T -2 days
yesterday i went up to pittsfield and hung out with my good friend david, who was back home over break. it was super good to see him... brought back tons of memories of good times past. plus it was nice just to hang out, watch some tv, talk about whatever, and just generally have a grand time. he's getting married in june, so this was probably our last time hanging out where things were as they've always been. change is weird, but goodi ended up leaving his house sometime after midnight, which isn't too bad except that it's about an hour and forty five minutes drive back home... so i didn't get back till late. and then i had to walk down to the garage to pick my car up, because that morning i had noticed that it had a flat tire. of course i didn't notice it until i was heading out the door to drive up to david's... and of course my mom loves me so much that she let me borrow her car while my tire was getting fixed. and of course liz picked mom up from work that afternoon. and they're both fantastic and i love them lots. not just because they help me out when i need it... but because i have an awesome family. (oh, and dad's pretty cool too)so anyhow, on my late-night drive back home, i sort of got lost in my thoughts for awhile. i'd been getting really frustrated with myself, with my car, with my lack of work, and to a lesser extent with God, and it all sort of boiled over and i was like, "jeepers, how come everything is kicking me in the butt?" then i realized... not only do i need to be kicked in the rear on a regular basis to re-focus myself on God, but i have no cause for complaint should anything even remotely resembling hard times come my way. i figured, between camp last summer and the road trip this fall, i had four months of nearly unparalleled awesomeness. how long would you put up with a crap job/situation/life if you knew you could have four superb months where you loved almost every day of it? i figured it' probably be somewhere around 3-4 years. so even if you deduct the year i worked leading into this past summer/fall, i still have no reason to be dissatisfied no matter what life throw my way for another few years.so that put a different perspective on things. let the butt-kickings begin (i guess). then this morning, i had an epiphany while in the shower. i'd been sort of plagued/transfixed by a theological conundrum of sorts for quite a while, and then in a flash - when i wasn't even really thinking about it - the answer became painfully apparent. i couldn't figure out why the obvious had eluded my notice for so long, except that i was probably blinded by my own arrogance and stupidity (especially the latter). so anyhow, i feel like i can sleep easier at night with the answer to my impertinent question now so firmly implanted in my unreceptive brain.i'm praying for good weather this weekend. so far, he snow gods do not look like they want to cooperate. darn them.nevertheless... 2 days until it starts.this n.y.e. is gonna rock my face off
(that being said... i wish i could have worked it out to make it to the camp squanto reunion. i miss you guys)
-noonan-
four more days
this week has been pretty ho-hum so far....
but that will change this weekend
best.new year's.ever.(bold prediction? yes. but i think it's a safe presumption)-noonan-
christmas
it was pretty awesome.i got some cool stuff, gave some cool stuff, and am now ready to hit the road again thanks to my new backpacking stove, sleeping bag, and awesome pajama pants.i also harvested a christmas tree for grandma, went to church a couple times, and ate alot. and that pretty much sums up my weekend.and tomorrow i begin the job hunt in earnest.
(ugh.)-noonan-
car trouble
yesterday started off great and ended up sucking.
today started off sucky and ended up great.
weird how that works.
right after i got done with work yesterday, liz and i headed up north to run a couple errands. i can't say what our main agenda, but it rhymes with "christmas shopping." actually, that's what it was, sort of. i finally figured out the perfect gift idea for my mom, who is pretty much the most difficult person in the world to buy for. most people would be offended by what i got her and think of it as a worthless gift, in the veins of a lump of coal, but i'm banking on it being well-received by her. more on that after christmas.
anyhow, since we were going to be in the waterville area, liz wanted to stop at the barnes and noble in augusta, and it also worked out that we got a chance to stop at big g's for supper. if you've never been there (which i can guarantee you haven't, unless you've ever lived in or been to central maine before), then you should. really. they make pretty much the best and biggest sandwiches in the world... or at least, in maine. they're ginormous.
I can barely eat an entire one, which is saying something. and their whoopie pies are incredibly huge too.
basically, it's like a sandwich heaven on earth.
best part is they have a menu list of seemingly hundreds of sanwiches, and most of them have really unique names... for instance, i got a bill cosby, while my sister enjoyed a wishbone. we also picked up a sea pig for dad, a gerry garcia for mom, and a victorias secret for aunt erin (as well as a veggie wrap for grandma. no cool name for it, but i'm sure it was still superb). as you can tell, stopping there is almost a prerequisite if you're in the area, as is picking up sandwiches for you immediate and extended family.
