'Sup?

I suppose I'm due for an update, huh? When we last left off, I got my degree (finally), and I was scouring the edges of the earth for a job, and having really weird dreams along the way. Life has turned around quite a bit since then, though the random ass dreams still continue in large numbers.

Let's see...I don't remember much between April and late August other than many trips to Workforce 1 for job hunting, but around August I decided to take a chance at getting my security certification. I received it around mid September. After a series of false starts and various flubs, by October I still had no job and was getting quite frustrated.

One fateful day however, my mother and a friend of hers were talking, and her friend mentioned to her that he knew of a company that was hiring security guards. The company was also looking for an IT person/web designer. I fit both descriptions, so I gave the VP of IT and Security (one guy, two VP spots, interesting) a call and set up an interview. After the interview, I kept in contact with the VP, and spoke back and forth. It looked like the job was in the bag, but there was just one teeny tiny problem: since the company is a non-profit organization, the finances had to be checked to make sure they could hire someone for essentially a position that did not exist before. There was no real time frame to when that was going to happen, so in the meantime I was offered a security spot until the funds were available. About two days after I met with the head of security there, I got a call from the VP saying that he was able to find the funds to officially hire me. Four days later I was officially an employee of Black Veterans for Social Justice.

It has been 8 1/2 months since that fateful day in November 2009. Since then, I've gained some sort of sense of normality, a nice daily routine, and a new sense of self. I'm feeling pretty good. I'm pretty sure this may be the last post in this blog. I've had my fun with Blogger, but I missed WordPress, so I've jumped ship back to my old blogging software of choice. Blogger and I have had a good run, but now it is time to move on, so on a positive note, I shall bid thee, adieu. It's been real, see you on the other side...of the blogosphere!

http://thoughts.calvin.cwillia.ms

I see sunny days when the clouds run away...

When we last left our hero, his dream of getting his diploma depended on one all important final examination, some 49 minutes after that last fateful blog post. It has been some 4 1/2 months since that fateful day. What has become of our scrappy hero? Was his dream realized? Did he fail miserably and reach his mental tipping point? The answers to that and more coming up.........


Right now!

Yeah I passed that test. In fact I got 100 on it. My final grade in the class was 97. So, yeah, I just barely passed that class. It was enough to appease the University of Hartford enough that they reluctantly granted me my diploma. I has a diploma!! W00t!!!!123

Now that I have that out the way (finally), I now have a new problem to deal with:

SEARING UNEMPLOYMENT!!

I can't get a job to save my life. It sucks BALLS. But I'm trying to make the best of things at the moment. All this downtime and a series of events have caused a possible shift in career direction. Originally I was looking to gain some experience in motion graphics design, but I find myself moving towards web design. It's the weirdest thing too, especially after the way I've shunned programming from my life last year. It all started in January when my friend CJ asked me to help him start up a website for a writing community he wanted to start up. Since then I've set up the content for his website so people will be able to interact and communicate with each other, and make a cool logo for it. All I need to do now is make a sexy looking shell for the website and it will be good to go. I have also thrown together a website for another friend for his music group. I'm currently planning out a website for another friend who is starting an interactive online magazine about acupuncture. This one I'm really excited about. This one is really going to test me in a number of aspects, since I'm not only going to be dealing with the web aspect, i'll be directly involved with ALL aspects of design in this project (logos, typography, layout, all the good stuff). On top of that, i'll be working with Flash, which has been my number one enemy for the longest time. This is going to be an interesting and very fulfilling next few months.

I'll be busy with those projects, and busy moving around for the next few weekends. This weekend i'll be visiting my friend Will and his fiancée Vee to hang out for a few days. I'm going to be in their wedding party, and i'll be singing at their wedding as well, so that's going to be a definite good time. The weekend after (hopefully) i'll be in Hartford visiting people and partying like I'm still in school w00000 PARTAAAAYYYY! :-D The following week is Will's bachelor party! Oh my, the debauchery! XD

Anyway, that's what has been going on these days, and now I should go to bed. Happy Easter folks!

Bi-annual Update

Been awhile, yes. Lots going on? You bet. Am I going to touch upon all of them in this post? Ha, you're funny. I'll get to the main points first and then I may divulge in other stuff.

