Soooo what’s up with Dreams?

There have been many things written about dreams.  What they mean, where they come from, why we have them.  But there isn’t one agreed upon answer to any of those questions because well, dreams don’t really make sense.  We drift out of consciousness for the night and we experience images, sensations, and actions in our minds that are all out of our control.  Sometimes we remember them; sometimes we don’t.  And rarely do they make much sense. At least mine don’t.  But for the sake of discussion I’m going to try and see if I can make some sense out of what goes on when the sandman visits me at night.   

One theory about dreams is that they are produced from random fragments of thoughts and memories from the day being sorted out and cataloged in our minds.  This seems to make some sense, since I can say I often have dreams related to things that have happened or I’ve  been thinking about.

For example, I recently had a dream in which my friend Kevin was having a birthday party where everyone that was invited, all friends from high school, were playing a giant game of laser tag in our high school.  It was a pretty sweet dream since laser tag is all kinds of fun, and I was hanging out with some really good friends from high school I haven’t seen in a while (well technically still haven’t seen for a while).  Now the strange part is, Kevin’s birthday is at the end of the month, but I hadn’t thought about it being his birthday because it’s 3 weeks away.  Is my brain reminding me of his birthday so I can send him a card with a laser tag gift certificate in it?  I haven’t played laser tag since I was probably about 12, and haven’t really thought about playing laser tag in who knows how long.  I also haven’t visited my high school in a half dozen years, which might explain why in my dream it didn’t really look anything like my high school, but yet I still knew that’s where we were. But all of these rarely visited memories came together in a dream about a game of laser tag.  Very strange.

So how does my brain put all of these random thoughts, ideas, and memories together into a vivid visualization of a laser tag game?  Do other people have weird dreams like this? Or is it just me.  It would be nice if I could have reminder dreams for special upcoming events and dates so I wouldn’t forget a birthday, anniversary, or appointment ever again.  Hmm I wonder if there’s some way to make that happen.

A second theory states that dreams allow the repressed parts of the brain to be satisfied through fantasy and keep the conscious mind from being overwhelmed by these repressed thoughts.  I guess this theory somewhat applies, since I have dreams about playing competitive basketball, football, and baseball pretty frequently.  I’ve always sort of wished my sports career went a little better than it did in high school and have had some regrets in the way that I prepared myself and approached them back then.  You could say I was a little lazy.  And I’ve always wondered what could have been had I taken things a little more seriously.  What could have been. I’ll probably live out that regret over and over again at night.  Stupid brain.

Another theory presented by the famous thinker Mr. Sigmund Freud says that the brain uses dreams to present difficult and stressful situations to help us control our emotional responses to these situations.  This one also tends to ring true with me in some ways, although my brain seems to place a large importance on some rather minor life stresses.  You would probably be amazed by the amount of flat tire dreams I have.  Flat tires do suck and are not fun any to deal with, especially when you need to be someplace, but they rank pretty low on my conscious brains list of greatest fears.  I’ve experienced three flat tires in my life and since then I’ve become slightly paranoid about checking the air level in my tires each and every time I get in and out of my car.  But I’m more afraid of being mugged, going broke, or losing my hair than dealing with another flat tire.

Or being late.  My second most recurring “nightmare” is being late to something.  In the dreams I never know what I’m late for, I just know that I need to be someplace, and I always have obstacles in my way that prevent me from getting to that place in a timely fashion.  Like a flat tire.  Or not being able to find any pants.  (Yes those really happened)  And I usually end up having to run there. In super slow motion.  When I’m not dreaming, I am a very punctual person, and haven’t really had too many traumatic punctuality events in my life that may have triggered some kind of post traumatic stress situation.  I’ve always valued being on time and almost always have been.  Still, I dream about being late all the time.

Maybe I’m a little more neurotic than I give myself credit for and I worry about these things subconsciously, which is why I’m on time places and I fill my tires with air more than the average human being.  Maybe my dreams are meant to deal with those worries and thoughts because my conscious brain doesn’t want to?  Or can’t?  And it in turn makes me deal with them more in real life?  I guess that could make sense.  I’d just prefer my brain chose some bigger issues to work on, rather then punctuality and tire pressure.

Maybe dreams are really just random fragments of information the brain has stored in its deepest crevices and they get threaded into bizarre storylines while you sleep.  That seems to be the most consistent explanation because most of my dreams are just really strange, nonsensical, hodge-podges of previous experiences, people I know, and past, present and future events.  Maybe dreams are just random firings of our neurons and maybe they do have deeper meaning.  Who knows.

I’d love to relay some more of the odd dreams I have, but you might actually think I’m crazy if you read some of them.  Maybe I’ll save those for another post.  The only thing I can really say about dreams is that I’m glad I have them, I just wish I could figure out how to control them because then I could stop worrying about my tires so much.

Leave a comment if you have some great dream insight, experiences, or can relate to something I said.  I’d love to hear about them.

