like to curl up beneath a cozy blanket to the hum of the dryer gently tumbling laundry and the aroma of candles elating my olfactory senses and read a book or sketch in my sketch book.

I believe it was around last year at this time that I posted on my blog about reading J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit". And it was about this time last year that I ceased reading "The Hobbit". For it was about this time my wife and I decided that it was probably in our family's best interest to move back to Florida. Little did we know that over the next 11 months from that point, we would go through the most difficult time our marriage has ever faced. We came out battered and bruised and we're still trying to claw our way out of a pit. But with our faith in God, we know He is in control. I could easily get off on a tangent here, so I will save that for another post.

So, as I was saying, "The Hobbit", I plan to pick this book back up and start reading it again as soon as I can catch up on my freelance work. Once I finish "The Hobbit", my plan is to move on to "The Silmarillion". That is yet another work of J.R.R. Tolkien's talking more deeply about the world of "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings".

Yes, I'm a big nerd and I know it...but proud of it!

What's the rush?!

As I sat in a meeting at work today, I was gazing out the window, as I often do, and the office window faces out to the convergence of two major highways in Nashville. I am completely amazed to see a constant stream of cars traveling to and fro, never a break in traffic. Is there ever a moment when there wouldn't be a car traveling eastbound or westbound, it seems as though not. Where is everyone going? What is the rush? Why all the driving? Deadlines, meetings, not enough time, tick tock, tick tock, rush here, rush there, hurry hurry hurry! Our society has become so accustomed to a fast paced life, it's rare you see anyone stop and smell the roses anymore. What happened to horse drawn carriages; strolling through the park holding hands with the one you love; laying on a blanket gazing up at the stars with an innocent sense of wonderment...I miss those days...