So, when we last left off, my college diploma was in limbo. With .05 grade points separating me from scholastic freedom, I returned to New York very broken and unsure of what I could do. So I said fuck it all and started looking for work. Unfortunately work did not come, and still hasn't. But behold, one day, a cousin of mine called my mother, and they somehow ended up on the subject of my degree status. As it turns out, that particular cousin and her husband are really important people in southern local colleges, so they devised a plan to talk to my school and see if they can work out something that could help me move one step closer to getting my diploma without having to go back to Hartford. A few weeks go by, my cousins and the entire computer science department of the University of Hartford somehow make a deal for me to take one last course at a local school. We all agreed that I would take Calculus I, and I chose the school pending approval from the dean of the Math Dept. I chose CUNY Medgar Evers College because it's the closest school from my house (20 minute walk close!) So all I had to do was get the ok from the dean. His response: "This course is fine. Good luck."

W00ts!

So cut to today. I'm doing well. I've gotten perfect scores on all but one quiz (9 out of 10 points on the quiz, not bad), and on the first test I got an 86! Which interestingly enough was the highest score in the class. I have two more tests and countless other quizzes to go, but As for right now *knock on wood* things are good. Yeehaw!

Hmmm, what else is going on? Ah, yes, I still have no job, so I'm sitting around at home trying to hone my skills in all things computers. I recently put up a web page for my graphics portfolio. I wrote a good portion of it in JavaScript, which is awesome sauce! And I threw in some flash video instead of random downloadable video to make things easy on those with crappy internet connections. I also put together a new animation, somthing I ended up making out of just a random idea I wanted to test out. It's pretty awesome! Go check it out: http://gfx.ccwii.net

Now that I got all that out of the way, expect (maybe) some new posts about stuff on my mind, and many rants to come! As for right now I'm in a daze, because Barack Obama is been elected our future 44th President!!! I am proud of my country, I am proud of my people, I am proud of my generation. I am just damn proud right now.


OBAMAAAAAAAA!!!!

Quarterly Update

This post is rated L for LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG.

I think I should update more, I'm finding myself losing larger and larger tracks of time. December doesn't seem that long ago. Hopefully I'm not the only one that feels that way.

Lets see. School's been kinda iffy for me, my math class has me in a tight spot at the moment. Everything else is going swimmingly though. Even my Software Development class, even though one of my team members suffers from a severe case of About-To-Get-His-Ass-Kicked-For-Being-Lazy-itis, and the professor works really hard on not teaching us anything.

The main thing keeping my sane are my friends and STN. Having a chance to get to know all the people I've met over this and the past semester has helped make things easier on me. The hardest thing about this extra year in school was the fact that I had to continue through school without a good 70% of people I've known for a good 3-4 years. But fortunately for me, of all the things I have trouble with, making friends is not one of them. I've made new friends and solidified friendships with others. It's a good thing.

As for STN, I've managed to make quite a name for myself. I've gone from graphics artist to 3D and Motion Graphics artist. Over the winter break I began learning how to use 3D Studio Max and Adobe After Effects. In about three weeks I managed to become good enough to try to fake knowing what I was doing. By the middle of February, I was the man at working those two programs. I started showing the Graphics Director a few things I was working on after the break. They weren't bad, but nothing really spectacular. But as I started getting better I started garnering attention from everyone in the organization. My first major creation for STN came in the form of a new weather segment rejoin graphic that I made at the request of Kyle, the chief engineer. My preliminary idea was done in about two days. I showed it to the Kyle, who fell in love with it instantly. I met up with him and he gave me ideas to tweak it, and so I worked on it some more in the office. By the end of the day, most of the people in STN had seen it and fell in love. That raised my status and made people realize that hey, this guy is good!

After that day, I've been called on to work on new versions of graphics that sre becoming outdated, i.e. ALL OF THEM. All of the graphics on the master tapes that we use are at least 6-7 years old. Rosemary, the chief photographer, showed me where the graphics master tapes are, and told me to review them. If there are any graphics I want to redo, then feel free to redo them. Well, it looks like I'm going to redo all of them. In the end, both myself and STN benefit from this. STN gets a nice new graphics overhaul, and I have enough work to put in my portfolio as part of my resume. Woot-tastic!

My real time to shine came during the second week of February. The 16th and 17th STN was airing Hartford Men's and Women's Basketball games live, with our sports team commentating. I saw a clip of soccer game opening that a few guys that graduated years back had made, and it was very inspiring. And then I saw the soccer open from the previous semester.......IT SUCKED ASS! Oh my goodness did it suck. I had to do something about it. I decided to place it upon myself to make a new one. After I came up with an initial idea, I storyboarded it out and submitted it to the graphics director. After I got the OK, I started working on it. Unfortunately, I only had a week to work on it, and it just so happened that it was a very busy week for me. I only had time to start messing with some ideas. I was hoping to start work on it that Wednesday, but unfortunately I spent that Wednesday trying to get basketball footage for the opening.