A Little Ketchup

You might be wondering why this particularly long overdue blog post has America’s favorite condiment in the title.  It’s a lame joke that was designed to remind you how clever and funny I am and why you love reading my blog, and hopefully will make up for the extremely long absence I’ve had (Please nod in agreement).  My sincerest apologies.  Since I haven’t written a blog post in roughly two weeks, this post will catch you up on what’s been going on with me, since I know you are all dying to know (please nod in agreement again).

To start, I’ve been really busy.  Between the time spend working and having recently moved, I haven’t had much time to relax.  Shopping for new stuff for my room, working out, my new kickball league, and trying to remain somewhat social have taken up a lot of my time each week.  Which is why I haven’t had time to keep up the blog.  But I digress.

 The marketing job I landed a few weeks ago is going well so far.  I’m three weeks in and enjoying learning new things and facing the challenges every day brings.  So far most of my time has been dedicated to editing, restructuring, and creating new content for the law firms websites.  I’ve written over a lot of blog and website content related to bankruptcy law and foreclosure defense.  I’ve been building the pages, uploading them to the website and mapping out the interlinking of the site to ensure all the pages are well linked and easy to navigate too.  There’s still a lot of work to do and a lot of pages we still want to create, which gives me plenty to do everyday. 

We’re also in the process of merging a few older websites the firm had into the newer more complete site, so I’ve learned a lot about building websites from the ground up, mostly through trial and a lot of error, and how to merge two sites together while maintaining the quality of the links and SEO ranks for both sites.  I’ve gotten a lot of practice using Dreamweaver, and have a pretty good feel of how it works.

I’ve also created a blog for the law firm which is still slowly making its way off the ground.  I haven’t had a lot of time to dedicate to perfecting the blog, but I’ve written a lot of blog entries that will be hitting the web sometime soon.  There is a lot of work to do to really make this a productive and successful blog, but the challenge and opportunity are very exciting.  And this is only the beginning, once the website is fully integrated and up and running we’ll kick in the social media and other marketing tools to increase business. 

In addition to all of the basic marketing work I’ve been doing I’ve been helping out on the legal side of things.  I’ve learned a ton about bankruptcy and foreclosure and the large amount of people that seem to experiencing either of these situations in Florida.  I tweeted earlier in the week about how it’s been strange getting used to hearing the term “getting served” in a serious context.  When someone is in foreclosure they “get served” their court summons and listening to our attorney or paralegal use that phrase makes me giggle everytime.  I really want to interject “suckas” everytime they say it.

So that’s a little bit about the job which has been taking up so much of my time and preventing me from getting time to write.  It really is so much easier to find time to do this kind of stuff when you don’t have to spend 9 hours at work.  Ahhh the advantages of being laid off.

Anyway, now that we’ve had some time to ketchup I’ll hopefully be able to mustard up some more blog posts in the near future and relish in the opportunity to write the thought provoking and witty stuff that you guys all love. Hot dog.  Thanks for reading, and as always feel free to leave a condiment, I mean comment below!

A few Laid-Off Lessons

Being laid off was not a great experience.  It was the first time I had ever involuntarily left a job.  But I suppose it’s better than being fired.  It wasn’t my fault, I was just a victim of poor financial standing by my former employer.  But unexpectedly having to search for a new job was stressful, although it was pretty nice to have 3 and a half weeks to just kind of hang out and relax.  During my time off I learned a few things and made a few interesting observations with the extra time I had.  Some laid-off lessons if you will.

