I'm still alive

Just thought I'd let everyone know... I didn't die, but our internet was down for many days, and I haven't really had anywhere else to go to check email and stuff like that, so... But now it's good! Management got all cranky b/c they said that one person was using the entire bandwidth and making it so the rest of us couldn't use it. (the bandwidth is 10... something... Frik, fill that in for me.) So, either way, now it's working and life is peachy.

I did almost die, though. Ok, not quite, but there was one of those big orange construction cones (the barrel shaped ones) sitting in the middle of our lane on the freeway last night. It was dark and so we didn't see it until it was right in front of us, and Frik swerved and scared me, but there was no one behind and to the right of us, so it was fine.

In other news, work is going well... I actually enjoy it and the meter stuff is pretty interesting. We're going on the phones next week for our phone training, which will take a few more weeks. We will be sharing a line with 2 other people, one of which is a trainer, and we will take 4 or 5 calls a day and do a lot of reading and studying. So we'll see how that goes. (That is, of course, if I pass the test... which is supposed to take about 6 1/2 hours. It's long)

that's all i've got for now... oh, except that I can't move because I'm so sore. Yeah, that's it now. :)

You just shook your head… doesn’t that make you happy?

So, you may have heard that carebear and I are taking a weight lifting class. The last couple days we have been doing the fitness and strength tests that we will be compared against at the end of the course, and The way they've decided it should be done is that each person should be able to lift a certain percentage of their body weight on each of the diferent lifts. This is a fine concept when dealing with people who are in shape. Naturally you would expect a 250lb body builder to lift a lot more than a 150lb body builder. However, when you apply that same concept to normal(out of shape) people it doesn't work as well, for obvious reasons, and you end up so sore that you can Hardly move. I'm sure some of you are familiar with the feeling.

So, besides feeling like I should have been issued a wheelchair and handicap parking privileges, I'm absolutely loving being in classes again. I'm really excited about the weight lifting class. The other class I'm taking is CS 142 which so far has not only been a walk in the park but has also been really interesting. I have yet to take a college course that I didn't like, which I suspect will change in the near future when I have to take some useless English or biology class.

Interesting thought...

k, so I was talking to some coworkers yesterday and I came up with (what I think) is a pretty interesting question. (no one be offended by me lumping ethnicities together, ok?)

Ok, so this is it: It seems like most ethnicity groups have some sort of talent that can be generalized across the whole group. Example: asians are good at math/hard workers/ etc, black people have a lot of rhythm/ are good singers, and South American people are... well, that one's not so prominent in my brain, but maybe they're good runners? Like the soccer players and track guys... So, my question was, if all these different ethnicities of people are all talented in some way, then what are the white people good at?? The only thing we could come up with yesterday is that we are good at fighting and conquering. Maybe you guys can think of some positive points... who knows. Just an interesting thought, like I said. I'm definitely not saying that any once race is better than another or that every person from one particular race has all the same features/talents/strengths/weaknesses/etc...

On another note, work training is going pretty well... I get kindof frustrated because a lot of the people in the class don't seem to get it a lot of the time. I try to tell myself that I'm not smarter or better than them, and also try to see all the good things about these people (because a lot of them definitely don't have the gift of extremely high intelligence)... It's just weird to me, being around so many people who are: a. Older than me AND b. less educated and have a harder time getting stuff... It's strange. I mean, a lot of these people can't remember different things on the computer... I guess that's pretty normal. I guess that a lot of my friends will ask me to set the time on their watches when they first get them b/c they can't figure it out (or don't want to bother since they know that I'll be able to)... but things like that just are pretty basic to me, so... But them on the other hand, a lot of my friends who would have me do that kind of stuff had abilities and talents in other areas that made me look like a total idiot. I guess I've just got to try to remember that when in comes to all these people at work. The hard thing is that I only see the work aspect of their personalities...

Anyway, though... I'm doing pretty good with the training. It's pretty easy, so far. we have a ton of different glucose meters to learn how to work and do everything with, and we've got a couple other things... the lancet devices (I prefer to call them pokers) and stuff like that. I kindof feel bad b/c we are allowed to give upgrades or replacements or samples of any of our products... really, anything... just for free. Send it to them overnight... and what I feel bad about is that it seems like we're just hooking them so we can make money on the strips. I don't know how much it costs to make the strips, but I don't think it's fair that diabetic people have to pay so much for them. I also don't know how much of that (if any) is covered by insurance, but I still feel bad, none the less... And I know that every brand of strips is just as expensive as the ones we sell, but I still don't think it's fair.