I started finally working on it on Thursday. I pulled an all-nighter that night into Friday afternoon. Apparently working in 3D is harder than it looks. That afternoon I had to meet with the graphics director to show her my progress. At that point in the day I had it broken down into three parts, two of which was actually rendered. One of those renders was an early render, and didn't reflect the progress I had made at that point. Fortunately what I had was enough to impress her, and she also gave me a few good tips to make it better. She asked me to show the directors board my progress as well. They were quite impressed as well. Very impressed actually. They really liked what they saw, and it was nowhere near done.

I spent the next 12 hours in the office sorting through footage and throwing everything together. By the end of the night, I had mostly everything together, I just needed to render it. I let things render overnight while I slept. I was very tired by then. The next morning everything was rendered. But I messed up one part so I had to re-render it ~_~. I just let it render again and went back to sleep for an hour. After it rendered, I put everything together in After Effects and rendered it all together. That was the quickest render at 5 minutes. I threw my clothes on and headed to the STN office to hand the finished product over to the producer and chief photog. I handed it in three hours before the show. If that wasn't cutting it close, then nothing is. We put the cold open to tape (actually there were two cold opens, one for men's, one for women's, and a rejoin), and then ran to the Sports Center to get everything ready.

The shows went off without a hitch, and all was right in the world. And everyone was floored about how well the opening came out. They damn well better have been, I spent 40+ hours straight working on that. I missed a night's sleep working on that. It was worth the not sleeping and worrying that I might not get it done in time. It just shows you how freakin' awesome I am. Builds character...or something like that. Ever since then I've been asked by various people in STN to work on graphics for them. I'll be helping out with the 15th Anniversary video putting together lower third graphics and other good stuff for it. Word. It's good to be me. I just hope my hard work can help me get a job after graduation. That would kick lots of ass.

As for right now, I'm on my spring break. I took this time to catch up on sleep, catch up with family, and catch up with doctors and dermatologists that I probably should've been visiting years back. It looks like everything checks out and I'm ok. So I shall continue to raise hell and be awesome as only I can. It's good to be me.


The end.

Yep.

So, 2007 is just about over, and I haven't blogged in about two months, so I figure it's about due time for an update. So let's see...school is done for this semester. It was a semester full of disappointment and stress saved only by the two clubs that I belong to on campus keeping me sane. The beginning of November I joined the campus' television network, STN. I'm part of the graphics department, creating over the shoulder and various on screen graphics and controlling on screen graphics and animations during the live show. It's a crapload of fun and it feels good to be a part of live television, even if noone outside the campus really gets to see it. I still enjoy it. The people there are pretty cool too. 'Tis a good time.

My other group is awesome as well, my a cappella group. We went through quite a lot this semester, we lost a few major people, but that only pushed us to get stronger and more betterer. That's right, more betterer. At the end of this post, I'll put up links to our concert from November.

Right now I'm at home enjoying some much needed time off from school. I had a very awesome Christmas. I got a Zune! I can finally retire my old antique mp3 player. That should've been dead and gone a long time ago, but I wouldn't let it die. Now it can be put out to pasture. 30 gigs of good times. Also for Christmas I got a new hoodie, and a sphinx figurine straight from Egypt (care of my brother). My presents are awesome. I got my mother a long string of black and white pearls, and for my brother, Smallville Season 6 on DVD. They both enjoyed their presents. It's been great having my brother home, it's the first Christmas in three years where the whole family (mom, brother, grandmother and myself) was together. It was kindof a bittersweet Christmas in a way though. It's the last Christmas that we will have with our dog.

Our dog, Midnight, has been a part of our family since 1992. My brother and I grew up with her. I was 7 and he was 15 when we got her. she was only 4 months old. We had never seen a dog with jet black fur and a purple tongue (yep, her tongue is purple). We all have so many good memories with her, and she has been with us for so long (15 years!!!), so it's heartbreaking for all of us to see her slowly slip away. Earlier in the month she was diagnosed with cancer, stemming from a tumor inside of her mouth. It's gotten large rather quickly and it's making her weaker by the day. As of right now it's getting hard for her to even walk. Because of her present state, my family and I have decided to have her put down on Wednesday. It will be a hard day for all of us, but we will all be there around her to the end.

That's about it for right now. Got to rest up for tomorrow, gonna be a damn good time tomorrow. Wishing you all a happy new year. Phone post will probably happen sometime during that night.

