June 22, 2008

Two Days of Diving

So with this sales job they are always doing incentives to motivate us to sell more. Generally the incentives don't motivate me that much but this past week I cashed in (literally) on two of them. On Wednesday morning we went diving for dollars in the pool at the apartment complex. There was $1,000 in quarters and gold dollars on the bottom of the pool. Each of us had 30 seconds to grab as much money as we could. I walked away from the pool with a grand total of $33.50 which wasn't bad. One of the guys got something like $90, lucky, I know.
Then on Thursday morning we went skydiving. Personally I wanted to go golfing for an incentive but the majority voted for skydiving. It was definitely cool and, yes, I would do it again (if I didn't have to pay for it). Well they talked me into buying the video so I'll share that with you all. I'd have to agree with Kiffer though, it's not nearly as exciting as they talk it up to be. Click below and enjoy my freefall from 14,000 ft.

June 7, 2008

Tornado Warning

Tornado Warning. That means, warning, here comes the tornado. Not that there might be a tornado, there is a tornado. Yeah, I was out knocking some doors a little after 6 this evening and got a text message saying there was a tornado warning. Then a couple of doors later the tornado sirens started going off, only I didn't know they were tornado sirens and the Mexican I was talking to didn't know either. I suspected that's what it might be but it didn't look like there was a tornado so I kept knocking (that and I kind of wanted to see a tornado appear in the distance). Then about a half an hour later my manager called to see if I was off the doors and picking up the guys in my car. I told him I hadn't. Then he told me I was crazy and that a tornado had touched down 2 miles south of where we were at! Imagine that. I was that close and I didn't even know it. Luckily none of us died and now I know the difference between a tornado watch (chance of tornado) and a tornado warning (there is a tornado).

June 3, 2008

The Pokemon Facebook Phenomena

Okay, so I left it up to you, my readers, and you voted that I shouldn't cut my hair--That makes it sound like I'm trying to make my life into some kind of reality TV show. But don't worry that's as close to American Idol as this blog will come--Not cutting my hair was the easiest thing to do anyway, because it requires me to do nothing about my growing hair, which is as much as I was doing in the first place.

After talking with my roommates the other night I realized that I enjoy getting on Facebook for the same reason I liked playing Pokemon on Game Boy when I was younger. Well, before I elaborate too much I should make a disclaimer: I honestly think of Facebook as a very fancy electronic virtual address book. It's comforting to know that if I wanted to get a hold of someone, or a group of people, I could quickly and effectively get a hold of them through Facebook. That being said, I enjoy getting on Facebook and adding people I haven't seen in 5 years that I once hung out with or having someone add me that I had lost contact with. It's almost addicting trying to see how many friends I can find on Facebook. To use the Pokemon motto, I "gotta catch 'em all." For anyone who played Pokemon I'm sure this will make perfect sense. You've got to find and catch all the Pokemon, especially the rare and exotic ones, but even the ones that aren't rare you still catch (even if it's just to say that you've caught it and that's all). Part of the game is finding and catching all the types of Pokemon, and there's something strangely satisfying about collecting them. However, you don't train and fight all your Pokemon, only a select few would I ever use and carry around in the game. But if I wanted to use them I had them on hand because I had already found them.
Hopefully you can see the parallel I'm going for with that. I don't collect friends on Facebook like it's a game, but I do check my Facebook profile with the same satisfaction that I experienced while collecting Pokemon back in the day.