Fake News

Local Man, Happy With Job, Nonetheless Loses it at Work

Salt Lake City, UT, AP: “He just started alternating between singing pop goes the weasel and yelling angrily at his coffee cup to ‘stop being so condescending’.” Words spoken by a witness to the small mental breakdown that took place in a Salt Lake City engineering office this afternoon. The man, 25, was apparently attempting to work after returning from a vacation. “I love my job, I enjoy the people I work with, and I can honestly say I don’t know what caused this” said the man who apparently couldn’t hold it together, hours after being coaxed down from the top of his desk where he was pointing at the door, shouting “The outside is out there, I know it is!”.

Leading experts in the field of mind-loss point to the subject’s quick return to the workforce after a vacation filled with family, food, and beverage as the likely cause for the outburst. When asked for a closing remark, the subject, still hazy eyed, muttered some nonsense not worth reporting.

No one was hurt in the mind-loss, with the only injury coming to a keyboard which was found half-submerged in a toilet bowl. The keyboard refused to comment.

Note: this story is made up

Put the Oki in Okinawa

So, to say a lot has gone on since my last post would be a bigger understatement than saying Asange leaked a little information.

At the end of November 2010, Amy and I went on an adventure to Okinawa to see our good friends, Josh and Jenn. We had been planning on making this trip ever since Josh and Jenn left Klamath for Okinawa. Let me make my best attempt at summarizing the timeline of this crazy-awesome time. Take a breath before reading the following:

Last day at old job, finish packing for move to Salt Lake City, get on airplane bound for Okinawa Japan, fly/layover for 20hrs, arrive in Okinawa, have an absolutely incredible time (see slideshow), fly/layover for 18hrs, arrive in Portland, load Penske truck and clean rental home, start drive to SLC with intent of making it to Boise but only make it to La Grande due to road closures, make it the rest of the way to SLC, Unload Penske truck, start new job in SLC.

In case you were wondering, that covered about 18 days.

As for the new job, it has started out great! I have a large project for this next year and will be doing some travelling. I feel blessed to have a job like this in a down economy.

I had the full week before Christmas off so Amy and I drove from SLC to Merrill and Medford. As always, we had a great time with our family. It was very nice to see everyone and we got SPOILED with gifts!

My best friend got engaged over the holiday, and I will be his best man. I am thrilled for him, his wife-to-be is truly great and I am proud to be his best man. Best man means one major responsibility: The Bachelor Party. Don’t worry buddy, I am on it.

So, in the past each one of these life events would have been an entire post, but as you can see, I have been busy. I hope to get back to posting with something resembling consistency. If only there was a time coming up where it was customary to make resolutions…

Happy New Year!

Cheers to 2011, you have big shoes to fill!

SLC & Apple

Pretty big news for Amy and me: we are moving to Salt Lake City!

I accepted an engineering position in SLC with a company in mining and construction. Although I will miss everyone I worked with here in Vancouver and all the great friends we made up here, I am thrilled with the opportunity I have been presented in Utah!

Needless to say, Amy and I have been busy. Last weekend we did a quick trip (flying early Saturday and returning late Sunday) down to look for a place to live. We found a townhome we are very excited about in West Jordan.

One of the most appealing aspects of this new job is that I will be doing more mechanical design. Although I enjoy project management, which is what I have done exclusively for the past six months, I miss my original passion of machine design. The art of combining multiple disciplines into a functioning product was my motivation for starting this career, and it continues to get me to work every day. The field uses big equipment of course, which has always been my preference.

We have been very impressed with the Salt Lake area from our visits. It is very clean, has beautiful surroundings, and they actually have some good local beers (very important). West Jordan has a lot of new construction. We are excited to ski some of the area’s legendary snow!

We made sure to get a place that would allow us to welcome plenty of visitors, so come see us!

In unrelated news, I recently purchased an iMac. So far, I am very impressed! It was wicked easy to set up, and clearly very powerful. Ours has the i5 processor, which so far does not disappoint. This is my first Mac and it is too soon to say for sure, but I may be hooked.