How I'm spending my summer vacation...

[Listening to: - Cosmic Love Odyssey from the album ""]

So, I'm campus right now, trying to enjoy the storm that is currently passing through. It's been a decent past few weeks. Classes are done, and I am quite thankful for that. Saw my friends off as they graduated and were thrusted head first into the void of real life. Moved into my room for the summer. Found out that I have a roommate, but it turned out good since we both know each other. After unpacking I headed home for a few days to unwind, get away from campus and get away from people/problems that plagued me during the school year. 'Twas much fun at home, got to hang out with mom, visit some extended family and gorge myself with lots of chinese food. It was interesting getting back to campus the other day. I step out of the cab, and I get stopped by a Public Safety officer who asks me for ID to make sure I wasn't loitering or staying illegally. It was BS, but I stayed around and waited for him to get response from the dispatcher so I could get cleared. After 10 minutes of no response from the dispatcher, the officer lets me go. What a waste of time that was. Anyway, the next day, I started training for my job. Seems like a decent job save for the scavenger hunt that I'll my coworkers and I will go through trying to find stuff. It will be a good time though. Not to mention the hours I'll be working. 35+/week. Money money money moooonneyy......MOOOOONEY!!! Hehehe! I'm looking forward to it, work begins June 4th. Woot. I think that about sums things up pretty much.

And that's the way it is.

The Final Post....

[Listening to: - Wesley Willis - Rock Saddam Hussein's Ass from the album ""]

Of the year, I should say. I don't honestly remember the last time I updated this thing. But I figure right now is the best time to update. A lot happened in the school term. Let's start with the things that I care to talk about.

One thing that I failed to mention was that I joined an a capella group on campus. It's called Vocal Explosion, and it is downright amazing. It's a group that formed just this semester. They were holding auditions one night, and my friend Hana said that I should try out. I said ok and auditioned. My audition song was Warning by Incubus. I probably would have gotten in by just singing that song, but I really sold them when they realized I could beatbox. So from that point on I became the group's beatboxer. I was quite happy. It's been lots of fun being in this group, though for a while I was feeling a bit out of place as sole beatboxer. I didn't really have to learn any of the parts, I just listened to the song and put a beat to it. My unique position was kinda making me feel left out, but one day I was asked to sing bass in one of the songs, and I felt more like part of the group. The people in the group are so much fun to work with, and fun to be around in general. And we are just incredibly talented. We ended up perfecting four songs and performing them. Our first performance was on December 8th. We sang Walk Away by Kelly Clarkson, Everyday Is A Winding Road by Sheryl Crow, Satellite by Dave Matthews Band, and Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison. We totally pwned that night. It was downright amazing. That performance raised our confidence levels through the roof. We're really looking forward to this coming term, and I feel really fortunate to be a part of this group. We've really made a name for ourselves and set the bar, and we've just been around for a semester.

Speaking of this semester, this semester sucked significantly less than last one. I got a nice GPA boost, hopefully I can work a little harder and do well next semester. My roommates and I drank rediculously this year. I mean seriously. We should be alcoholics at this point. Our livers should be telling all of us to fuck off. We have (with some help with a few friends) collectively drank 250+ bottles and cans of beer, and I believe at least 20 bottles of wine, vodka, Jack, sake, tequila, and 40oz malt liquor (Dave and his friends enjoy those, I don't know why). We had a good time this year. Made new friends, made new drinking buddies, and overall savored being legal drinking age.

I have a new laptop now. HP Pavillion dv9000z. My previous laptop, Lappy, suffered a tragic open-window-during-a-heavy-rainstorm related death. Fortunately the hard drive was able to survive, and now I'm using that as an external hd. Also fortunately for me, my mother foot the bill for a new laptop. It's sexy as all hell. I'll give some descriptions later, but for right now I just wanted to make an update because I probably won't be around for much of tomorrow. I'll be watching the Jets/Raiders game tomorrow with Aleda, then hang out with my friends John Manchester and Darrell for the rest of the night. Overall, 2006 was alright. It kinda sucked for a good while, but after that it wasn't bad. If I don't phonepost, everyone have a Happy New Year. May 2007 suck less than 2006.

No updates at all this month? Shame on me....

So yeah. Sorry about that. It's been a while since anything worth mentioning happened. Basic highlights have been working, trips to the Barcade with Darrell, and my mother's birthday. My mother's birthday was actually kinda nice. I took her out to a nice restaurant and bought her a nice CD player with touch screen. She really enjoyed that. Hanging out at the Barcade with Darrell has been loads of fun. Enjoying good beer, playing very old school arcade games, and feeling QBert's pain in the fact that he's a noser, and he's constantly being chased by snakes and aliens. The winter is going to be so much fun because the Barcade will be a permanent hangout spot and we'll be able to explore the city more.

