Scattered Thoughts

This letter just goes to show that I really do work in Office Space…

Disclaimer: I am not posting this because I don't like my job. I'm posting because I thought it was funny.

Colleagues:

Festive decorations often herald the approaching holiday season. For
staff at IUB and IUPUI planning to decorate UITS work spaces, we offer
the following guidelines.

Personal art and decorations, such as holiday and seasonal decorations,
are left to the discretion of each unit in UITS. All decorations must
comply with university policies for fire safety (e.g., general
guidelines at http://www.ehs.iupui.edu/ehs/prog_offirehaz.asp and
special guidelines on Christmas Trees at

http://www.ehs.iupui.edu/ehs/prog_christrees.asp.)

According to the standards established for the ICTC, no wall-hangings or
postings should be placed outside offices or cubes. Postings within
cubicles and offices should not be taped to the walls or woodwork. No
lights or decorations should be placed on windows or above cube walls.

Proposals for decorations for publicly-accessible training rooms,
technology centers, machine rooms, and other service facilities should
be reviewed by the unit director and forwarded to the UITS Facilities
Committee (undersigned) for approval. Our goal will be to ensure
consistency on our campuses.

Those who occupy buildings shared with non-UITS units should not place
decorations in reception areas or other shared spaces without
consideration of the other building occupants. In the ICTC, an art
committee with members from UITS and the academic units will consider
holiday decorations in the grand public spaces.

If you have questions about these guidelines, please contact a member of
the committee.

UITS Facilities Committee

I will never again go out and shop on the day after Thanksgiving, no matter who it is with nor how crazy the sales are. It's not worth it.

Biggest Shopping Day of the Year… HA I am from now on labeling this day "Infusion of Idiots into Shopping Establishments"

I think the average IQ of people in the malls today was 50 to 100 points lower than normal.

I'm done, I'm getting more agitated the more I write…

For this post, you will be entertained by me, rambling on about my Thanksgiving Day.

Alright, here goes…

Bright and early, 8:30am, my alarm goes off. I turn off the phone, head upstairs to be surprised by my grandpa Mason. It was great to get to see him. I don't get to see him much anymore, especially since I'm never home on Saturdays, the only day he comes down to Shelbyville.

After the obligatory visit time with him, we began the shower fight portion of the morning. See, when we're all home, we fight over shower times so that we can have a bit of hot water for a shower. My parents sware up and down that our hot water heater has the capacity to serve hot water to five individuals in a row. Sadly, it barely has the ability to keep one of us warm, let alone five.

Anyway, after showering and eating, we started the two hour trek up to Hartford City, which was a surprise to me as well. The last plans I heard was that we were going to go to the casino where my dad works so that we could be with him for the holiday. But whatever, plans change.

The car ride up was a typical Mason Family venture. Mom arguing with Dad, Eileen and Laura fighting, Mom mediating the fighting, a 58 degree cabin temperature, me listening to music of some sort, the father listening to talk radio on the car radio, etc. Let's just say that trips with my family are no fun. I offered to drive myself, but noooooo, that's not allowed on Thanksgiving.

We arrive in Hartford City around noon. My grandparents are both waiting our arrival patiently. Grandma had been cooking since early this morning, and grandpa was sitting on the front porch having a cigarette. When we were little, I used to dread going up there to visit because the entire house smelled like cigarettes, and there was a hase of smoke that lingered throughout the halls and rooms. Now that my grandma has breathing problems, my grandpa only smokes outside.

But I digress, back to the story.

Soon after we arrived, my Uncle Geoff and his family show up. Again, this is a surprise to me, because my mother told me that they wouldn't be there because they were going to have dinner with Tracy's family this year.

I got to see my cousin Jack, who is just the cutest thing ever, and we ate dinner, watched some football, then went home. The trip back to the 'ville was just as bad as the trip up to Hartford City.

When we arrived home, Laura and I decided that we wanted some thin crust pizza for dinner, and Dominoe's was the only place that was open. So we ordered two large pizzas, and now I'm sitting in front of you all, typing this entry.

Pretty exciting, no?

Anyway, that's about all I've got for now. I'll post tomorrow as soon as I'm done with a lot of thinking I've been doing about my future.

Until then, good night, and Happy Thanksgiving!

So I know I haven't posted for two weeks… AGAIN!

For that I apologize but you all will be happy to know that nothing too interesting has happened in my life. Not that my life is boring, or that those involved with my life are boring, but… I better stop there before needing a slingshot ride from China to get out of the hole I'm digging.

Ok, bad analogy, back to the post.

One of the reasons I haven't been posting lately is that I've been opting to spend time with Erin rather than my computer. And as much as I love my iMac, I do have to admit that I love Erin much, much more. Thanksgiving break isn't going to be as much fun as it could be if she decided to stay, but I'll get through it. It'll be good practice for Christmas Break.

Another major reason that I've not been posting is the guys (and gals) at Bungie. They created a multiplayer game called Halo which was an instant hit among video gamers. On Nov. 9th, as most of you already know, they released Halo 2, the most amazing first person shooter yet. To make a long story short, our living room has been filled with sudden outbursts of "F&%* You P Bandito!" and "Running, Running, Running… safe!" and "Shotgun, shotgun… F$&%!" and other similar phrases. It's a great game that has taken up much of the free time I have that I don't spend with Erin.