1. Craigslist is a decent place to find a job. Believe it or not the job I currently have was found this way, and the only other interview I had also came from Craigslist.  As long as you can comb through all of the scams and creepy old men looking for personal massage therapists to work out of their basements you can find the diamonds in the rough.  Craigslist is a free job posting board, while sites like Monster and Career Builder cost money to list jobs, so small businesses and local companies use it to save money.  You may not find a CEO level job here but it’s not bad for lower level positions.
2. I am not qualified to bus tables. That’s right, I couldn’t even get a call back to any place I put in an application.  I applied to well over a dozen part-time, minimum wage, restaurant positions in Jacksonville and couldn’t even get a sniff of interest.  Most restaurants wanted a few years of experience which I sorta kinda don’t  have. I worked five years in food service, not in a commercial restaurant, but five years of food service experience.  Maybe since I was a salaried managed for a major food service company I'm over qualified? Or maybe my lack of experience waiting tables makes me under qualified? Either way I'm undesirable.
3. Jacksonville is really nice this time of year.  I just threw that one in there to rub it in to everyone back home.  70 degrees in January and very sunny.  
4. Reading and writing are all kinds of fun. I had lots of time to write (this blog) and read some good books. And it was really refreshing to spend more time using my brain instead of melting it away in front of the TV.  I’d recommend it to everyone.
5. Working out and eating healthy leads to getting in better shape.  I think everyone probably already knew that, but I actually had the chance to follow through with it for a month at a time.  I lost 8 pounds in a month, which wasn’t really my intention but I guess it doesn’t hurt.  And I kind of like running for an extended period of time again.
6. Learning new stuff is both fun and rewarding!  Okay so that sounds a little corny but it’s pretty accurate.  I taught myself HTML programming and feel pretty smart right now.  I had turned my academic brain off since graduating college so it was good to see it still works.
7. Starbucks is busy at every hour of the day.  I started going to a few different Starbucks in town to get out of the house while writing or working on my programming book at various times during the day, and I always had a hard time finding a place to sit.  There was almost always a line.  And their new blonde coffee blend is pretty good.
8. Red Box was a really good invention. I can remember the days of Blockbuster and paying like $6 to have a movie for 4 days.  Why was that an accepted way to rent movies for so long?  Why did we ever need movies for more than 2 days?  Most people pick up a movie to watch it that day or the next, and once they’ve watched it they’re done with it.  But with Blockbuster you had the option to watch it for 3 more days if you wanted.  No wonder they went out of business so quickly.
9. I like sleeping in. Nothing else really needs to be said about that one.
10. I like money.  Or I like having money.  Well, I like having enough money to not have to worry about spending an extra dollar or two here or there.  Okay, so I don’t know what that actually feels like, but I know what the opposite of that feels like and I know that I don’t like it.  Hmmm. Goal: Make more money. Or win the lottery.
11. Craigslist probably took someone about 10 minutes worth of programming to make. After completing and intro to programming and HTML book I could make a site like Craigslist.  But I don’t think I would change anything about it, because it coincides with the shady nature of many of the people advertising on there.  Maybe that’s what the creator was going for.
12. Don’t ever watch any of the free movies Comcast has available for you OnDemand.  They’re all really bad. I would prefer any SiFi movie over one of those rotten tomatoes.
13. Harrison Ford was in really good shape in the early 80’s.  Watch BladeRunner, you’ll see what I mean. On a related note, I have learned that not everyone that lived in the 80’s was out of shape.

You may find some of these helpful, but probably mostly worthless.  Either way, thanks for reading.  And even though no one ever listens, please, leave a comment. They’re fun.

The Search is Over

So after 3 long weeks of searching and stressing it’s finally over. I found a job.  I’ll be starting my new career as the marketing guy (I don’t actually know my official job title???) for a law firm here in Jacksonville.  I’m very excited to have the opportunity to take the reins on the marketing efforts for the firm and hopefully take them (I guess I should say “us”) to new heights.  I’d like to say a few things . . .

Thank you to everyone who supported me during this time.  I want to thank my family and friends for always being there for me.  I want to thank the fans who make it possible for me to be here. I want to thank the coaches and trainers who helped keep me prepared for every game and performing at my best.  I’d like to thank all of the writers and critics who gave me the motivation . . .

Oops sorry, that’s the Heisman Trophy speech I had prepared just in case I ever got really good at football in college.  I forgot I didn’t have a “I just got hired after being laid off for 3 weeks” speech prepared for this occasion, so I’ll just have to wing it.

But seriously, I do appreciate all of the support that everyone has given me during my three week unpaid vacation.  Thanks to anyone who has ever read my blog and continues to read these.  Getting some positive feedback about this blog and my writing in general was a large part of staying positive and giving me the confidence to keep writing.  Although I will have less time to update this going forward, I’ll try my best to keep writing and continue to post some good material in the future.   I still have a few gems in production that I’m waiting to put together.  Hopefully I can deliver and you’ll continue to read.

Buffalo Chicken Bites

Here’s a tasty snack that I’ve created and am still perfecting.  Although I can’t take all the credit for it, a little inspiration from Old Chicago and an idea from Alexandra helped create what I’m calling Buffalo Chicken Bites.  If you like crescent rolls and buffalo chicken then you’ll love these.  I’ve even included some photos to help guide you through the recipe. It’s real easy but pictures are fun, so enjoy.

What you need (I don’t have exact measurements because I just kind of winged it)

• Chicken (amount of chicken depends on how many bites you want)
• Buffalo Sauce (Can use hot sauce/butter combo or buy buffalo wing sauce)
• Blue Cheese crumbles
• Crescent rolls (one can of 8 crescent can make 16 bites)
• Ranch dressing (optional for dipping bites in)

Those are the basic ingredients, now I’ll give you the amounts I used and how many I was able to make. (all measurements are approximate)

• About 1lb of chicken, shredded
• About 8oz of buffalo wing sauce
• About 6oz of blue cheese crumbles
• 3 cans of 8 jumbo crescent rolls

Alright now for the step by step on how to make these tasty little snacks

   Boil chicken until cooked all the way through 
   Preheat oven to 350
   Once chicken is cooked remove from water and let cool
   While chicken is cooling put buffalo sauce into a bowl (if mixing hot sauce and butter, mix into a bowl) 

Shred cool chicken and mix into bowl of buffalo sauce

Set out cookie sheets and spray cooking spray to prevent sticking
Lay out crescent rolls and mush (no that is not the technical cooking term) together to form long strips (like in picture)

Cut strips into small squares and place on cookie sheet.