So this my last week of freedom. I'm kinda sad because I'm not quite ready to go yet. It seems like everyone in the HaxCafe doesn't want me to go. It makes me feel really good to know that I have fans here. But I'm always welcome here, and I can come here anytime I want and hang out, and use my unlimited account (W007!) I will miss working here.

Though I'm not ready to go yet, I am looking forward to going back to school and working my ass off and having fun at the same time. So much shenanigans and revelry and antics (and hopefully mo broken walls) will go down this year. I guess it's time to prepare. Not before one last hurrah with St. Clair and Darrell.

So much happened this month...

It's too bad I forgot everything. No, wait...it's coming back...
....
......
.......
.........there we go!

Ok, so I should recap from the beginning. The highlight of the second week of this month was going to see Al Green in Coney Island. I went with my mother, brother (who was in the country for three weeks), and cousin Ronnie. It was a great show, especially seeing how many Al Green songs I knew (I knew quite a few).
Week three. Saw Kaki King a second time. enjoyed her moreso than the first week. Got some good pix, got really excited for her new album.

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Sunday!! A bunch of my friends from school came down from various parts of New England to visit me. Don't I feel special (yeah, I do, got a problem?)! Josh, his girl Angie, John, Jessie and Danielle (who has less of an excursion since she lives in western LI) came down. The day started by meeting Jessie at the train station. Nobody else was there, Josh and Angie were in NJ being lazy and not getting ready for anything, and everyone else was on their way. I took Jessie to the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company for lunch. Before we had the chance to order anything, John calls up and lets me know he's in town, so I direct him to the restaurant and we all enjoy delicious Gumpy goodness. I had a BBQ pork sandwich, Jessie had clam chowder, and we all split a Bucket of Boat Trash (a bucket [an actual metal bucket] of fried shrimp, fried chicken strips, and mahi mahi). It was quite tasty. While we were eating, Josh called to let us know he and Angie were on their way, and it would be 40 minutes till they got to Manhattan. 20 minutes later they call and say they're there. Fortunately by that time we were paying for everything, so we paid and headed to meet them. After we met up with them, we walked around for a little while, picking up tens of free samples of Excedrin along the way, hung out in Bryant Park, got tickets to the Laugh Factory for later that night, then we headed to catch the L train to hang out at the Barcade...except the L train was fucking completely out of service. Fucking MTA. So there went that plan. Fortunately there's plenty to do in Manhattan, and we found entertainment in the form of a bowling alley/arcade/bar at the Port Authority bus terminal...except they had to close down the arcade for the night because they "ran out of arcade coins" (such bullshizzle) and the bar was closed. We were all bummed after that. Then we noticed a bar at the other side of the terminal, so we went there to drown our sorrows (well, I did anyway). I was really down at that point because the day went nothing like how I wanted it to go. But things started looking up afterwards. There was a pool table at the bar, so we immediately took it over. We got a few good games of pool in. Around this time Queen Danielle decided to grace us with her presence. After the bar we headed to the Laugh Factory and enjoyed some pretty good comedy. The headliner was Kyle Grooms, who was really good. I give the whole show 8/10. After the show, we all had to start getting back to our respective homes. We all saw off Jessie to the train station, and Josh and Angie went off into the moonlight to catch the PATH train back to Jersey. John had to figure out how/if he was going to get home since Boston's transit system would be out of service by the time he got home, so we walked around until we figured out something. Fortunately he found a place to stay for the night, Danielle's basement. It was either that or roam around Manhattan the rest of the night, and he and Danielle had places to go in the morning. So from that point we parted ways and went home.

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Last week, Tuesday, Darrell and I took a trip to the Barcade. It was his first time going and he had been wanting to go. So I think it's become one of his new favorite places to hang out. He loved just the pure nostalgia it brings out in everyone. He couldn't drink anything because he was going in for a physical the next day, and I didn't really help his will power by drinking right in front of him, fanning the smell of my beer towards him. Fortunately we'll be going again tomorrow and he can make up for lost drinking time.

