slice.

I have come to the realization that I am, for the most part, shooting myself in the foot.  Case in point, I had a meeting this morning, at 11.  Nothing important, just some committee meeting.  I said I would be in by 10:30.  I arrived at noon.  Then, possibly worse, I didn’t realize that I missed the meeting until about 2.  This, of course, was after I had talked to my boss, several times.  It wasn’t until after some idle conversation with a co-worker that I realized what I had done.  You know, I though my boss seemed a little irked.  Dammit that was dumb of me.

Mostly because of this I decided to come to my parents a day early.  I wasn’t planning on working tomorrow anyway, and my mom is picking my sister up at the airport (although I’ll probably go with), so I realized that I could either spend the night being bored in my apartment, or spend it being bored on the interstate.  At least the interstate is a change of scenery (but not really, I’ve driven it so much…)

So the purpose of my trip home is supposedly twofold.  My friends brother is getting married and it is my sisters birthday.  For my sister I am going to giver her my signed Barack Obama book.  For my friends brother, I will probably just get drunk.

You know, sitting here at my parents computer I now realize how much I miss having a desktop.  You get this nice big screen and a keyboard and mouse that move independently of everything else, but perhaps most importantly, the screen is at an acceptable height.  I have been having some issues lately with my back, and I think they are in large part due to me hunching over to read my laptop screen which is positioned too low and too far away.  I bought a stand hoping to solve this problem.  It helps, especially on my desk at home, but I can still see myself turning into the hunch back of something or other in the near future.

I bought and watched the movie Dust to Glory today.  It is an amazing move about an absolutely amazing race.  I would even hesitate to call it a race, more of a really fast and messed up journey.  I really want to see it in person before I die and just take in everything about it.  Even better then being there would be working for a team during the race, I guess that would be the ultimate way to experience it, besides driving it of course.

Speaking of which, I applied for a job in Southern California working on similar things, including autonomous vehicles.  If you know my background, it is pretty much a dream job.  If only I could find more like it, I would be in heaven.  At this point, I would be happy with just an interview there.  Just knowing that they would consider me would be amazing.  Funny thing, I couldn’t even sleep the night I found it I was so excited.  I woke up early the next day and sent out my resume and a hastily prepared cover letter, which I should have spent more time on.

I also applied for a position with a boat manufacturer in the south (South Carolina & Florida, there were multiple positions.)  It sounded like a cool place to work, but hey, who wouldn’t want to mess with pleasure boats all day long?

Maybe I am being too picky about my career at this point.  I just want to find a place to work where if I get frustrated I can take a step back and say “hey, I’m working on something I enjoy.”  That always really motivates me, and I did it all the time in Baja.  Whenever I would get frustrated, all I needed to do was head into the shop and take a look at what I had a part in making, and thats all I would need to motivate myself, even if it was 4am and I was running on MtDew and Red Bull.  Thats all that I ask for is to work on something I find inspiring.  I have no problem being all consumed by work, as long as I am happy with what I am doing.  Unfortunately for me, everyone wants jobs like that, so they are a little hard to come by.

Thanks to the fine folks at rockbox.org, I now have a decent mp3 player.  The short of it is that I bought an mp3 player about a year ago, which I hated.  I hated everything about it, from its user interface software to the fact that it could only play files that were encoded using a proprietary encryption.  Unfortunately, I bought it on clearance and could not send it back.

I was about to sell it on ebay when I decided to check out rockbox.  Last I had checked the firmware for my player was still in development and not near complete.   I guess I underestimated the speed at which a community project can complete such a task because the software for the Gigabeat F40 became operational in January!

I really can’t say enough good things about this project.  Everything is customizable.  The sound quality is excellent (as far as I can tell), and it doesn’t strain on the battery.  The default settings are a little scary and plain, but once you download a new theme, it looks amazing.  Yep, you heard me, you can change whatever you want with themes.  I’m using Green5g4GB right now from rockbox-themes.org, but I downloaded quite a few for my player, and have been switching around quite a bit to find out which one I like the best.

-ethan

Hi. I suppose I will use this blog to update my family and friends on the personal goings on of me and the happenings in my life. I have become somewhat distant to a lot of the people that I love and who love me. I didn’t plan this or particularly enjoy it, it just happened. I am sorry for that. Just do me a favor and don’t sit by and idly spy on me, it seems cowardly to hide behind the anonymousness of the internet. I’ll make a conscious effort to be as forthcoming as I can, but it may be hard, because I can be an intensely private person. All I ask is that you try to do the same thing.

-ethan