Tuesday, April 25, 2006

No ITA

I can not get the ITA voucher because for what I want they require you to have a degree. I have given up on the ITA voucher but not this goal. When I get this job next month I will start a fund for my certs. Aside from that I am not sure how Adobe will structure the certifications from here on since they’ve acquire Macromedia.

1, 2, 3, 4...

I started meditating last night about this time. I was counting my breath as a way to center myself in the now. I counted each exhale up to ten and then I started over. Urban Dharma said that if I counted eleven, it meant that I was not paying attention and that I should start over.

Right now I am just waiting for things to die down here so that I can start again.

Flashback: High School

After the whole Steve thing on my walk to the train station, it was just a few yards away, some high school kids spotted me and began talking about my beard. One mentioned, "That's hot, when I'm older, I'm gonna have my shit just like that!"

I caught a flashback from high school. I hated to go into the locker room. I didn't feel comfortable being compared to the other boys. "When I go away this summer, I am going to come back just like that!" He, can't remember his name, was talking about my full beard and chest hair. Yes, I had a full beard at 14. I stopped getting prepared for gym. Later on I started getting dressed with the girls. I was just cool with most of them like that.

Unnecessary Praise

I was sitting in front of the Brooklyn Museum on Eastern Parkway this evening when Steve walks up to me with some dude. Then he starts going on about how people be saying big guys can't get girls and how many he seen me get and how he seen me do one of them and how I ain't got to run game and how even though they know the truth they are still down. He told his boy, "He a bigger pimp than you, I even seen him beat." Then his boy was like, "Can I hang out with him?"

Isn't this what it's supposed to be like? Why would you want to be with someone you have to lie to? What's up with dudes chasing females all the time anyway?

Steve forgot to mention he was a thirsty ass, immature… ummm, nevermind. I just don't understand. Then got nerve to ask if he can get at my leftovers. Leftovers or not, the females I have messed with wouldn't give him the time of day.

Friday, April 21, 2006

Go To Hell!

The female formerly known as Mariposa
Circle I Limbo

The Pope
Circle II Whirling in a Dark & Stormy Wind

Saddam Hussein
Circle III Mud, Rain, Cold, Hail & Snow

Osama bin Laden
Circle IV Rolling Weights

George Bush
Circle V Stuck in Mud, Mangled

River Styx

Barry, Vielka
Circle VI Buried for Eternity

River Phlegyas

Shanique, Yeno
Circle VII Burning Sands

People who don't love their children, hurt children
Circle IIX Immersed in Excrement

Jessica Loss (xxxangelloss@yahoo.com) — she conned me this year, do not trust her.
Circle IX Frozen in Ice

Design your own hell

Disclaimer: Some people on here are on just for fun, they should know who they are and should be able to take a joke. Others probably should be on here but they aren't worthy of my mention or your attention. Hell will be amended.

Why…

…would a "friend" call with the purpose of telling you that you are pathetic? Apparently, that friend isn't a friend at all. For someone to feel the need to belittle another for any reason just shows how empty their lives are. You too can be alright!!!

Template Redesign

I have been thinking about redesigning my blog. I will, in fact. I am thinking about the features I will keep, the features I will add, the features I will take away.

I like to think of my blog as a pass into my life. I would ask my public what features they like, what features they'd like to see, and which they can do without, but no one really leaves comments anymore. I know people are reading. The last time I checked, I was getting between 150 and 250 hits a week with about 60% of those being returning visitors.

So far I know that I want to keep the color and I want to make it a 3-column layout, because I know some of my content gets lost towards the bottom with the adds and all the links. I like having the Odeo buttons in my profile, but I haven't started making audio posts and only one person has made use of the "Leave me an Odeo" feature and even she's stopped. I want to re-add the badges I lost when I accidentally deleted half of my template.

There are some really cool things I want to try. I know chances are that I will make multiple iterations to the template before I am satisfied. Maybe I will always tweak it. I might just give it all the features it has now and change it based on what is being used or not or what I think might be useful to you guys.

Get Well Soon: Tiffany

Tiffany, feel better. Hope to hear from you soon. Make sure they treat you right. Hmmm! The bumps we have to get over during our journey through this life.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Financial Presentations

Today did not go so well for me. I took some tests on Excel, PowerPoint and Word. Didn't do well, at least not by my standards. Didn't finish them. On the lighter side the interviewer said based on speaking to me and my experience, he has something in mind for me, but he wants me to take 3 weeks of training starting May 1. He feels I will be ahead of everyone in the training sessions from the start. I did not do well on the tests because I am not familiar with financial presentations.

I have 6 hours of testing tomorrow at Lehman Brothers, the same type of stuff.

Next week I will be going back to the agency and see where I am now with the other stuff I know and move on from there.

Mindfulness: The practice of being “here”

Mindfulness, as defined by Wikipedia, is the practice whereby a person is intentionally aware of his or her thoughts and actions in the present moment, non-judgmentally.

Mindfulness: The practice of being “here”:

Fundamentally mindfulness is a simple concept. Its power lies in its practice and its applications. Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally. This kind of attention nurtures greater awareness, clarity, and acceptance of present-moment reality. It wakes us up to the fact that our lives unfold only in moments. If we are not fully present for many of those moments, we may not only miss what is most valuable in our lives but also fail to realize the richness and the depth of our possibilities for growth, and transformation.
— Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn. p.4

I know a lot of us can appreciate the principle of mindfulness. I sure can. Too many times, I am focused on the what happened yesterday or what can happen tomorrow. Meanwhile, today is slipping away.

I took the thirty day challenge in the first chapter of 7 Habits, I planned to take it but I fell into it sooner. I wasn't being mindful. At the end of the day I just realized I was tallying the challenges I have passed and failed. While I passed most of them, I just felt if I were mindful, I would have met more of the challenges.

The challenge was for me to make commitments and to offer solutions to problems and not be judgmental or critical of others. Basically, I had to be proactive.

So today, it's just that... I am being mindful. Looking for what needs to be done and doing it, not later, but now. Not concerned with what I did yesterday or what I will do tomorrow. Today I will look over my calendar and be aware of my commitments when tomorrow is today — Feel me?

Monday, April 03, 2006

It's Spring Again...

…Everybody knows it's spring again… To all the boys and girls — Forget that — Booty, booty, booty rockin' e'ery where! Time to fall in love.

iChat in Adium!

iChat in Adium!

Adium will be replacing iChat in Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). This totally f'n rocks. I used to love iChat, that is, until I discovered Adium.

It was just getting confusing, having all those messengers and then the chat windows open. Now I have a unified "contact list" and a single (or more) tabbed "message window."

What I missed was the Yahoo! video chat -- never really used video on the other messengers. I never really used it, but I also missed the ability to make and receive voice messages. AIM makes pretty good use of this, I have gotten a couple of accidental voice mails.

Aside from all of that, Adium is what instant messaging should be.

My Lucky Number

XIII

Lucky XIII, originally uploaded by Dramatic.