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The weekend, mom, grandma and I took a trip to New Haven to go to a cousin's wedding. It was a real nice wedding. We saw a whole bunch of family there. It was a good time. the food was so-so. My prime rib was good, although it was so rare it looked like it could crawl off the plate at any given moment. If I get tapeworm from that meat, i'm beatin' someone's ass. I did a little dancing, which I don't ususally do, unless the Electric Slide starts playing. There was an open bar, so I took advantage by getting a Captain Morgan and Coke. Mmm mmm, bitch! Overall a good time. Stayed with some family overnight, and hung out the next day with more family. I have so many extended relatives it's not funny. Headed home around 3 or so.

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Today. Here at work. The AC's on the fritz, some points of the day were absolute hell, but it's nighttime right now so things are cooling off.

Oh yeah, yesterday I completed my first song sonce 2003. Happy is I right now. Proud be I of it. Listen to it you shall are being. http://music.ccwii.net is the place to listen and marvel in it's awesomeness. I love Reason so much. It made creating this song easy and really fun. I need to use it and be awesome with it more often. And please for the love of all things holy, drop me a comment here if you listen to it and let me know what you think.

If It's Not One Thing, It's Another....

Well, where to start? Sorry I haven't been updating, life's been happening. Had to finish school, which I barely got out of. Grades, don't ask. This term sucked a snow leopard's ass with Cheez Whiz. I'm glad it's done. I'm back home now, and I thought things would be all roses. Not so much. Sometime in April there was a fire in my grandmother's apartment building. The fire didn't damage her apartment, but it was severe enough (along with the various building violations that the landlord failed to take care of) that every resident had to evacuate and find a place to reside while repairs are made. My mother, being a concerned daughter, took my grandmother in and is letting her stay until the apartment is habitable again. Now here is where things get less cut and dry. My grandmother has had a habit of losing things and claiming that someone stole her stuff for a few years now. Most of the blame was being placed on my mother.

My mother couldn't understand why this was happening. it took a few years to find the answer, but it looks like my grandmother is suffering what looks like Alzheimer's Disease or a related form of dimentia. The thing about Alzheimer's is that it doesn't get any better. It only gets worse. It slowly deteriorates the victim's brain, and logic and reasoning skills, among other things, begin to fade. One symptom of this disease is that the person will lose something, and will believe that someone stole it. It's nothing intentional, they truly believe someone is stealing from them. Things only get worse when a person with Alzheimer's is taken out of their comfort zone or regular environment, ie. having to move out of their house to somewhere new. Mix that with the various personality defects and emotional scarring that my grandmother has, my mother and I are having a great fucking time right now.

Here's a normal episode: My grandmother loses something, she asks me and my mother if we've seen it, we don't look after her things since we stay in the living room while she takes the bedroom, so we don't know, she begins crying and saying something along the lines of "I don't know what I did to deserve this," meaning we had something to do with her stuff being missing, she goes to the bedroom, finishes crying, finds what she lost, and everything is back to normal, with the exception of my mother and I bleeding from her aftermath. We can't hold it against her because it's the disease slowly eating away at her. What sucks even more is that we can't do anything about it, it's a degenerative disease so my grandmother's mind is just going to deteriorate. There's no happy ending to this one.

I'm trying to enjoy my summer, but with my grandmother here it's really hard to. Things are good when she doesn't lose anything, but when she does, noone's happy. It's a pretty divided house, with me partially being the arbitrator. My grandmother would like nothing more than to move back to her comfort zone, and my mother and I would love that too, but until all the repairs are made to her building (people are speculating completion sometime in July), it looks to be a long summer for all of us. I'm probably going to be out of the house a lot this summer. At least i have a few people to hang out with, and I'll be turning 21 soon, so things are looking up. I just need the strength to make it out of this.

Yep.

Well it's been three weeks since i've gotten back to school. Things seem to be going good. My classes aren't terribly hard. Ever since I worked like crazy for my final Computer Graphics project, I'm ready for just about anything. I have Chemistry, Data Analysis, Software Development and Operating Systems. I'm also back working in the Commons. Same old grind. Except I lost my friggin' keys. They could be anywhere in this time zone, so they're basically gone for good. I kept hearing from various sources that the front door lock may have to be replaced, and I'd have to pay $150+ for it. After large amounts of cursing and searching for my keys, I gave up and went to Residential Life and told the, I lost my keys. There was some good news for me there, though. I may not have to pay for a new lock, they may just go and cut new keys. It's even possible they may not charge me for the keys. It's been well over a week since I've heard anyting from ResLife, but I have a temporary key, so I can get in and out of my room.

WARNING: Extreme computer geekery ahead. If you do not know what UNIX is, you may want to skip the following paragraph. You've been properly warned. Thank you.