(you can see their entire menu here, at
big-g-s-deli.com)
mmmm, sandwiches....
anyways, then we stopped in at barnes and noble. i love browsing in bookstores. it's sort of like being in a really nice library, except you feel like you're getting away with something by skimming thorugh books and magazines without having to buy them. it's a sweet deal.
the evening took a turn for the worse once we got back to yarmouth, where i had met up with liz and parked my car before we headed north. when i started my car, it sounded like someone had attached several cats to the inner workings of the engine, all of which were now shrieking in agony because i was foolish enough to think that if i drove my car there, i should be able to drive it back. so... we called AAA (which is close to AA only in the number of a's in it's name), and then waited FOREVER until the tow truck finally came. then they came and towed it off to the shop, where they got a chance to look at it today.
fortunately it was still at the shop by this morning, because the towing company left the keys in the car.
overnight.
IN THE IGNITION.
(morons.)
anyways, the shrieking noise is gone. supposedly it was a belt and bearings or some unknown part that was about to fall apart and completely self destruct. so it's a good thing i didn't try and drive it home, which i almost did. going to the car mechanic is vaguely like going to the doctors... they tell you what's wrong, you nod and pretend you know what they're talking about, then shell out large amounts of cash in order to fix it.
"yes, after a preliminary checkup, we've determined that your rotary sphincter bearing needs to be replaced."
"in me, or my car?"
"both, actually. that will be 23 zillion dollars."
"ok"
so my rotary sphincter bearing is fixed, and it was *only* 150 dollars. i just met a guy yesterday who was walking up and down the streets with a large bag flung over his shoulder, who offered to sell me a portable dvd player for only a hundred bucks. good thing i didn't buy one, because i didn't plan on this expense. plus i'd probably have gotten arrested for buying stolen goods.
the bright part of the day was that as i was walking home from work (fortunately my delivery area is only a few miles away), they garage called to say that my car was fixed and good to go... when i was literally within a hundred feet of it, just walking by. it was serendipitous timing, and they thought that i must have had telepathic powers or a jet pack in order to get there as quickly as i did.
i'm just that good.
(or rather, God is)
they said my brakes should be ok... they sound terrible and make the whole car shudder, but i guess it's just because the rotors got warped after driving in that horrendous weather last friday.
"sorry, i won't be able to make it in to work today."
"why's that?"
"i have a warped rotor."
"you or your car?"
"both"
tomorrow's my last day of work (that i know of). so if you have a "real job" that pays "lots of money" and you think they'd "hire me," that'd be good to know. otherwise i'll trade in my car for a moped and deliver papers or something
hurra torpedo is an amazing band.
-noonan-
p.s.- my sister is amazing. she saved my butt yesterday and today. thank you liz. i owe you one (times a million).
p.p.s.- i wrote another letter today. here it is:
dear johnny damon,
you're an idiot (and not one of the lovable kind). i hope whoever cuts you hair for you in new york accidentally shears off one of your ears, and then sells it on ebay and uses the money to have your picture (sans hair) inserted in place of benedict arnold's under the definition of "traitor" in every dictionary in the world.
sincerely,
-noonan-
letter to a traitor
dear johnny damon,
i remember my first baseball card that i ever got that had you on it. you shared the spotlight with ken griffey jr., and there were comparisons drawn between your game and his. your future in MLB was predicted to be a very bright one.
aside from that baseball card, there now exists no comparison between you and the venerable mr. griffey.
for one, there's your game. your power stroke never developed quite like was originally projected, but that's not necessarily a knock on your current skill set. instead of becoming a power hitter, you turned into one of the premier leadoff hitters and center fielders in the game of baseball today. not a bad feat.
but the major discrepancy, which will casue me to search through my baseball cards tomorrow morning until i find that ill-fated card which you share with mr. griffey and then symbolically burn it into ashes, is the fact that you have not a shred of respect for the concept of legend, or loyalty, or anything like that. i know what you're thinking... "oh, ken griffey didn't stay with seattle, he ended up signing with the reds! you stupid moron." true... but ask yourself the question: why did he sign with the reds?
it wasn't about money.
it wasn't about potential endorsement deals.
it was all about legacy.
you had the chance to leave behind a special mark in the storied history of baseball. you were one of the chosen few, the proud vanquishers who reversed the tides of history and sent the yankees home early for winter break, instead of the other way around.
the true believers had faith in you.
sure, the red sox didn't quite match the offer that the yankees put on the table. and as a result, you're going to be making a couple million dollars more a year in new york than you would have in boston. but at what cost? instead of endearing yourself to a generation of red sox fans, you now sit firmly on the fence between the two worlds. and fence sitting will give you nothing except a sore butt.
you helped us beat the yankees. you were the caveman, our hero in center field. you played with reckless abandon, with a fervor and tenacity that led us to believe you loved this game, this place, this team, more than anything else.
guess not.
