Living Room

Album of my living room complete with new coffee table, end table, and lamp stands here.

Said to the Sun to the Shine

Parhelion.

Value

I really enjoy my work. Maybe too much. Perhaps it's because I feel as if I am fulfilling my duty, or because it adds purpose to my life. But I feel like I have dedicated my life to my work, though I think I've always been that way to some degree.

Progress is beautiful.

I am satisfied with where my life is now.

I have a job that I love; that keeps me busy. I work alongside other smart, dynamic people. I work for a business that is moderately stable in the current fluctuating markets. My car is doing fairly well considering how many miles are on it. I have a house. Many people would agree with me that I am comparatively successful. But that is nothing new to this blog.

And yet, there are those that would perhaps find changes were necessary, or at least suggested, in order to make me more complete. Or make me more complete in their eyes. In order to add value to me. Or to them?

But what is value even defined as? I recently went to a seminar where a multi-millionaire said that every person inherently has value. This I don't disagree with. But value is much more than that; value is in the eye of the beholder; one man's trash is another man's treasure; and so on. Are the changes proposed to my life adding value to me? Or are they adding value to the person to which is beholding me (and actually detracting from the value that I consider myself worth)?

I don't have a girlfriend. I have no prospect at marriage. I have no possibility of kids. At this moment.

Those facts don't bother me that much.

I have a linear income job. I like what I'm doing. I have no desire to change my source of income. At this moment.

Those facts don't bother me at all.

I am continually learning and improving myself. I am making excellent mistakes. I am successful. At this moment.

Those facts are what I expect. So at this momentary instance, I'm good. Right?

LBI

Pictures from Long Beach Island, Labor Day weekend, are uploaded here.

Tables in August

I built a table for my lamp today. I got the directions for said project here. Completed project pictures are here. I think mine actually looks better than the website's. I took a little more time on mine, and actually counted every ten pages so everything would be even. The magazines were old mechanical engineering magazines that I had received from one of the engineers at R.H. Sheppard during my internship there in 2006.

I'm considering trying to make a coffee table via a similar method. I would create a one-layer magazine legs and then set a piece of cut glass on top. It's surprising how sturdy paper is when it is layered properly. Though I need more magazines for that project. Perhaps I could find some old issues of National Geographic at the library for sale or something. Or a yard sale.

And of course there is the option of using vintage books.

August has been good. I went to Minneapolis for a week of training for work. The weather there was amazing, at least during August. I've heard it gets pretty cold there in the winter though. The only other travel I have planned right now is two days in Philadelphia for AutoCAD training. I might being going to Toronto for work sometime later this year, but not sure about that yet.

Work continues to go well. I'm pretty much constantly busy at work, which is nice. And I still love my job. I certainly am gaining a lot of experience.

My house is good. I still need to fix a few things, like the tub faucet is leaking now, and the toilet still runs randomly because of a leaky fixture within the tank. The kitchen needs some grout or caulk or something between some of the linoleum tiles. I need to install the towel rack on the bathroom door.

I did lots of paperwork today. At least 80% of all the stuff I went through was junk mail. I paid my second mortgage payment and some other bill. I also changed nearly all of my billing methods to online, so the junk mail to real mail ratio is bound to get worse. Though maybe I can change all the important stuff to online so the only value-added mail that I get is Netflix.

My car is running good. As is my computer though I've been having problems with my screen savers not working properly when AIM is running, which is strange. I would like to get a new computer, but I'm gonna worry about paying some of my college loans and short-term debt first.

That's the update on all basic aspects of my life except one.

Purple Door was good. My favorite band was probably The Foxhole. I bought their two CDs that they had available, though I liked their live stuff better. It's good music to just zone out to though. As for bands that have that "rock out" factor, my favorites were either Inhale Exhale or Disciple.

Post Purple Door was even better though.

Time for bed.

π * 10 - 1.18992711369139².

May and June 2008

I haven't updated in a long while, mostly because I was without access to my desktop computer for a while due to me moving and living in a hotel for three weeks. My trip to Santa Ana was amazing. I got introduced to the corporate headquarters of Ingram and the employees that work there.

I also got to do some sightseeing and some restauranting. Pictures are on my Picasa. I also got to try sushi for the first time, and I loved it. I've only had sushi once more since the trip, but I'm thinking it's my new favorite food. I stayed in a very nice hotel, and my rental car was a 2008 Chevy Malibu LTZ. So it was a pretty awesome trip and further confirmed that my job is perfect.

I've now worked a full six weeks with Ingram, though it really has not felt that long. I love every minute of my job. Furthermore, I'm going to get do some business traveling. I'm going to their facility in Tennessee for four days. I'm also going to Minneapolis with the other engineers for training. But that's all I shall write of work for now. It's easier to just simply not write about work than worry about what's proprietary.