*sigh* Moving on... Frik and I started our weight training class today, and we are both very out of shape. We did a fitness test... see how many pushups and situps we could do in a row... and... well, Frik and I are fatsos. hehe... ok, not really, but I do feel very weak and out of shape, so I'm glad that We are in this class and we will get all buff.

Well, that's about all going on in my life right now. Don't forget my question from the beginning of the post. That's what I want y'all to comment on. (I said y'all!!!)

Fun things

So Jabba did stay over here for the weekend, and it was fun. we went up rock canyon and climbed all over. We picked up a few rocks as souvenirs and sat in a cave for a while. Then we saw a dog, and she was really cute, so we stopped to pet her, and right after he pet her, Jabba licked his hand off... It was so strange, but I guess that it's one way to get to know a dog! :o)

And then yesterday, we went to church and then played Tony Hawk. Some of our neighbors were moving out, and they have a lovesac. All of their stuff was sitting in the courtyard area, and so Jabba was playing on that... running and jumping. It was really fun.

The best part of the weekend, though, would have to be today when we were driving him to school and he got carsick and threw up... ok, so that wasn't really the highlight, but the good thing was that we hadn't cleaned out the car from our trip yet, so we had bags and boxes and stuff and all the throw up landed on him and a sweatshirt sitting next to him. I was glad that the car didn't get any on it!

And then today was my first day of work. I think it went well. We have 9 people in our training group, and they're all pretty nice. The trainer is cool, too, and we get out at 8:30 every day instead of 10:00, so Frik and I won't have to figure out how to schedule the car. We got to learn all about the evolution of the lancet device today and about diabetes. Tomorrow, we're going to learn about one of the accucheck meters... It's actually pretty cool.

Anyway, though... I've got a headache, and I want to read Frik's latest post before I go to bed. Everyone else should, too. :) He's cute! So... that's the end of this post.

Politics?

So I was reading over at digg.com and I found an article from Wired News. Its about Pete Ashdown, who's running for senate against Orrin Hatch in Utah. Normally I avoid politics and political discussions like the plague(or worse). I figure one politician is as retarded as the next, and since I couldnt possibly care less about all the normal political subjects like foreign policy, government spending, hippies, etc, I've never identified with any of thier views, but this article seemed interesting enough so I read it.

Pete Ashdown, an executive of Xmission(a local ISP) is running against Orrin Hatch, who I'm sure is a great guy, but has been known to be snugly tucked away in the back pocket of the RIAA and MPAA. He once suggested that "copyright owners should be able to destroy the computer equipment and information of those suspected of copyright infringement, including file sharing." Then a year later he "proposed the controversial INDUCE Act that attempted to make illegal all tools that could be used for copyright infringement." On the other hand, Pete Ashdown is very tech savy and seems to understand technology, the internet, etc. He supports fair use and is anti-DRM. In short, he seems to have his head screwed on right. As mentioned in the article "Ashdown... hopes to fight anti-tech policies and help Congress understand the internet from the point of view of someone who has been there."

It reminds me of the one and only time I went to a Town Hall meeting. The issue on the docket that day was wether or not the city should purchase the Switchpoint Broadband Network. My mom was going to voice her support for the city making the purchase and I decided to go since I figured it meant the diffrence between crappy DSL or Cable compared to the 100Mb/sec upload and download that I had become accustombed to. As it turned out, the members of the city council didnt know the diffrence between a keyboard and box of tacks, so it was a good thing that a lot of techies showed up. There were some people who came to oppose the idea, but none of them really had anything inteligent to say. I do remember an old guy(the cow guy) who stood up and said that we should invest in agriculture and cows and that it wasnt the city's place to become an ISP or some such nonsense, needless to say he was shut down pretty quickly and the city did end up buying the network. Everybody lived happily ever after with bleeding fast internet access.

Going back to the topic at hand. I see Orrin Hatch as the cow guy. He just doesnt understand technology. With technology moving at the rate that it is, the lawmakers have a lot to catch up on, and you cant have people making decisions that dont understand the issues. We might as well just put the lobbyists in office.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I think we need more geeks in politics. I agree with what Ashdown is saying, and Im definately voting for him.

I'm also going to vote for Lewis Billings, who's been the mayor responsible for building Provo's fiber-optic network, iProvo. Dave Bailey, on the other hand, would love to shut iProvo down.

Anyway, talking about politics makes me sick, I'll never do it again.