now you're nothing but another sellout, chasing after some extra cash at the expense of your legacy, while simultaneously breaking the hearts of millions of red sox fans.
ask jason giambi how it's turned out for him in new york. ask alex rodriguez how many titles he's won with the yankees. ask george steinbrenner if he'll let you keep your hair (forget about the beard... it's a lost cause). ask that team how it feels to be remembered as the only team in the history of MLB to blow a 3-game lead in the postseason. ask if their throats still hurt from the choking that you helped to induce.
you were the caveman. you were one of the loveable idiots, the "cowboy up" gang, the 25 men who brought about the impossible dream.
not anymore.
now you're a yankee...
which is why i say good bye, and good riddance. i hope you had fun in boston while you still had a soul (before you sold it)
(p.s.- i think your book stinks.)
-noonan-
only in canada
my cousing kyle informed me of this:
back in 1999, canada's northwest territories was split into two parts: one became what is now known as nunavut, while they held a vote to determine what the remaining section would be called. it ended up retaining it's name of the northwest territories, but it was an extremely close race, with second place going to the name of...
bob.
really. how great would that have been? and to think that it almost happened...
there's probably some states that could stand to be renamed. like, "south carolina" is very un-original (any state that has a point of the compass in the name should automatically be up for re-naming). but if you changed it's name to something like "fred," that'd be both original and much more classy.
i live in a state of insanity
(in more ways than one)-noonan-
weekend update
friday = horrible weather. 6 inches of snow, followed by sleet, hail, freezing rain, and then rain (in that order). it was a pretty horrendous day to try and deliver packages by bike. notice i said "try"... that's because i couldn't even get the bike going in that slop. so i unhitched it from the trailer and attempted to use pure man-power to muscle my way through the route, but even that soon proved to be an ill-fated idea.
so i wimped out.
(i used the car)which is ok i guess, and saved some time and i didn't get quite as soaked as i would have otherwise (ditto for the packages), but i felt like i had failed in some way. i guess even ninja's have to know when they've been beaten.
there was so much rain that parts of some streets were completely flooded in a foot or more of water. it was, in a word,
rediculous. and the really bad part is my brakes sort of stopped working on the drive back home (i think because of the water), so that wasn't very cool. more on that later.
saturday = awesome day. the noonan side of the family had a big get-together at my aunt and uncle's house up in canaan. it was a superbly grand time. i hadn't seen some of my relatives on that side in a while, so there were many stories to be shared and, of course, lots of food to be eaten. it's hard to explain the dynamics of a noonan convention unless you've either been to one or know several members of the family, so i won't try and describe the day's events (plus, no-one cares). but anyways, it was a wicked awesome day.
talked alot, ate alot, went sledding, played some games, and talked and ate some more. family is a wonderful thing.
sunday = subpar. i slept in too late so i didn't make it to sunday school this morning, so that was a bit of a disappointment. then when i got out the door to leave for church, i realized that (a) i hadn't driven my car since the problem with the brakes on friday, and (b) there was an inch of ice coating my entire car that i needed to chip off. so that took awhile. i think the brakes were frozen shut, because i had a heck of a time getting the car out of the driveway (that, plus my reverse gear doesn't exactly work. like, at all). so i was pretty stressed out about all that on the way to church, mostly because i have zero spare money right now for car repairs. and i discovered that my car has, for whatever reason, acquired a horrendous shudder which kicks in right when it hits 40 m.p.h. who knows why, but it can't be good.
anyways, i almost turned around and just went home to drown my sorrows in moxie, but i figured since i was almost at church by that point anyways i might as well go. and, of course, i was glad i did, because my sister visited us today (she usually goes somewhere else for church), so that was pretty sweet. plus, today they had the sunday school christmas program during the service, so of course the kids were all precious and adorable and all that jazz, and it was just really nice. the place was packed, too, which is always pretty cool to see, especially when kid's parents (who don't usually come) show up to see their kids in the christmas program
liz and i went to wendy's afterwards and schemed about how to get the folks to go see king kong. we hit upon a master plan, but it was foiled when her piano lesson that afternoon got rescheduled. oh well.
now i'm back in my
previous pessimistic mode. my job with u.p.s. finishes up this week, and i have absolutely no job leads or prospects for when that's done. i'm hoping that they'll offer me a permanent position, but i almost hate to even dream about stuff like that because i don't deal well with disappointment. the worst part is i have a job i can go back to, anytime i want (they even called just recently asking if i'd be back), and i know it pays well and i could get ahead on my bills and stuff like that... but i've promised myself i'm not going back.
unless... i'm supposed to?
