Phone Blog Trial (don't worry, i won't do this often)

An amazing day: up on time, bagel for the drive instead of a pop tart, discount milk, Npr podcasts, 1hr lunch, 1.5 hr mtg, dinner & app trail videos w/ stepbro.

Almost up to snuff

Well, I'm almost where I want to be.  Here's a the general status quo:

I'm relatively on top of:
my workload at my job
Have an interview set up at Dartmouth
Approved for a loan to reduce some of my credit card debt
Will register my car next week
Set-up website and blog sorta.  Started Picasa.  Have Evernote newsfeeds going straight to facebook
Lord of the Rings is my last old book to finish before I start tackling new ones

Need to do soon:
FAFSA / profile
Figure out a vanity plate
Send Holiday letter

Areas in which I'm lacking but don't really care about:
No Girlfriend
No cash (owe Mom a ton)
Old clothing
I cut my own hair
My desktop computer just died again

one more thing

in smaller news: adam and tiff bought their house and paul sold his.

A not entirely wasted day

Alright, I know I said I was going to start blogging more / at all so I feel a need to update this little thing before I go out tonight.

Today I....

• woke up on the couch at JJ and Adrienne's.
• I drank some leftover, watered down soda from mcdonalds.
• We watched The Ugly Truth during which JJ made an egg sandwich by cooking the egg in the microwave and then adding cream cheese.  I must have looked hungry because he gave me half.
• Drove to my mom's while texting and driving about the stories from last night
• Played around on the internet figuring out how to use RSS feeds from blogs and evernotes to facebook and back.  and that led to reading stuff on google reader.  basically all caught up on my friend's posts now.  amazing.  to give you a sense of how wasteful these 5 hours of my life were, here's the final video i watched:

and, in case you were wondering, here are the stories from last night (a girl i knew asked and wanted to know):

4:28 PM me: phew... long list of them

  at the risk of ruining my conversationalism tonight

  ...

  go from work to vendetta instead of amherst which was originally my plan (my brother closed on his house and had people over earlier in the day)

4:29 PM have 4 beers with a guy i sort of know there. def a cool cat. spacing it on his name

  6', white, skinny i think? mustache-predominant beard

  anyway

4:30 PM friend: Dave?

 me: from there, go to cobblestone because i've never been there when amanda works there

  yeah, dave i think! maybe.

 friend: lol

  Where is cobblestone?

4:31 PM me: old sports bar next to athens

  anyway, get there, barely know anyone

  but i check facebook and will huttwelker was ready to go out

  him: "where ya at?"
me: cobblestone
him: "sweet, that's where i'm going"

4:32 PM i don't know if i trust him on that, but it did work out

  so while waiting i sit at the bar and begin to hit on this girl there alone

 friend: what is her name?

 me: me: "waiting here for someone?"

  no clue

 friend: lol

 me: we talk for maybe 5 minutes

  will comes in and says hello to her first

4:33 PM apparently they know each other (no, he was not who she was waiting for)

  her friend came in shortly after. i bought us all slim jims

 friend: what are slim jims?

  the meat thing

 me: WTF?

 me: yes the meat thing

4:34 PM imagine a dog treat

  now imagine it slightly better

 friend: oh ok... just making sure it's not a drink

  they sell those at cobblestone?

 me: it's not as good as you're now imagining

  apparently!

 friend: what kind of bar is it??

 me: i even cried earlier this week on facebook because i ate my last slimjim

 friend: HEY I LOVE SLIM JIMS!

  lol

 me: me too!

4:35 PM anyway, from there we went to lab for a few more drinks. met up and played pool with those girls for a bit

  started to black out, decided to get back to the V because jj was my ride

4:36 PM a bunch of people i knew where there

  proceeded to get sloshed

 friend: did you get lucky with the girl???

 me: at one point i was flipping my phone like the coaster flipping game

  off of a full beer

  it spilled

 friend: oh god!

 me: i don't even remember saying goodnight to them

4:37 PM so i don't think so

  my friends quote me later in the night [in reference to another conversation i had with some random]: "my name is ben. want to go home with me?"