My new house is awesome. I have nearly everything unpacked. I think I have six boxes of stuff left to unpack in the room. I've also completed a bunch of little projects to fix up the house and get everything setup the way I want it. My dad and I installed a new lock in the back door. That project required cutting (more like grinding) a hole in the metal-plated wooden door. The mudroom to which the door leads still smells a little smokey. We also installed a new lock in the garage.

I fixed the garage door. Both of my garage doors have openers and the one side that I use for my car was broken. The door was braced with steel on the top of the door, to which was attached the garage door opener, as it was supposed to be. The problem was that the brace had broken, apparently more than once. So that actually took a while to unbolt all the broken metal, use the scrap to build a new frame, and replace each bolts to the newly configured frame. Not to mention the garage is like a sauna.

Gardening: I weeded the front garden, planted little grassy plants, and mulched. Then AJ and I weeded the side garden. So now my yard is 95% weed free. There is a little patch of weeds near the deck. This was a big project since the previous resident had not weeded in over two years, according to my neighbors. I still need to figure what I want to plant in the garden. I'm thinking that I might go with some shrubbery and garden rocks, or something.

Rewiring: I ran coaxial cable all over the place. So now my computer, AJ's computer, and my Xbox 360 are all Internet capable. This required drilling holes in the ceiling and floors and all over the place. I still need to tack the cable to the window frame so it looks good.

So those were the larger projects. I still have some little projects, like fixing the grout in the kitchen.

I have a grill and used it three times in one week. Made sausage to go with spaghetti, burgers, and pork chops. I love making my own food.

More updates later? Probably within a sooner time frame than last time.

30.

The Adventures of Johnny Bunko

1. There is no plan
2. Think strengths, not weaknesses.
3. It’s not about you.
4. Persistence trumps talent.
5. Make excellent mistakes.
6. Leave an imprint.

Growing Up

Above is a picture of a Porsche Panamera, a four-door Porsche. I knew it was a Porsche as soon as I saw the picture; it has Porsche lines and profile. It just looks fat. And the spoiler definitely needs some work before they begin production in April 2009. More pictures here.

More pictures here as well. I've uploaded nearly every picture I've taken with my digital camera to Picasa, Google's Web Albums service. All the albums are geotagged. I've also started geotagging each individual picture on Google Maps. This takes a little while, since for some reason there isn't any way to connect Picasa tagging with Google Maps tagging, at least as far as I can tell. The start of my individually tagged photos is here. Navigation can be done by clicking on the place markers or clicking on the links on the left (one link per picture).

I'm growing up.

I have a degree in Industrial Engineering and a minor in Business Administration. Four years of college are complete, and I have the diploma to show for it.

I have a full time non-summer job with the world’s largest technology distributor and a leading technology sales, marketing, and logistics company. That's a quote straight from a wikipage about the company, Ingram Micro. Initially, I'll be helping to work on this project. I leave this Sunday for a week at their corporate headquarters located in Santa Ana, CA. There I'll be training, learning about projects, and meeting people that work at the corporate headquarters. Air travel, hotel accommodations, and rental car are paid by IM.

I have a house. Well sorta. I signed all the paperwork, and put a $1000 down so far. The seller has agreed to my offer. Pictures are in the slide show in the previous post or in the album here. The house is located in Lebanon, about twenty minutes from work. Settlement is slated for June 30th. The house is 1323 square feet and semi-detached, and has three bedrooms. It has a front porch, a back deck, new roof, new furnace, and new water heater. It also has a shed in the back yard, and a detached two car garage.

I have a car. My parents gave me the Ford Taurus as one of graduation presents. I have the title in hand, though it still needs to be transferred. My parents are pretty cool. It's cause of them that I was able to have an amazing credit score, which qualified me for my home loan. They allowed me to have a checking account and bank card as an early teenager. Plus I had a credit card at a ridiculously young age.

People seemed surprised that I am graduated, have a full-time job, a car, and am buying a house. Given, I was slightly concerned that I might not have a job straight out of college (I knew I would have one eventually). And graduating was not a concern for me. The house is the next natural step in my mind, after graduating and securing a full time job.

Rent or Buy? For me the numbers plugged in were:
Monthly rent: 900
Home price: 115,500
Down payment: 5.25
Mortgage rate: 6.375
Property taxes: 1.23

The results? With the default 1% home appreciation and the 3% rent increase, I only need to live at my house four years in order to break even in terms of throwing money away on rent. Which is pretty close to my calculations that resulted in five years.

People are also concerned that I won't like my job and then I'll be stuck with this house. To which I say, many people hate their jobs. Plus I am nearly completely certain that I won't hate my job.

Industrial Engineering degree
Job
Car
House
Something else I want
Computer

Etc

30.

My House Slideshow

Done with College

As of 11:33:20 AM EST on May 6, 2008 AD, I have completed all college classwork. I am done with college.

/celebrate