Currently Playing: Metroid Prime 3-Corruption (Wii)

Currently Reading: Lord of the Rings-Return of the King

Just finished watching: Entourage-Season 4 Now Watching: Lost-Season 3

With my railroad unemployment set to expire shortly after the 1st of the year, i figure its time I put my foot back out there and look for work.  I got started by signing up with a temp agency, something I hadn’t done before.  I wasn’t real excited with what I had found with just online searches for jobs so maybe they can do better.  Its difficult finding a job in my position because I really just need something temporarily and not everyone wants to hire someone who isn’t in it longterm.  But hopefully someone will.  I’m definitely in a trust God mode on this whole ordeal.

Saturday I’ll be at the KSU game.  Its been an unexpectantly fun season so far but I have my doubts as to the outcome of the game because everything seems to be lining up a little too perfectly.  Things usually crash down when that happens.  I am prepared for the worst.  Still, EMAW!

http://whoreadsthis.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/how-to-best-flush-over-1k-down-the-toilet-over-and-over/

Currently reading: Lord of the Rings-The Two Towers

Currently listening to: Cymbals Eat Guitars-Why There Are Mountains

been a while since i’ve talked about me, difficult as that might be.  the past few months here’s whats been happening:

**I got laid off from the railroad in mid august.  no more part time or anything, though i remain on a seniority roster and will be called back when needed.  but i’m at least 175+ deep on that list and with the winter slow period approaching, it doesnt look good for me until next spring.  for now i collect railroad unemployment and am doing some work for my uncle at his new house.  if i remain out of work by the end of the year and the unemployment dries up, i’ll likely take whatever temp job is available.  I don’t really want to make any permanent job change at this time.

**Abbie and I have pretty much got our house in order, in fact we had a lot of my family that live in town over to the house last friday for a grill out.  it went well.  This house we are renting is suiting us just fine, I think we made a good choice.

**I was in Chicago a few weeks ago visiting my friend Adam T. who I went to college with.  Caught a royals-sox game while I was there and mostly just hung around the town, watching some sports and whatever.  A nice weekend.  Here in a few weeks a lot of my K-State buddies will be in town for a game in Manhattan, I look forward to that quite a bit.  I definitely miss my time in Manhattan a lot.

**Day to day not a whole lot else going on and not too many big things on the horizon.  I think we have one last wedding to go to (this yr has been insane for them), but outside of that its mostly just holiday get togethers to look foward to, outside of my usual interest in everything football (attending most KSU home games).

thats it for now!

Just finished reading: Lord of the Rings-The Fellowship of the Ring

Currently watching: Lost-Season 2

http://www2.kusports.com/news/2009/sep/22/ku-guard-tyshawn-taylor-treated-hospital-after-inc/

http://www2.kusports.com/news/2009/sep/23/witnesses-report-second-altercation-between-basket/

another day, another story from the depths concerning the “win-and-make-money-at-all-costs” regime at the univ of kans.  at this point, its pretty laughable because its clear nothing will ever get in the way of big lew’s machine he’s built.  there won’t be suspensions for any games that matter, no scholarships pulled for anyone that contributes to winning, the thugs that run ukans will continue to do their thing because thats how the people of that university, city (lol at the cops and district attorney of lawrence consistently looking the other way), and fanbase want it.  and why not?  a great portion of the fanbase has never taken a class at ukans and thus don’t care about “academic integrity” or “image” or whether anything is done legitimiately and in good moral standing.  all that matters is the W’s.

and what of that?  winning is fun, sure.  but like promiscuous sex, it ultimately just leaves you wanting more and isn’t permanently satisfying.  especially when deep down you know its by nefarious means.  so it just keeps building and in ukans’ case they reach deeper by taking/paying any player necessary, letting the player do whatever they want,  so as to produce wins and bring in the cash.  i dont see anything changing at ukans whilst the big 3 of lew, mangino, and self are around.   if u are a ukans fan, enjoy it while it lasts.  yes, i like to joke about how KSU should do a lot of the same so as to sell our university’s soul for winning, but in the end i’m actually proud of where I graduated from and winning by cheating/probation/letting thugs run loose/ect doesn’t get it done for me.

KU objects, KSU ignores Budweiser promotion

http://www.kansascity.com/679/story/1417537.html

LAWRENCE | University of Kansas officials has joined several other universities across the county objecting to a new marketing campaign from Anheuser-Busch InBev.

However, Kansas State University officials aren’t getting involved in complaints over the Bud Light “Fan Cans” — beer cans distributed in the colors of major universities.

Jim Marchiony, associate athletics director at Kansas, says the school wrote the beer company three weeks ago to try to prevent the cans from appearing in Lawrence. He says the cans might appeal to underage drinkers, and the university didn’t want anyone to think Kansas endorsed the promotion.