Place small amount of shredded chicken in middle of crescent square and add blue cheese crumble

Fold square in half to form a pocket around chicken and blue cheese

Place in oven for 10 to 12 minutes, or until golden brown
Allow to cool, and enjoy

This was the second test run on making these so the recipe is by no means perfect, but I received some pretty good reviews from multiple people so I did something right.  If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or an experience trying them out, leave a comment. I’d love to hear how to make this recipe better.

Give it Three Spins

This is a post about listening to music, but first I need to tell you a story before any of it will make sense.

While my parents were visiting me here in Jacksonville back in September we made a trip 30 minutes south to St. Augustine.  It’s a beautiful city with a lot of history, a lot of great sites to see and things to do.  We took a guided trolley tour, which I would recommend doing if you ever visit the city, and stopped off for a wine tour at the San Sebastian winery.  It was my first wine tour, and frankly I was pretty excited to drink a bunch of free wine in the middle of the afternoon.

Upon starting the tour we were introduced to a very passionate winery employee who gives us our first sample and also gives us a lesson on how to taste wine.  I had no idea there was any science to it, but apparently there is.  And it actually works. 

The secret to truly tasting a wine is to take three sips.  The first sip you take in and swish around your mouth like mouth wash and then spit out.  The purpose of this is to cleanse your pallet of any existing flavors and wipe it clean.  The second sip you allow to sit in your mouth for a few seconds to help acclimate your taste buds to the texture and flavor of the wine.  The third sip is the true tasting of the wine.  Your pallet was prepared to accept the flavor of the wine by the first two steps and can now completely appreciate all that the wine has to offer.

I’m not writing this post though to tell you how to sample wines or how to prepare yourself for a wine tour.  Like I said before, this post is about music.  I’ve actually found that the same process for properly sampling a wine can be used to listen to an album.  Let me explain.

Have you ever picked up a highly anticipated album by one of your favorite artists, only to be greatly disappointed upon first listen?  I know I have.  Many people will write the album off as a big failure and bury it in their collection never to be listened to again.  Maybe it was the same thing as their last album.  Maybe it sounded nothing like your favorite song or album of theirs.  Maybe it really was just a bad album amongst much better work, Weezer being a perfect example.  No matter what your reason for disliking an album, one listen is not enough to make that judgement. 

This is where the wine and the music get tied together.  Give it three spins.

The first listen will help clear away your preconceived notions for what you think this album will be.  If you’re expecting it to be like their last album, which you loved, or you’re looking for something different, let the first listen wash that away.  Now that you’ve come to the realization this album is not their last album, or your favorite album, take a break from it and give it another listen.  Let the second listen sink in through your ears and settle in your brain.  Get an idea of how it sounds and what it’s about.  Now on the third listen you’re ready to actually enjoy, or not enjoy, the record.  You’ll notice that you will start to hear things about certain songs or the tone of the album that you didn’t hear during your first two spins.  And just like with the wine, it really works.  At least it does for me.

Remember that doing this doesn’t mean you’re going to love every album you hated upon first listen, it just means that you’re ready to make a sound judgement of it, good or bad.  Now usually this process is only necessary when you don’t like what you hear the first time through the album.  If you really like it the first time around then listening to it a few more times probably won’t change your opinion, but it may give you a greater appreciation for how good it is.

I’ll give you an example from my personal experience with this, which is really the album that lead me to this epiphany.  Death Cab for Cutie is one of my favorite bands, they’ve had a few great albums and lots of material that I really enjoy.  I was eagerly awaiting the release of their most recent album, Codes & Keys, and upon first listen I was pretty disappointed. I remember talking with someone else after it came out about how we were both felt let down by it.  So I did what most people do, I didn’t touch it for weeks after that.  Then one day while updating my Ipod (I have a 16gb Ipod and more music than can fit on there so I’m constantly cycling what’s on there) I decided to give it another try, and to my surprise I started to enjoy it more and more with each listen.  I remember thinking how weird it felt to enjoy what I was listening to when all I could think about was how much I didn’t like it the first time I listened to it. 

What had changed?  Why didn’t I like it the first time around?  Why did it suddenly sound so much better to me?  I think my expectations and feelings of what it should sound like were different than what I actually heard on the first listen, so I immediately concluded it was a bad album.  This doesn’t sound anything like Plans or Transatlanticism, so it can’t be good.  After the first listen those expectations were gone, and I didn’t really expect much from listening to it again.  That was the key.  I could begin to accept the album for what it was, not what I expected it to be.  Then every subsequent listen after that I could appreciate what it was and actually enjoy it.