Kool-Aid = Consumed

Next week, we visit Josh and Jenn in Okinawa!

Put it on Random, Dude!

Recently, I started a free trial of Rhapsody. So far, I have been pretty impressed. Those who know me know how eclectic my music taste can be. Rhapsody suits this tendency well, allowing me to build a queue that includes Outkast and My Morning Jacket. It also allows me to listen to artists that have piqued my interest, just not $10 or $15 worth. I will report back after a few months of paid service on whether or not it is a keeper. So far I have been discovered head and shoulder dancing twice in my cubicle thanks to the iPhone app. Thankfully my lack of rhythm is masked by my use of headphones. That’s right; they might just assume it is a song with ~1408 tempo changes.

Life has been full of softball lately. I am thankful for the leagues up here. It is great to be playing ball again. I have played short stop mostly, which has been a blast. Tourney time this weekend!

Amy and I went down to Klamath recently and visited my nephew. We had a great time! The trip was too short as always. Ty is growing so fast and looking great! Watch out future ladies in your aluminum-foil-esque dresses (this is how I imagine future ladies).

Work has been intense lately; I am starting to think that isn’t going to change any time soon. I am so intrigued by the way people work. We think of work as being a linear function. For example:

Figure 1 - Incorrect linear approximation of human work and time.

Figure 2 - Obnoxious morning person. Seriously person, I haven't even had a cup of coffee yet.

Figure 3 - My work/time function. Notice that it gets to the same point, but it involve ranges with slopes approaching infinity and others nearing zero. It even contains a range with a negative slope, once believed to be impossible. The JP T/W relationship might also describe afternoon feeling "I should just go home".

Figure 4 - We have all worked with this person.

I have been thinking about getting a Kindle. Anyone have any thoughts on the subject? Like it? Hate it? Don’t care? What is a Kindle? Where am I?

Real Wife - Fantasy Football

Amy and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary on August 26. I cannot believe it has been four years already. It is pretty amazing to look back on what we have done together and how much has changed in four years. One thing has not changed: I still cannot imagine life without her. Happy anniversary Famous!

So enough cheese for one day you say? OK, fine.

Fantasy football season is upon us folks. This year I am a member of three leagues. I am not sure how I am going to keep up with all three. Spreading my mediocrity over three leagues will likely render me the equivalent of the Cleveland Browns in all three leagues. Translation: you hate to play me, as I am so crappy you cannot improve your rep by beating me, but I can destroy your rep with a fluky big game.

How can I get better at fantasy football? Short of quitting my job and going all pale-skin internet addict cheetoh muncher, I have no idea. I do know I have to get over picking players I recognize the name of for my team. I used to be really into football, watching every Sunday and catching the same Sports Center two or three times in a weekend. I knew player’s stats and abilities intuitively based on excessive highlight watching. Time has caught up to me though. Turns out you should be careful with picking someone like Isaac Bruce… He is one of the top receivers in the game, if this was 1999.

Another concept I have to borrow from my friend Grant. When selecting a kicker, base your decision on one thing and one thing alone: The complexity of that kicker’s last name. The best kickers of all time have the most ridiculous and intricate surnames. So I will load up the bottom spot on the roster with as many consonants as possible.

Now I will put on my digital whistle, round up my virtual players, and head to the imaginary gridiron for another season of getting way too excited for mediocre achievements of mouse-clicking domination.

Summer Photos

In no particular order...

The wedding of Jake and Jen Bakker

Amy's feet at the beach we discovered close to our house

PGE Park

Cycle Oregon

Ruger and myself enjoying the Columbia

Ty!

Twitter

A familiar process:

1. Have No interest in a new technology

2. Judge others who are apparently addicted to new technology (ideally, this is the point where you make an outlandish claim that you will NEVER use this new technology)

3. Divert attention elsewhere when new technology is mentioned in pop culture

4. Get really bored one day

5. Sign up for new technology, under a smug pretense such as "I am just going to see what all THOSE people are talking about"

6. Enjoy new technology, and prepare to consume an expertly prepared crow

So follow me on Twitter! @japes1365