But Kansas State officials say they won’t join the protest. Pat Bosco, dean of student life, says the university would object if the cans carried a Kansas State logo or picture. But he says the university “doesn’t have a trademark” on the colors purple and white.

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lameness aside, its also hypocritical of ukansas because as we all know big lew lobbied to have alcohol allowed on campus so ukansas could attempt to have a better tailgating atmosphere ala KSU.  lew prob just pissed he can’t make money out of these cans.  what a horribly stupid place ukansas is.

the quick and easy fix to healthcare.

1. a cap on malpractice suits.  doctors often pay 10s of thousands and even in some areas hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on malpractice insurance premiums.  u cap what someone can sue a doctor for, you cut the cost to see doctors big time.

2. Everyone gets an account with somewhere between $3k and $5k a year for healthcare costs.  this could easily be paid for by scrapping ALL current inefficient and failing govt healthcare programs.

now, from this account you could choose to buy whatever private plans are out there (hopefully far less regulated), from disaster care to total coverage.  or you could just use it for regular visits, prescriptions, anything.  the key is creating consumer driven healthcare…like you see with car insurance.  a competitive marketplace of health.  and whatever you don’t spend on healthcare for the year from that account, you pocket.  thats the key.  u have the chance to pocket thousands a year by being smart about your own health and how you spend money on health…how could it not work?

jeez that took like 5 minutes to type up too.

currently watching: Lost-Season 1

one thing i like to do is rank things and then pretend people care about it.

there are a number of yearly events i look forward to and with a few of them coming up i thought i’d list em.

1. 4th of July

ever since i was like 5 years old i’ve been buying and setting off fireworks in topeka with my family.  i enjoy every aspect of fireworks, from the shopping to the testing of them to the somewhat dangerous things we do with them, to everyone else enjoying what i set off.  plus i like the big displays too.  and for the past 15 years or so 4th of july weekend also includes a lot of golf which i suck at but for this one weekend its pretty fun.

2. The first day of march madness

the best sporting day of the year.  16 games, 4 at a time, from morning till night.  all the games meaningful, many of them with amazing endings.  sure there is a second day of this on friday, but that first thursday is what we all look forward to.

3. fantasy football draft day (tomorrow!)

for a good 10 years now my friends and i have been in a fantasy league that we run.  there is research that goes into the draft, plus the mock drafts, then finally the day.  10-12 people in a room, beer, food, and tons of trash talk on all the picks.  this is the start of football season.

4. the first college football weekend/KSU football home game (a week from saturday!)

football is my favorite sport, and when i can combine it with my alma mater, family, friends, and some gambling its even better.  the anticipation for the football season to begin, especially college, is off the charts.  literally i start counting the days shortly after the 4th of july (doesnt help that we have a sucktastic baseball team whose season ends sometime in may).

just finished watching: Entourage-Season 3 pt 2

currently listening to: Sunset Rubdown-Dragonslayer 

we’ve certainly spent some time documenting the typical ukans fan/student/alum but this might be the piece de resistance.  hawkers, meet your starting quarterback:

todd giving the thumbs up to his quiet night on a rock with a certainly close friend who also happens to like shaving his legs.

toddry trying to explain to a local skank that he’s obviously not interested in her type (read: sex).

Todd enjoying some of his namesake drink, a reisling whist getting felt up by more typical ukans students.

hey, peta might want a word with you mr. reisling.  nice jorts.

classy guy.  Keep reaching for that rainbow todd!!

Just finished watching: Entourage-Season 2 Currently Watching: Entourage-Season 3 Pt. 1

First of all, Abbie wrote up some excellent summaries on our wedding blog for both the wedding and reception that are chock full of pictures.  You should totally check it out.  I can’t really do it much more justice.

As for my own thoughts, the day went about as good as one could hope.  I give Abbie almost all of the credit.  She designed and planned almost all of it and anything creative like the decorations were all her.  She definitely got the wedding she wanted and most certainly deserved which made me happy.

Now that we’ve had our own wedding I have a few suggestions for anyone putting together a wedding:

1. have the women get ready at the church so they can be there to make sure anything last minute goes well (us guys were there instead and we got a little lost on some details like who got what flowers).

2. designate an M.C. for your reception that you know personally.  We left it to our DJ and we really didn’t go over it enough with him and he struggled a little to improvise/follow the plan we wrote out.

3. if you are having a wedding where over half your guests have to travel more than an hour, go ahead and assume 10-15 people below your rsvps.  we had enough food leftover to just about have another reception.  lol not really but it was a lot.

really though nothing regretable happened at all, it all went very smoothly and we thank everyone for coming.

As Abbie wrote, our honeymoon did get cut short no thanks to my erratic work situation.  We are hoping to put something together by next summer to make up for it, something that will definitely include a trip to the beach, which is what we missed out on.  it still bugs me a lot that it didn’t work out.