My nerdness has gotten off to a good start this year. For Operating Systems I have a project that involves the use of a UNIX terminal. So one of my friends made the suggestion that we build our own server. It would belong to the four of us (me, Rick, Josh and Will). Rick had a server PC sitting around in his house, so he brought it to campus and we all had a field day with it. We added some new hardware, we temporarily stole Rick's DVD drive so we could install Fedora, since the install files were on a DVD and the server doesn't have a DVD drive.
One very important part of having a server is being able to connect to the internet. This server had no network card. No network card = no internet. We had to wait a few days for Rick to go back home and dig for parts. We got plenty enough to set up at that point. I'm probably the most excited about this whole endeavour, and possibly the more knowledgeable. I set up just about all the network aspects of the server, setting up the router, figuring out how to set up remote access, etc. Today I got remote access set up for the server, so me and my friends can access the server from any computer anywhere. And that to me is freakin' smurf.

Things are good on the music front as well. Dave and I are working on a new song for the Hott Lixxx, we'll be recording that soon. My next door neighbor Dwight has a small home recording studio in his living room, and from time to time we'd talk about recording, etc. I told him that I play guitar, and he said if I ever wanted to record anything to let him know. Sunday, while I was waiting for the Super Bowl to start, I brought my guitar next door and Dwight and I tracked a couple of ideas, one of which turned into a real hot beat. It's in the process of mixing, it should be done soon. Once I get it, I'll post it on my music page.

That's all I feel like writing for now, I need to go to bed.

No, I am not dead, thank you for your concern....

[Listening to: - 08 Umi Says from the album ""]

I haven't updated in weeks. Why? A number of reasons, mainly a lack of something to talk about. So, here's a rundown of what's been happening:

School: sucking less ass

Work: not sucking at all

Hermit Crab: still alive

Laptop: Awesome as ever

Friends: always a pleasure to have, and i have plenty

Family: constantly thankful for them

Guitar: still working on it

Music: one of the few things that keep me going

Music is a beautiful thing. It can do so much for a person. It can relax, evoke thought, bring people together. I got a chance to see a group called We Are Scientists at the Webster on the 12th, along with The Redwalls and Hot Hot Heat. 'Twas a kickass show. What made it more kickass was the fact that I caught up with my friend Oz who I hadn't seen in ages. It was great seeing him.

Must remind myself to buy We Are Scientists album, among other things.

Thanksgiving break was great. Got to see my mother for the first time since August. she cooked for Thanksgiving, made like a 15 course dinner even though it was only me, her and my grandmother. It was delicious, and it made me pass out for a few hours. Home cooking is a beautiful thing. During the time off, I hung out with my friend St. Clair and jammed with him. I got a chance to check out his Omega Desktop Recording Studio. It's a sweet little device. We got a chance to record a song. Me on the guitar, St. Clair on bass. Turned out pretty decent. Wanna hear it? Still trying to work out my soloing skills. It will be up to par in the not so distant future.

I've got so many original songs in my head that they're all trying to come out all at once, so I'm now trying to figure out which songs I should work out, and which should go into the permanent backburner. I've got another song started, and I like it's possibilities. Maybe by the end of this year I will have that song and my jazz song completed.

"Music is my heart and soul, more precious than gold."
- Marvin Gaye

So, yeah....

[Listening to: Soulive - Aladdin from the album "Soulive"]

I haven't updated in a while because there has been nothing for me to update about. But to summarize things: classes = sucking major asshole, but fortunately I have friends that are smart and can help me out of this hole (Josh). I took my second Politics test, I did better than the first time due to the shere fact that I was able to do all five essays in the given time. Work: going very well. No problems there. Music: got a new song going. It's a jazz song that's somewhere between Soulive, Miles Davis and Yoko Kanno (composed most of the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack, among other things.) I'm trying something different, instead of using WinJammer like I have been for the last 4 years, I'm giving Fruity Loops 5 a try. It works surprisingly well, and isn't as hard as I thought previously thanks to St. Clair's crash course. I hope to be done by the end of this month, but seeing as how this is a jazz song, it's going to be harder to transpose my ideas from my brain to the computer because of all the complex chords. But i'll get it all done and it will rock...or whatever term can be used to describe an awesome jazz song.

Saturday my friend Oz and a few of his friends are coming up to Hartford to catch a show at the Webster Theatre, and so I'm going to catch up with him there, as well as check out some cool bands. Well I'm all nice and up to speed. Time for bed.

BLLJBFLBSDOCJSBHDLFHSGDFCUSDVKCFUDVCD DANGERDOOM!!!!