The fact is, artists change their sound and style with every album they make.  If they didn’t, you’d have more Nicklebacks, the same sound every single song, everytime.  We don’t need anymore Nicklebacks in the world.  So next time you listen to an album, try and go into it with an open mind, and if you don’t like what you hear, listen to it again, and again.  You’ll be surprised at how your opinion may change after each listen.  And if three listens later you still don’t like it, then maybe it is just a stinker.  Even the best of artists and bands put out a stinker every now and then.  I mean we can all agree one of the most anticipated rap albums ever, the Carter IV, was pretty bad right?

If you’ve had this kind of experience, think this idea is crazy, or just want to share a story about a really awful album, leave a comment below.  Thanks for reading.

You'll Be Bright

Unemployment can be a dismal doldrums of frustration and self loathing for many because it can spawn feelings of futility and worthlessness.  The inner struggle one has with their consciousness is as much of a challenge as finding a job and making ends meet in the these trying times.  Once you begin to succumb to the negative feelings it is easy to continue down that slippery slope into depression and loss of confidence.  Once you reach that point, you’re in big trouble. 

But don’t worry, this is not a post about what shade of blue I currently am.  It’s actually just the opposite.  It’s a post about winning the battle I spoke of in the first paragraph.  It’s a post about staying positive and upbeat while it would be just as easy to feel down.  I found inspiration from within myself and from several outside sources, and hopefully for anyone facing a similar situation you can take away something from this.  This post title is actually taken from a rather inspiring Cloud Cult song, if you haven’t listened to them yet, do it.

I was born an optimist.  I’m wired to be laid back, take things as they come, and embrace the unpredictable.  This set of qualities has been particularly useful in the last few weeks.  Part of the reason I’ve been able to keep my head up is because I’ve always tended to look on the bright side of things and turn challenges into opportunities to learn and grow.  A lot of that is because I have always had an incredible support system around me.  My family and friends have always been encouraging, and have been especially helpful in the last few weeks.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  I am a firm believer that positive thoughts yield positive results while negative thoughts lead to failure.  Your attitude is typically a direct correlation to your level of effort, which leads me to my next point

Waking up with, and maintaining the right attitude is key.  Your attitude is the one thing that you can control when everything else in life is left up to fate or destiny or chance or whatever you believe in.  You can’t choose what happens to you, but you can control how you deal with it.  I could continue listing cliches, but I think you get the point.  I read a book recently, Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand , that tells the incredible story of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic distance runner that finds himself in WWII. (my second recommendation of this post, read this book, it is amazing)  His plane is shot down in the middle of the Pacific and only 3 of his 11 crew mates survive the crash.  He is left to float the waters of the pacific ocean in a small life raft, with no supplies or provision, for 47 days and over 2000 miles of sun baked, salty sea water.  He says several times that the hardest part about his situation was not battling hunger, thirst, or the horrific conditions, it was holding on to his will to live.  The human body is capable of incredible things, but the mind is capable of things even greater.  I choose everyday to stay positive and as long as I hold on to that, I’ll be fine.

The negatives will come, deal with them and move on.  If you read my last blog post, you would probably be thinking “hmm that wasn’t very positive” and begin second guessing everything you’ve already read.  Yes I’ve been frustrated at times with the job search and the lack of success I’m having so far with finding a job.  But the difference is, I deal with each negative and move on.  So far I’ve had two handfuls of rejections and not one job offer.  It hurts to get that rejection, but I can accept it as part of the process of finding a job, and get over it.  I always found it ironic that people, and girls in particular, use the phrase “I’m over it” because it usually happens right in the middle of an emotional argument when they are in fact, no over it.  But at least they have the right idea.  I’m over it is the right attitude to have.  In my case, take the rejections, write a blog post about them, and move on to being happy. 

Finding happiness in new ways.  I’ve learned a lot about finding happiness recently from a friend my girlfriend used to nanny for.  His name is Bryan Skavnak and he runs a very successful golf academy in Minnesota.  He’s a terrific guy, a great father and husband, a wonderful golf instructor and a very talented writer and motivator.  He recently wrote a book called “The Happiest Golfer” (here’s a link to the Amazon page, and my 3^rd recommendation in this post) which talks about how to be happy and be a better person both on and off the golf course.  It’s a great read for golfers and non golfers alike. 

I learned a lot about finding happiness in his book, and one of the ways I’ve found happiness is by using the time off I have to enjoy and expand on some of my hobbies and talents.  For starters, I started this blog and began writing.  Writing was always forced upon me in school, and while I always enjoyed writing I never had the chance to write for my own purposes.  Now I’m doing it because I want to and I’m really enjoying it.  I’ve been reading a lot of books.  I never realized how much I loved to read until I had the time to do it.  I’ve rededicated myself to working out and getting in shape.  I’m running everyday now, playing basketball, and eating healthier.  I’ve been able to play some golf, thanks to the nice January weather in Florida.  I’m listening to music, a lot.  Now I know a lot of this is only possible because I don’t have 9 hours of my day occupied by work, but I’m able to fill up all of the time I could be spending bummed out about life with activities that bring me happiness.  Whether you’re working or not, make time to do things that you love and discover new things that bring you happiness. 