Abbie and I are currently trying to fill our our registry with things we need from the giftcards and cash we got.  not the easiest process…our biggest problem is finding room for everything as we don’t have the biggest house.  that’s our other project, we are still unpacking from our move-in and trying to decorate and find places for our combined stuff.  Hopefully by the end of the month we’ll be all ready to have guests!

I’m ready for some football….

Wedding Update: now a week out, we are pretty much ready to go.  Abbie is finishing up decorations and putting together the program which I’ll go have printed this week.  Outside of that its time to get all our vendors together and go over the schedule and of course pay them all. Hopefully everyone involved comes through on all this.  Come next Friday it’ll be time for Abbie and I to just enjoy it and not worry about everything.

Job Update: the railroad has called back about 135 guys in the past few weeks (leaving me about 45 out).  though this is no indicator that the economy is turning but rather just the railroad covering themselves during the peak business months.  overall the carloadings are still down 18% from this time a year ago.  a few other factors are bringing some guys back, like the new rail safety bill Bush signed last fall went into effect which limited how many hours a month and how many days in a row guys can work.  so more manpower is required to cover the same amount of hours.  also the company is instituting a new safety program which needs some extra guys to make it happen.  anyway i may get to work a little this fall, but i still don’t think its going to completely turn till late next year.  pretty pathetic, it should not be this way but we have a moron in charge of our economy so I have to suffer.

Ukans cheating update: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2009/jul/02/gary/

at the end of that article it talks about how local lawrence businessman/huge ukans booster Doug Compton is demanding his 3 pts./game son get to walk on at ukans.  this of course follows a long line of very rich white kids getting to walk on at ukans in order to continue an easy pipeline of money to players (whoops is that my satchel of cash i left behind in the locker room?).  Doug Compton has also given jobs to players parents, notably the morris’ twins mother and cole aldriches father.  Doug also payed for the emergency flight to xavier henry’s house a few weeks back to help deliver in full the payment to the henry’s after xavier’s father carl started balking at bill self for not being on board with the henry’s.  what a disgusting program they run at ukans, truely a school completely sold out for winning.  and yet the peon hawklets continue to shell out thousands to sweet lew for the right to sit in a dank urine and stale popcorn smelling “armory” not caring at all and mostly oblivious to how the strings are pulled.

Global Warming Update: In Kansas City today we had a record cold night with temperatures reaching 59 degrees and projections for 56 degrees overnight. This continues to be the coldest year in decades.  Cap and trade!  Cap and trade!

Presidential First Pitch Update: shortly after 9/11 President Bush threw out the first pitch at yankees stadium during the world series with the eyes of millions watching, thousands cheering, straped up with all kinds of bulletproof armor, and calmly fired a strike down the middle to a properly positioned catcher.

President Obama on the other hand coming out to a mixture of boos girl armed it and short hopped the pitch to a catcher positioned on top of home plate.  stick to the court barry.

Currently watching: The Sopranos-Season 6 pt 2

we survived the 90+ degree heat yesterday and moved 3 trailers-full and numerous car loadings of stuff from both Abbie and I’s places to our new home(technically i’m still gonna be living at my parents till after the wedding if i haven’t mentioned that before).  especially brutal was the 1990 grand caravan i was using to pull the trailer we rented..it had no A/C.  Needless to say I had my shirt off most of the day.

As for the house itself, its actually quite nice for being 60 years old.  all the walls and trim have been repainted and the carpets were clean.  the bathroom is basically completely redone and the kitchen has a new hardwood floor and some newer appliances too.  outside isn’t quite as nice but honestly i could care less.  there were a few issues upon move in, mostly little things.  a few tree limbs had fallen in the yard due to recent storms and hadn’t been taken care of yet.  the doorbell doesn’t work and a number of lightbulbs were out.  also because of all the new painting inside a few of the windows didn’t latch correctly.  this should all get fixed pretty quick.

as i said it was really hot yesterday and when we arrived with our 2nd trailer loading apparently someone had mowed the yard while we were gone and they severed a wire to the A/C outside and of course inside it had warmed up to like 86 degrees.  i didn’t have any phone numbers handy to call about it…fortunately my dad was able to splice the wires back together and it ran fine after that.  what kind of a tard just runs over electrical wires?

on a disapointing note, due to how the house is constructed with the entrances and fairly narrow openings we are unable to move a couch into the house!  everything else we got in there, though my tv was a chore (no way that wasn’t getting in).  so now we gotta figure out something to replace the couch…anyone have a loveseat they don’t want?  we could probably get that in there ok. Goodwill should enjoy the couch we have

hopefully sometime in mid-august we should have everything setup for guests, don’t even think about it before then though.  moochers.