are you passionate?

i just got back from paying my graduation fee. the fee goes towards paying for your cap and gown and diploma. i wanted to take a picture of me and the girl working in the registrar's office. i don't think she understood how important that moment was for me. after i paid it, i drove around downtown thinking of my three years at UHD. here's what i thought of:

- my first day. i took the bus downtown because i had decided that the bus was going to be my new mode of transportation. the morning ride was a success. i made it to class on time. but after class was a different story. i waited by jones hall for 45 minutes without seeing a bus. finally, i decided to take matters into my own hands. i began to walk and i walked all the way from downtown, down memorial to my apartments at memorial and shepard. i never took the bus again.

- the fun semester. last fall, i took intermediate acctg. II, individual tax, AIS and some HR class. it was the first semester in the new business building. all i remember about that semester is standing around outside with tim and lindsey talking about internships and jobs. that was the semester i got the job at SPX and left fox sports. i was getting married the next semester. it felt like everything was finally changing.

- the rainout. during the first summer session in 2006, we got rained out for a few days and the school was closed due to flooding. i took the opportunity to see for myself what was happening. so i got on my bike and rode in the rain downtown with my digital camera wrapped up and dry. i took tons of pictures around the campus and over the bridge. it was amazing to see the bayou area right behind the spaghetti warehouse turn into a raging river. i was soaking wet and dirty as hell by the end of it, but it was great to see what a little rain can do.

- the test. i had to take a test for an online class on campus early on a saturday in february of 2008. i had studied the day before but convinced myself i needed to do more studying at school, since that was where i was going to take the test and somehow the information was more likely to stay with me. anyway, i got there and blew off studying. i went walking downtown. it was february and it was grey. it was early too, around 9:30. no one was moving around, except the bums. downtown looked like the old downtown i knew when i was younger. it was ugly. it was dirty. and i felt completely isolated there.

- one time i drank so many energy drinks, i could barely keep my hand steady during my exam.

- i remember wanting to fall asleep every night in intermediate acctg. III and auditing because i had been up since six that morning, had worked all day and was ready for a nap. i also remember during my final for intermediate acctg. III, my professor had a cold and she kept hacking and sneezing and wheezing during the entire exam. on top of that, i had drank two diet sodas right before the exam. so i was in agony trying to concentrate and not piss myself while constantly being distracted by my phlemmy professor. i wanted to knock her out.

- i remember riding my bike to school one day. i rode from my current address. the morning ride was fine. it took a little under an hour to get there. but the ride back was anything but easy. i didn't know it, but i had picked the windiest day on record. winds were clocked at record speeds. those winds made my 50 minute morning journey a two hour journey home. i actually called my wife to pick me up from the restaurant down the street because i couldn't make it home.

- i remember finally realizing the library had real books and i didn't have to buy so many books. i could check them out. i checked out three and read them in a month. i can't wait to have time to read again.

- i remember everyday wondering if i had made the right choice, if i was good enough and smart enough to pull this off. this wasn't a question of competition among my fellow students like so many times before in school. this was a question of myself. could i do this? did i have what it took to concentrate and focus and learn an entirely foreign industry? there were a lot of days i doubted myself.

- i remember parking everyday what felt like 5 miles from the school and walking up the bridge over the bayou, sweating my ass off carrying three, sometimes four books in the same backpack i used in high school.

- finally, i remember what it was like to pay for my graduation fee. i'm not done yet. i still have a few weeks, a few papers, a few tests. but looking back, it's amazing where i started. i was working at fox sports. my days off were tuesday and wednesday. i had a girlfriend and i lived alone. i had no idea what i was in store for.

come in number 51, your time is up

i like the first line of this article. "if you say something long enough and loud enough, it will become truth." are our corporate tax rates really the highest in the world? maybe. but how could we forget our millions of tax lawyers, who have legions of deductions and millions of little safe havens for you to hide your money? i think i'm just about done crying for corportations.

there's another good line in this article: "talent will continue to flock to unworthy causes." back in 7th or 8th grade, i had a professor, who i can't remember, say something along the lines of, "who the hell would want to be president of the united states?" his logic was along the lines of too much responsibility, not enough money. why not go to wall street and bank without having to worry about genocide in a far away place. i think fortune cookies are determining the direction of this country.

