whats going on Andy?

currently watching : The Extras-The Complete Series

currently playing: Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)

well, i’ll just tell you whats been going on! 

workwise i’ve been doing runs to Parsons and Coffeyville, KS.  I am on a “regular” turn which gives me more predictable work times and better layoff scheduling.  I plan on sticking to this job, assuming I can hold it which I think I can, for a long time.  I make good money per trip (better than marysville and jeff city) and for the most part enjoy the work and people I work with.

personal life wise, Abbie and I have been together for over 6 months, and its been a year since we started really talking to each other.  For me personally, getting beyond the 6 month point was a big deal.  I’ve had a lot of trouble making it that far in the past and while Abbie and I have had our issues (that should be interpreted as me making things difficult, not her), I think our relationship is really strong and I continue to be very excited for each day I’m with her.  I am hoping she will be able to move closer to Kansas City this summer which I think will help us both out a lot. 

sports interests wise, I was very pleased with Kansas State’s basketball season.  The Beasley-Martin “risk” paid off handsomely.  20 years of futility was basically erased in one season.  3rd place finish in conf. (best in 20 years I think), making the tourney for first time in 12 years, winning a game in the tourney first time in 20 years, beating kansas at home for first time in 24 years, ranked for first time in 14 years, most national TV appearances ever in program history, and a concensus 1st team All American, concensus National Freshman of the year and already a couple of National Player of the year awards for Micheal Beasley.

Even if things don’t go well for Frank Martin in the future, this season was worth it to get the team back on the map and really, I think Kansas State can be at least a top 4 conf team and ncaa bubble team for years to come.  Pretty exciting considering where things have been most of my life.

well, thats mostly it.  as soon as kansas loses in the tourney it’ll be time to turn the page to royals baseball which i’m pretty much ready for.

for tana, my wonderful liberal friend

currently watching: X-files-Season 5

currently playing: Mario Kart Double Dash (gamecube)

a reprint from tana’s myspace.  i loved my reply so much i wanted to reprint it here (i edited a few of my comments for clarity/grammer/spelling).

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My political Leanings…for you andy. 1. I am 100 percent pro-choice 2. I believe that the rich rule American politics, and being that I am not rich, I hate that. 3. I think that social programs are the basis for any functioning society 3. I don’t think morality and religion should be the basis for any democratic government. 4. I like paying my taxes (because I like social programs, so I have to like paying my taxes). 5. I think that gay marriage should be a non-issue, it doesn’t matter who marries who. 6. I believe that the government should pass every environmental policy necessary to achieve sustainable progress. 7. I think the private school vouchers are unnecessary, and instead the federal government should work to improve the public school system. 8. Gun control. 10:14 AM – 2 Comments – 4 Kudos – Add Comment –

	Jessica	Well said, my friend! Posted by Jessica on February 7, 2008 – Thursday at 8:48 PM [Reply to this]

Andy

ok time for my response. 1. thats fine, lets just put it to a state by state vote instead of leaving it in the hands of 9 unelected people. 2. i’m not sure how hating rich people is a “political leaning” but for your sake i hope you are never rich lol. cause you dont want to hate yourself right? sorry, i misinterpreted #2. you hate that the rich rule politics. ok that i can understand. but your vote still counts the same as a rich persons. if something bothers you enough politically, and you find enough people who agree with you, it won’t matter how rich someone is, strength is in numbers. 3. the problem with social programs being “the basis of any society” is there is no social programs without created wealth with which to tax and redistribute from. so really, by definition, a basis has to be the beginning and the beginning to a “functioning society” comes from the efforts of you and i working to create wealth. and going even further, i’d say its just freedom and liberty to pursue wealth in any way we choose (without stealing other’s liberties of course), which of course is expressly written out in our declaration of independence. 4. by saying you “like to pay taxes” essentially you are saying “i like giving control of my created wealth (due to my own efforts) to someone else to decide what to do with it”. i hope you understand what you are giving up in your own personal freedoms when you say that. 5. it may not matter to you who marries who, but the religious institutions (Christianity) that brought marriage to us do. and those institutions (and the people in them) are going to fight for protections and definitions of said marriages. and fortunately (or i guess unfortunately for you) when the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman is put to a state vote it wins unanimously, sometimes by well over 70%. its what people want. i guess you could for the time being move to massachusettes where a judge has decided gay marriage is legal by declaring any laws against gay marriage against the states constitution. hopefully that will be overturned. then your only option would be leaving the country. but canada isn’t too far i guess. bring a coat. 6. its interesting you correlate environmental policy to sustainable progress. really, they are completely at odds with each other. environmental policy slows everything down because it makes basic things like energy much more costly. i hope you dont complain at the pump or when you get your electric bill or gas bill (or at any other rising price) because you have environmentalists to thank for that. any tax (punishment) or regulation put on energy producers is going to be immediately passed on and on top of that when we can’t build more power plants and refineries and find our own oil then supply is squeezed which further drives up prices (and putting us at the mercy of questionable countries with basically no environmental policies). hey, thats all well and good for a barely discernable difference in our environmental..uh..cleanliness, but somewhere you have to have a tradeoff and for me its $3+ gallon gas and $60/month studio-apartment winter gas bills. 7. this might be my favorite issue. school vouchers should be a constitutional right. its OUR money. WE should have the right to decide how we want to spend it on educating our kids. all a voucher is is giving people back money that was already theirs (ours). its silly to be forced to pay outrageous property taxes for sub-par government-run schools. all we’ve done for a century is throw more money at schools (run by liberals and democrats and the rediculous NEA) and it never fixes anything. just like with anything else the government runs. the key is, like with anything else, there needs to be a reason to succeed. like say, competition from other schools? you think there is a reason harvard costs more than ft. hays state? could it be quality? imagine that same system filtering down to elementary schools. what is wrong with that? tuition too expensive? HA with an abolishment of the dept of education and the subsequent refunding of all taxes relating to public schooling, we’ll all have more money for tuition, plus with schools competing that will drive down costs. why is college still so expensive then? well aside from greedy liberal professors, basically society hasn’t struck back and said…”we dont need college to succeed” well, eventually college is going to get so expensive people will stop going and then costs will go down. anyway i’ve rambled too long here. free markets are such a beautiful thing, its hard to stop. 8. gun control, why stop there? why not knife control? or fist control? an angry kill monger is going to hurt people with or without guns. its silly to pinpoint guns as the problem. the problem is people. people with no sense of morality. maybe while we are forcing gun control policies on people we could force them to attend church for a few months so they can learn how to treat people properly lol. bet you’d love that! lata my lovely liberal friend! Posted by Andy on March 8, 2008 – Saturday at 3:40 AM [Reply to this]