Learn from mistakes and Improve yourself.  One of the most important things I’ve done since being laid off is taken the time to perform some self assessment, and look for opportunities to improve.  If I can use this extra time to gain some knowledge, acquire and improve some skills, and improve myself, how can I not be excited about what lies ahead?  I realized I needed to gain some more experience in social media and generate some written content to expand my skill set for my career.  I set out to create a blog, practice writing, and learn ways to better use social media for business.  I try and take time everyday to learn something new or attack some personal project to better myself.  With the help of a good friend I’ve realized it would be incredibly valuable to learn some basic programming skills, so I’m starting to learn HTML and CSS.  I would think most people would agree achieving self improvement creates a great sense of accomplishment and generates a positive attitude about ones self. 

I know your eyes are probably getting a little tired from all the reading.  I wanted to try and keep this short, but I was pretty excited to share all of this and didn’t want to limit myself.  Hopefully you have taken something away from this, and have been inspired to find a little bit more happiness and positivity in your life.  I have to give credit to a lot of the people around me for helping me write this, even though you didn’t directly contribute to this post, you’ve provided me with the support and inspiration to create these positive feelings. So again, thank you.

I feel confident that despite my situation, I can remain positive and continue working hard to better myself.  At least until I run out of money . . .

The Job Hunt

The worst part about being laid off is looking for my next job.  It’s not fun at all.  The unpaid vacation time is nice and relaxing, but the job hunt is stressful.  Sifting through pages of job postings, filling out and endless number of applications, and waiting anxiously for that phone call to come with good news.  I guess it helps that I’m unemployed in Florida and it’s really nice out. (Sorry for the jab to anyone reading this in the great white north)  Here’s a little story from my job search.

The day after being laid off I was out picking up a couple of things and I stopped at Target.  On my way in I saw a sign on the door that said they were hiring, and to apply within.  Thinking it wouldn’t hurt to apply to Target (since 5 years in Minneapolis have solidified my loyalty to them) and see what positions they had available, I walked over to the customer service counter and asked about the sign in the window.  The guy told me that indeed they were hiring and that I could fill out an application on the computer terminal in the corner.  It was a 45 minute requiring all kinds of employment and residency history and a lengthy personality questionnaire.  A week later I received an e-mail telling me that the could not hire me at this time.  I can’t even get hired at Target.

I know there’s a good reason that things are done this way.  It saves paper, saves time, and the HR department doesn’t have all day to sit around and talk with every person that submits an application.  But this is true for seemingly every business these days, not just the big box retailers and fortune 500 companies.  Even smaller companies whose payroll doesn’t extend past a dozen people, require an e-mailed resume or online application to even be considered.  Gone are the days of filling out an application in person and talking with someone on the spot about the position.

Human beings are represented by a one page document stating education and work history along with a list of skills we believe ourselves to have.  That’s the one chance you get to stand out.  For someone like me who hasn’t been out of college for more than two years and has a potpourri of work experience, there’s not a lot to be impressed with so far.  But that’s all I get.  A less-than-one-minute glance at my professional life summarized on one piece of paper amongst hundreds of other pieces of paper. 

I would like to think that I am more than what can be stated on a resume.  You are judged on your technical skills at the tasks that pertain to the particular position you are applying for.  While the technical skills to perform the necessary functions of a job are incredibly important, people are more than interchangeable robots with a certain set of skills.  We have personalities and intangible qualities in addition to the competency to perform the duties assigned to us.  These are the kinds of things that differentiate people in the working world.  That is what makes us more than just bullet points on a piece of paper

The kind of qualities that make someone a good employee are the kind of things you can only determine by shaking their hand and talking with them for 30 minutes.  This is obviously what the purpose of a job interview is, but only a small percentage of applicants make it that far.  If your resume doesn’t stand out, then you never get the chance to show them you are more than just a one dimensional piece of paper. 

Now I understand why things work this way.  Companies would probably love to be able to sit down with every candidate that applied, but there isn’t the time or the resources to do so.  I understand that there are dozens upon dozens of qualified individuals that are capable of holding any number of jobs.  There are probably even people applying for jobs that will be better at that job than I would.   It’s just frustrating for someone like me, who doesn’t yet have the skills and experience that employers are looking for, to have my resume passed over time and time again, and never given the chance to show them I’m more than just a 24 year-old lacking a significant amount of experience in my field.  Instead I’ll most likely be forced into an entry level position making a low hourly wage for a few years until I have a few years of experience under my belt.  Fortunately I’m not buried under student loans as far as some people I know, because a decent salary is needed to even cover the monthly payment on 4 years of student loans. 

I don’t want you to misconstrue this as me whining and complaining about not being able to find a job.  I realize this is the reality of having being a recent college graduate with a communications degree in this economy, and it’s going to take a few years of hard work and struggling at the bottom of the corporate ladder before I make it to a good position.  I can grow from the experience and lucky for you guys, I can use the opportunity to do more blogging. 