Yes, I know… What a life, huh? Spending time with a wonderful girlfriend and playing some kick-ass video games.

FALSE

I've also written a three and a half page report in Spanish, developed three dynamic web pages in PHP, completely re-organized some of my fraternity's belongings and managed to go to class and work.

To say the least, it's been an extremely busy last couple of weeks for me. Things aren't looking to the brighter side either.

Tom Mason Presents, A Thomas Mason Production of Tom Mason's Thanksgiving Break To-Do List:

• Design a five minute presentation about Cybercafe security issues and how to resolve them.
• Devise a theme for a final paper to be written for my Cheating class. I'm thinking something along the lines of how to cheat the UITS Uniprint system or something of that sort.
• Write my final paper for Spanish Class
• Write my final project for my marketing class
• Publish new pictures to the KKPsi web site
• Clean the house
• Clean my room
• Do my laundry
• Sleep and relax without video games for as long as I possibly can
• Visit the family

There you have it. I have a lot of stuff to get done before the end of this Thanksgiving Break, but I'm sure that I'll be able to do it. I have a lot of free time and not so many tasks to fill my free time with.

In other news, there are a lot of quotes of the last two weeks. I bet you'll all find them interesting. Also, expect daily entries with updates on my To-Do List and such.

Peace out, all!

The End-of-the-Blog Rundown

Song of the Last Two Weeks – Slither – Velvet Revolver

Event of the Last Two Weeks – Mexican Night! It had been planned since the beginning of the semester, but it finally happened last night!

Hero of Last Week – Erin for helping me to de-stress myself during possibly one of my most hectic weeks this semester.

Hero of This Week – Will for, well… being Will.

Quotes of the Last Couple Weeks in no particular order

(during a shift change)
Me: Shut up Dave, I'll punch you in the face.
Dave: Oh Yea, Rough Week.

(while riding in my car)
Will: Are these walkie talkies?
Me: Yes, what did you think they were?
(long pause while Will twirles the walkie talkies)
Will: (holding the walkie talkies as guns) Needlers!

ourTunes FAQ: Is this a Peer to Peer (P2P) program? Aren't those things created by Satan to steal Christmas from Baby Jesus?

Devon Carlin: BAIL!!!!! (on my facebook wall from SB02)

More ourTunes FAQ: I hate what you are doing. I hate you. I hate your cat. (and other variants thereof)

Current Mood – – Bored out of my mind!

Until the next post…

Well, now that that assignment is out of the way, I can now relax, for the most part. To see what I spent my time doing the last couple weeks, click on the link below.

I spent yesterday out at Ransburg removing the belay back-ups on the COPE Course so that they can be replaced with back-ups that are approved by the ACCT. Since the course was constructed the ACCT has changed their standard on backing up belays and because of this, the backup style that we used was no longer acceptable.

In other news, I met with my advisor the other day to find out what I need to take to graduate at the end of this semester. It turns out that because of what they call an "advising error" I will need to take 20 hours to graduate in May. Since that's something I really want to do, I don't mind doing it; however, I can't. One of the classes I need to have to graduate conflicts with another class that I need to graduate. Accounting, worst subject ever, conflicts with Chemistry, second worst subject ever.

So here are my choices:

1. I register for a full 17 hours for the spring semester including INFO I451 (Senior Capstone), CHEM C103 (Intro to Chem), INFO I303 (Social Informatics), INFO I310 (Multimedia Arts and Design) and BUS G300 (Intro to Managerial Economics). This summer I take BUS A200 (Accounting) and graduate in August 2005. I would also work with STC throughout the summer, pick up another job somewhere in the university and make a ton of money and only visit camp on the weekends.
2. I register for 15 hours next semester including INFO I451, INFO I303, INFO I310, CHEM C103 and MUS X420 (Pep Band). This summer, I work at Ransburg, just as in summers before. I come back in the fall, register for six hours BUS W300 (Small Business Management) and BUS A200. Work a ton that semester, search for a job and graduate in December 2005.

I'm leaning toward the first option because I just want to get the heck out of here. Also, if I take the second option, I can start slowly looking for a job somewhere around Bloomington. Stymie and I talked about the attraction that Bloomington has yesterday. Once you move down here, it's hard to leave. The job market down here is so saturated with students that it's nearly impossible to find a job. I'm hoping that since I will be looking during the summer, I will have some luck. Either way, I hope to stick around down here, pay off some debt, and then look possibly at grad school for either Education or Outdoor Recreation.

That's all I care to write about for now. I will be posting more regularly now that that killer assignment is out of the way. I'll keep you posted hahaha. I know, it was a bad pun, but whatever.

peace out!

tm

The End-of-the-Blog Rundown

Song of the Day – Heaven – Los Lonely Boys

Quote of the Last Week – "Null set!"

Hero of the Last Few Days – Will for convincing me to go out on Thursday night on the Adult Swim Pub Crawl as well as for Talking to me on the phone drunk last night.

Villain of the Last Year and a Half – My stupid UDiv Advisor for telling me that my business classes all would count for Informatics… GRRRRR!

Current Mood – – Angered

Until the next post…
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