4:38 PM oh, after the full beer spill i was cut off for a bit which is probably why i sorta remember that period of time

  but then i was allowed to start drinking again

  hurray!

  jj drove my car to mcdonalds around midnight and i slept on their couch

4:39 PM i remember leaving the bar and everything after but there were def some stories i forget

 friend: lol

4:40 PM me: like "kicking the chair like a little child because [i] didn't want to go to kilkenny's"

 friend: well i don't blame you there!

 me: i got my way

  that group left without me

  so how was your night?

FINAL THOUGHT: a slimjim drink would be amazing and dovetail nicely with the spicy italian and white pizza

New Year's Resolutions

Ok, it's a tad late, but time for New Year's Resolutions:

1. stop worrying so much about arbitrary dates
2. continue to have fun
3. blog / update websites more often
4. take a risk and succeed this year (at something big)
5. make decisions based on wisdom not desires
6. stop being so lazy (less tv and more stuff)
7. pay off credit cards
8. donate blood successfully once
9. practice things i'm not very good at yet (guitar, art, harmonica, etc)

and the big one....

10. write a book (yes, really)

Quick Upd8 [back in NH]

To answer those frequent questions, this is where I'm at right now:

SWM living in Hanover, NH. In debt but a temp-to-hire job in Keene, NH (Precitech) will hopefully solve this short-term problem. Graduated from Northeastern Univ in 2006 with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and though I have had about 6 engineering jobs, only one was a full-time position which was down around Atlanta for about 2 years (Alum-a-lift). I plan to go take the GRE and apply to Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering where I would eventually hope to get into the Entrepreneurship Track. Farther down the road I'd hope to start my own company making stuff (not one particular thing, multiple things).

That's about it, add your comments and I'll respond to them.

1st "blog" [to-do list]

I'm supposed to be in Atlanta eating a delicious home-cooked meal right now, instead I just woke up in Surry, NH after falling asleep while watching utube videos.

Rather than try to make this 1st "blog" seem more interesting than it really is, I'm going to start my blogg-er-ating off right. Here is my current to-do list:

To-Do
Pick and print pictures for photo album for Paul (this was meant to be an X-mas 2008 gift. Better late than never)
Print pix of VT round barn for Butch (arcadia roundbarn, I visited this on my motorcycle trip)
Download more ebooks (most likely from Librivox which is free but sometimes the people reading suck)
Organize computer files (including my desktop with 4 partitions, portable harddrive, laptop, thumbdrive, CD/DVD backups and emails to myself)
Search for a job (ok, I actually tried to do this today. I need a short-term job for the next year or so because I plan on....)
GREs / apply to grad school (I started at Northeastern but now plan to restart at either Dartmouth, Keene State, or somewhere in boston)
Overpass cafe, Tucson, AZ (I need to send these people a couple bucks and a thank you. I had to pay in cash but had no $ for a tip)
Motorcycle to Hanover (currently at my mom's. need to get someone to ride it up or else get a ride down to Surry from Hanover)
Address change/ license and car registration (waiting for money to be less tight... maybe after I pay off John, Paul, and/or Mom)
Pay off debts, then become rich, give-back to the community, become famous for being nice, have 10,000 people at my funeral
Start writing my book (title tbd, basically An Engineer Between Jobs Takes a Motorcycle Trip and Does the Graduate Thing)
Make an electric car with Uncle Joe (get drafting table from him at the same time)
Mail Alum-a-lift a letter (that's where I used to work... hi Alum-a-people!)

Reminders
Get Paul to bring wth him.... My tommy Hilfigger pillow, my Dickies hoodie, knotty pine cedar-lined box, matress pad, and my 4 iron

On-Going
Update my website(s)
Exercise
Visit People
Quality Ben-Time
Find a sugar-momma