Life Needs a Soundtrack

I know I speak for a lot of people when I say that music is an important part of my life.  I don’t think I would ever be able to work out if I didn’t have my Ipod.  Imagine driving if you didn’t have anything to listen to?  Sounds really awful doesn’t it?  Try watching sports highlights or a suspenseful movie without a good soundtrack.  Nothing would be anywhere near as exciting without music.

Music is our motivation, our entertainment, and our emotional connection to the scene in front of us.  Poetry can be very moving, but a song elevates those words to another level because of the music accompanying them.  We add music to our lives whenever we can, and like the movies it adds another dimension to the situation we’re in. 

Now imagine your life as a movie, but you live everyday with the sound turned off.  Just think of what things would be like if you had a soundtrack to go along with every event in your life.  You had a little team of people that picked the appropriate songs for the situation you were in and played it at the appropriate time.  Now maybe it’s just me, but would that not be the coolest thing . . . ever? 

Imagine yourself walking down the street to Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust”  Don’t tell me you wouldn’t start walking everywhere with a purpose.  (I believe this should be implemented in malls immediately)  I think we could rid this country of obesity if the start of any exercise was accompanied by Eye of the Tiger.  

Seriously, these ideas are pure gold, please tell me this is do-able. 

Without going in to too much detail, I think a lot of marriages could be saved if there was more Barry White or Kenny G in every relationship.  Production at work could be dramatically improved with the appropriate theme music, which would be different for every person, but incredibly effective.  I would also like to propose that the montage be made into a real thing.  I don’t know how it would work in real life but we could montage our way right out of this recession.

Imagine the possibilities that come along with having a soundtrack for your life?  Hear ominous music playing? Uhh ohh you might be in trouble, be on high alert.  Hear some saxophone crooning in the background while on a date, it might be time to make a move.  Although this may create the adverse effect of increased teenage pregnancy . . . hmm maybe it’s not a perfect system.  But I think you’re beginning to see the possibilities here. 

And I’m only scratching the surface.  I’m sure if I went through my Itunes I could come up with a few good songs for almost any situation.  Someday when I create my autobiographical documentary I’ll have the chance to properly set my life to a soundtrack.  It will be wonderful.  If you’ve got an idea for a song/situation post it in the comments section below, and maybe someday I’ll include it in my movie

Now I’m going to go find myself a job! (cue R. Kelly “I Believe I Can Fly)

The Mystery of the Fortune Cookie

The food that we eat has always presented many mysteries.  At least to me. Most people probably don’t think about it, but there are probably some interesting stories about how we discovered some of the different grub we consume.  How many people do you think died before we found the edible kinds of mushrooms?  How was bacon discovered (I think we’re all thankful that it happened no matter how it was discovered)  Who thought that the brown lumpy potatoes in the dirt could be eaten in so many different ways?  See what I mean?  Just consider yourself lucky we didn’t have to be the people to do the trial and error on all this stuff.

One of the foods I’ve always been curious about is the fortune cookie. What’s up with those?  A small mostly tastless yellow cookie folded into some weird shape, that tells us the future and a handful of lucky numbers.  The only other food that has the abbility to tell the future is Taco Bell. Every meal says “you will be visiting the toilet in the near to immediate future”  Sorry that was pretty gross, but for those of you with an elementary  sense of humor (like me), you got a chuckle out of it.  Where does the fortune cookie come from?  Well for everyone that has been bothered by this question, I’ve gone to the liberty of digging up the mystery.  You're welcome.

Mmmmmm lies about the future

History of the Fortune Cookie

Much to my surprise, the fortune cookie does not actually originate in China, despite the fact that it comes with Chinese food. They don’t even serve them in China. They aren’t even a cookie.  It’s kinda like Myspace, nobody is exactly who they say there are.  All these years this Chinese fortune cookie has been masquerading as all kinds of things it’s not. It’s not Chinese. It’s not a cookie. And I don’t think anyone has ever gotten an accurate fortune out of one of those things. BUT several people have reportedly won the lottery based on their fortune cookie numbers. (At least that’s what the internet tells me)

So let’s figure out what exactly this crispy little imposter is.  The origin is a little fuzzy but scholars maintain that the translation was lost hundreds of years ago . . . stay classy San Diego.  Sorry, that’s kind of a habit.  The fortune cookie is claimed to have been popularized by Chinese immigrants in California in the early 20^th century.  They based their recipe on a Japanese cracker that is similar, but is a little larger and made with different ingredients.  The fortunes themselves may come from the Japanese temple tradition of handing out random fortunes, which is called omikuji.  Here are several different stories; about how the fortune cookie was created, so you can read them and pick your favorite.