[Listening to: Dangerdoom - Sofa King from the album "The Mouse & The Mask"]

Well, stuff has happened since I last updated. The school flooded and caused damage to one of the main roads and part of one of the parking lots. That was loads of fun. Check it out. I had a bunch of tests last week, didn't go so well, but I got an A on one of my papers in Government, so I was happy about that. I jammed with some friends on Friday, hung out with Jessie, Dave, my laptop and a bottle of Jack Daniels on Saturday, and cleaned the bathroom on Sunday. Man that bathroom was horriffic!! I'm so glad I cleaned. Room 1101 now has wireless internet thanks to CJ's wireless router. Wireless internet = awesome! You know what's even more awesome? Dangerdoom. What a great freakin' album. Well worth the two weeks of waiting (freakin' Amazon.com....). I've finally ordered a hardshell case for my guitar. No longer will I have to lug my guitar around in the cardboard box that it came in. w00t. And now I have run out of stuff to write about. So I shall stop now. Alright. Done. Finished. Finito. End.

I'm Feeling Fat...And Sassy....

[Listening to: QB3 - Mind's Eye from the album "The Autumn Sessions EP"]

Sorry about that, I still have Rejected on my brain. I really need to buy that DVD. Well, here I am again for another long overdue update. I won't make it long because people have lives to lead and the last thing they need is a long boring post about me. Lets see....

Two weekends ago, my mother, my dog and I took a trip to Maryland to visit a cousin of mine. We stayed at his house for the weekend. We talked, we ate, we went to see a concert that included a scantily clad Toni Braxton (I can't figure out how she is still hotttt after having four kids), overall, fun was had. The only downside to that trip was that I missed a huge sale at Sam Ash where I could have got the guitar I've been drolling over for 20% off. *tear*

I have only one more week of work left. I can't believe that it's almost over. It's been hella fun though. I've worked hard, lost some weight, and gained the respect of all the higher-ups. And no brown-nosing was used in the process! Hooray for working hard while keeping my dignity! W007z!!

Last Saturday my mother took me driving. I drove around a large parking lot for about an hour to get a feel for driving. My learner's permit was feeling very unused as of late.

If you've never heard of the band QB3, do yourself a favor and check them out. You'll be glad you did. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know your taste in music.

After work tomorrow I'm going to try and buy my guitar, even if I don't get a discount (but you know I'm going to try with all my power to see if I can get one!), and I'm going to also see if I can buy my mothera present for her birthday, which is on Monday.

Well, that's about it, time to watch Attack of the Show....

Super-Hulken-Huge-Funkin-Update Time!

[Listening to: Lettuce - Break Out from the album "Live In Tokyo"]

So much has happened since July 1st. This may be a long one depending on how I feel. Let's start with the earliest. July 2-4th was the Freeman-Brewington Family Reunion. This reunion (on my mother's mother's side) held the most significance to me than any of the previous ones I've been to because I've actually learned how most of the people on that side of my family are related and who's who. That, and it was the first reunion I've been to since 2001. I got to meet a bunch of cousins, some I remember and some I never knew existed. I got a chance to get to know major root in my family tree. It felt really good. My mother and grandother enjoyed this one as well because they felt that this one had more bonding like the first reunion 40 years ago. They felt that this was how the reunion was supposed to be. We're definitely looking forward to the reunion next year.

That Monday I started work. I'm working at a housing complex as one of the maintenance workers. It's a pretty decent job, it's not all that hard, my supervisor is cool as hell, my coworkers are pretty cool too (they're both still in high school). The downside is that I can only work 25 hours a week maximum and I only get $6 an hour. But hey, it's just a jorb. I wish I was getting paid better because I'm considering buying a laptop. I have an option of paying it off little by little without interest for a year, so I may do that and pay it off before the year is up.

HP zv6000 notebook PC.

It's a slick looking laptop with some hella nice speakers. I've gotten an opportunity to check it out firsthand because my friend St. Clair has the zv5000 which basically has the same chassis and features. I'm going to customize mine because I want it to be as close in speed and power as my desktop because I will use it as a desktop replacement when I'm travelling. Nothing can replace my desktop. NOTHING!!!! I'll have to order my laptop during the school year cause I'll be damned if I'm going to pay an extra $100 in tax to ship it to NY. Fuck that good sir.

That's about it. I could talk about how I had to wait 6 hours to pick out my job, but that ordeal is behind me, plus thinking about is making me angry right now. Things are alright right now. I'd rather be in school, but it's all good right now. The End, bitches!