on a sidenote, can you imagine seriously living in the white house? how incredibly stupid would you feel? i would feel like an idiot. living in the white house. get a house or a townhome. you could never be comfortable in the white house. too much old furniture and who knows if nixon still has those rooms bugged? imagine throwing up in the white house. or having a horrible stomach ache in the white house bathroom. or having a lazy sunday, eating cheetos and watching football in your underwear. can you imagine doing that in the white house? plus, what about pop-ins? now, you might get a family member or a neighbor poppin-in. if you live in the white house, gorbachev could pop-in. or bono. or ted ferguson. who is ted ferguson? i don't know, but he could pop-in too. living in the white house. i don't think so.

that's enough of that.

how many people read this thing anyway? i probably count two. you and you.

charlie kaufmann (writer of being john malkovich, adaptation and eternal sunshine of the spotless mind) has directed his first film. here's a review.

the opec cartel is cutting production. i didn't mean to double dare them. it just happened.

here is a recipe for warm potato salad with goat cheese.

tampa bay is back in this thing.

hammering the cramps

great article on obama. i honestly believe if he doesn't win this election, there will be irrevocable damage done to our country and society. how people don't see that, i have no idea.

good article on the myth of talent.

good article on the real sarah palin.

average article on colleges hurting during the credit crunch.

the onion avclub adds office space to the new cult canon.

johnny cash's live from folsom prison has been remastered and re-released. "hello, i'm johnny cash." is there any other intro to an album that comes close to that one? maybe. the new radicals had one that went, "make my nipples hard, let's go." that would be a close second.

is "the chinese democracy" really going to happen?

shatner is pissed at sulu. sulu is gay. shatner pissed at sulu for other reasons. wow.

ego tripping at the gates of hell

hank paulson was on charlie rose last night.

if there is a barometer for this economic situation, it could be found in the behavior of walmart shoppers.

other bellweathers abound.

opec is an oil cartel and it will go down as the stupidest cartel ever. dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. do not be confused here. we are experiencing a momentary reprieve in oil prices due to a global slowdown in production. this is temporary. before you can blink or something probably longer than blinking, oil will be back at $150 a barrel and beyond. keep your bike handy and don't start thinking about that SUV. keep thinking about kittens and hang in there.

bob dylan's latest bootleg review from pitchfork.

here's a recipe for mashed potatoes with kale. what is kale?

i was also thinking about edamame yesterday. i can't get enough of that stuff. i'm going to try and make some at home. i think the secret ingredient is salt. that's only funny if you've had edamame. if you have not, i have no jokes for you.

no depression

just got done participating in an email conversation where the final agreement came that a rabid mailman deserves some applause because he continues to work while being rabid. that was my contribution. my friend's point before that was, that we tend to view other people as we would view ourselves, which is not always accurate. it's better to view them as possible science experiments, where actions are caused by unknown stimuli that we cannot easily see. we write down the results and try to remain scientifically objective. it's a good point. but so is the mailman because if a rabid mailman is not an american hero, i don't know who/what is.

great blurb about kirk kerkorian.

the avclub has a taste test section where they get together with friends/neighbors/rabid mailmen and eat something that could not seriously be packaged and sold on the market, but it is. this week/month is canned cakes and pudding.

the market downturn and your life. interesting.

it's weird. i was driving around yesterday thinking about the world series. there has not been a series to go more than five games since 2003 when florida beat new york. since then, we've had three sweeps: '04, '05 and '07. the world series has lost it's luster. jayson stark was thinking the same thing. here's his reasons.

wedding video

usually don't find these very amusing/interesting, but having just been married, this one is tough to watch. bruce, you did excellent dude. this guy, not so much.

welcome to the working week

had a brilliant weekend. went to the arts festival on saturday. my wife and i volunteered at a snap tent for about three hours. i handled the money and she ran drinks to the people up front. it was a beautiful day and we had a good time. then, on sunday, we went to the texans game. we won, which is always nice. but most importantly, i found a pair of sunglasses on the floor. they're ray-bans. so what a day right! football, beer and free sunglasses.

this should definitely rank in the top 5 of greatest baseball stories ever. the tampa bay rays, who had never won more than 70 games in a season, are heading to the world series. wow. i love these guys. upton, langoria, kazmir, crawford. these guys are young and hungry. and hungry and young. they'll be around for a few years before they all demand top dollar contracts. but it should be good until then.

so i picked the rays to win in seven against boston. got that one right on the money. i did pick the dodgers however to beat the phillies, so wasn't too keen on that one. but, i've got this one. the world series winner will be the tampa bay rays in 6 games. this should give hope to every astros fan out there that it can be done. that and we need gerry hunsicker.

so what else? here's 13 fake presidential bids from the onion avclub.

think the whole stealing of the election thing is just paranoia and possibly indigestion? think again.

so what could be the only silver lining of this entire financial mess. maybe the realization that putting a little away is a good idea.