The Evolution of the Fortune

The fortune cookie became a staple in Chinese restaurants following WWII and the evolution of the fortune began.  The early fortunes were often times biblical sayings and pieces of great wisdom from wise men like Confucius or Ben Franklin. Over time they began to include smiley faces, lottery numbers, jokes, Chinese language lessons and general bogus predictions of the future.  Most of the fortunes are non-sense and in my experience, inaccurate.  Getting an accurate fortune is like asking a magic 8 ball for advice. It’s probably just coincidence if it’s right, but it usually isn’t.  Which is a great segue into the main reason for my writing this post . . .

If I made fortune cookies . . .

Fortune cookies have been used for various reasons over the years other than just spreading wisdom and predicting the future. They have been used in political campaigns and customized for birthdays or weddings.  But generally, when you order Chinese, your fortune cookie will not tell you anything to get excited about.  If I were making fortune cookies, I’d give people some subtle but very realistic fortunes that would have a pretty good chance of coming true, and freaking someone out.  Get a few fortunes in a row that come true, and you’ll have some true believers. I’ll provide a few examples for your reading pleasure

• You will be moving slower than usual tomorrow morning. Find ways to appear more productive at work that you actually are. (These would be distributed on Sundays and Mondays for the early week doldrums)
• You will make several bad decisions soon that will have very little impact on your quality of life. But they will make you feel really dumb.
• You’ll bump in to someone soon that looks oddly familiar. You don’t actually know them, so don’t fret over it. (When this happens it usually bugs people like crazy, so this will help relieve that stress)
• You will find trying something new is fun and exciting, but you’re not going to be very good at it. Ever.
• You will get some really annoying song stuck in your head. When this happens listen to Michael Jackson instead. He’s really great.  RIP MJ.

Now what amazes me is that Chinese restaurants haven’t started using the fortune cookie as a way to increase business. It’s a brilliant marketing strategy. Put some coupons in the form of fortunes in the cookies!

• Two Thursdays from now you will enjoy a meal at Generic Chinese Restaurant at 25% off! It will be very satisfying.
• The third Saturday of the month you will use a buy-one-get-one-entrée-free at Generic Chinese Restaurant. You have a very hungry friend that enjoys orange chicken.
• This fortune will magically become a free side at Generic Chinese Restaurant. You will choose fried rice.

If you own a Chinese restaurant feel free to contact me for my services. I’ll work for sweet & sour chicken.  Also, if you have some great ideas for fortunes like the ones above, leave them in the comments below.

As always, thanks for reading folks.

When life gives you lemons, write about it on the internet

Yes, I finally created that blog I was talking about

So for anyone that knows me personally you’ve probably seen me yapping on Facebook and Twitter about starting a blog and writing stuff for a blog, but it never happened.  I talked about it months ago and I never actually did it.  Well, I did actually start writing blog posts, but I thought they were all pretty terrible so I stopped.  So you may be wondering what finally gave me that swift kick in the pants to just DO it.  Well it all began with some pretty awful news . . .

“I’m really sorry guys, but the company is really struggling right now, and we, well we’re going to have to let you guys go.”

Yup. I was laid off. 

January 18^th of 2012 I was relieved of my duties as content writer for Company X. I don’t like burning bridges so I won’t put the name of my former employer on here, but a little digging on my Facebook or LinkedIn page you can find out if you’re really interested.

So that was the swift kick. Showing up for work one day, going about business as usual, and then suddenly becoming an unemployed 24 year old without any leads or even a head start on finding future employment.  Yeah, not exactly the motivation I was looking for to start writing a blog, but hell, I guess I needed to find it somehow.

When life gives you lemons, write about it on the internet.

So now I suddenly have all kinds of free time.  I’ve been able to sleep in, work out, do lots and lots of job searching, and start a blog.  Oh yeah, and worry about where my life is going.  I’ve been doing lots of that.  And it scares the living hell out of me.  But I’m trying to be positive, and besides, I don’t need to trouble all of you with my sob story.

So that brings me back to writing this blog.  I have had the time to sit down, figure this blogging thing out, and most importantly, I had great material for my first blog post. This writing thing has been a great stress reliever and has given me some time for some introspection and self assessment.  I’ve always enjoyed creative writing and sharing my thoughts and opinions with people, however goofy they may be, and now I have that medium.  Anyone that’s been part of my fantasy football leagues can attest to that.   It’s been very liberating being able to share my not-so-fun story of being laid off and finding a reason to write.  I know I have plenty of strange thoughts to share, and now that I’ve broken the proverbial blogging seal, the ideas will hopefully start flowing freely.

Maybe nobody will like what I write, or find anything interesting, funny, or thought provoking, but it’s fun for me.  Maybe everyone that reads it will find it boring.  Maybe a handful of people will actually read my blog and enjoy it.  Maybe everyone will enjoy my material and I’ll turn this blog into a full time job, a future book deal, and my 15 minutes of fame.  Not Likely, but the internet does offer that possibility.  No matter what happens, for the time being I have an outlet to help get me through this time of unemployment, and maybe even help me get out of it. 

So I’ll continue to write, hopefully you’ll continue to read, and I’ll find a job soon. Keep your fingers crossed.