(i'd rather not think about that right now.)
on the bright side, i know something will turn up. it always does. it's just the waiting, looking, and searching part that stinks. but that's true of pretty much anything in life
on the even brighter side, it's less than two weeks until the grand new-years eve celebration party bonanza. and less than a week until christmas... which can be good or bad. bad if you haven't done all your christmas shopping yet (case in point: me). good if you love christmas (which i most definitely do). at any rate, it's a great time of year
what can brown do for you?(um... how about give me a full-time job?)-noonan-
return of the king?
i saw king kong earlier today.
it was wicked awesome. peter jackson is the man.
in other news... here's the weather forecast for tomorrow:
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Wintry Mix / Wind |
| High
33° F |
Precipitation: 100%
A mixture of snow and sleet early. Windy with the precipitation changing to rain and freezing rain late. High 33F. Winds ENE at 20 to 30 mph. Snow and ice accumulation of 1 to 3 inches.sounds like a great day for a bike ride?
-noonan-
wipeout
i had my first truly superb wipeout on the bike today. i tried to take a corner just a bit too fast... on ice... and the bike just kept on going straight, while i went straight down. the trailer had the poor grace to try and run over me while i was still flailing on the ground, but it didn't quite make it over my leg. of course i sprang right back to my feet, looked around to make sure no-one was watching, then hopped back on the bike and zipped around the corner before i stopped to make sure i wasn't mortally wounded.
i wasn't.
it was pretty funny, though. i had been just thinking about how i had almost mastered this whole "biking in winter" thing, then next thing i know,
wham, i'm on the ground and seeing stars.
later on in the day i stopped at a house to make a delivery... i'd tried to deliver a package there earlier this week, but no-one had been home then so i was expecting the same scenario. i was just about to leave, when the door opened and a woman answered it. here's a transcript of our conversation:
her:
"oh, hi! how are you?"me:
"yourself?"(brief sidenote: my intent was to reply, "good, and yourself?" but somehow even this simple conversational tool was well beyond my grasp. i blame the cold)
(insert long awkward pause as we both try and figure out what the heck i'm trying to say...)
me:
"good i am. thanks." (hands off package and runs for bike. tries to smoothly hop onto bike but instead almost falls over sideways. realized that i sounded like i had taken grammer lessons from yoda)
i laughed about that one for the rest of the day. as, i suspect, did she.
king kong looks pretty amazing. i think i need to see it. very soon.
-noonan-
it's wicked cold
maybe it's just me... but it seems rather absurd that i have to pay extra money for something to perform up to it's expectations
case in point: i've been relying on a rather outdated (as in, "over a year old") version of norton's antivirus software. and since i've been too cheap to cough up the coin for the yearly subscription, it's ability to protect my computer is probably suspect at best by this point. added to all this is the fact that i've noticed that my computer's been getting bogged down quite a bit recently, and i think i've pinpointed the cause to a couple of files/programs running in the background that have no reason to be getting as much attention from my processor as they are
so... long story shorter, i upgraded to norton 2006 (brief sidenote: why do they give model years to products that don't originate from that year? i'm sure it's just an advertising gimmick, but it seems rather silly to be able to buy a 2006 chevy or anything else with the '2006' prefix in 2005. then again, i do feel like an adept and suave consumer who's ahead of the curve when i buy stuff a year before it should be available, so maybe their marketing scam is actually working on me). and it seems to have weeded out the troublemakers without any real problem. so i guess that's good
nonetheless, i hate paying money for something that shouldn't be necessary. i mean, if there weren't evil computer genuises who have nothing better to do than to write stupid programs to infect innocent people's computers, then i wouldn't be out 40 bucks right now
which makes me think... what would i do with that forty bucks if i had it back?
probably something alot cooler than protecting my computer against adware, viruses, and worms. oh well.
i've been reading some old familiar favorites this week... just finished up "the pond" by robert murphy (superb short novel), and i'm re-starting "orthodoxy" by g.k. chesterton. i've never actually finished "orthodoxy," but it's not because the book is either poorly written or boring. it's actually the polar opposite. it seems that whenever i start it, i'll be plowing through it and loving it until i stumble upon some point that i hadn't previously unearthed, at which point i invariably put the book on the back burner while i mull some new idea or concept over. this time, though, i'm determined to read all the way through it, cover to cover, before i stop to really think. here goes nothing...
reading books you've read before is sort of like visiting an old friend. you know who they are, what they're like, and what's going to happen, but there's almost always some point or feature that had escaped your attention previously that comes to the surface, and makes you realize all the more just why they're such a welcome acquaintance.
plus, when you're a homeschooler, you tend to count your books as friends. it makes for a much more impressive number
(like, a positive one)
oh, did i mention that it was wicked cold today? windchill hovered around zero for most of the day. that's cold. especially when you're on a bike.
thank goodness for hot coffee.
-noonan-
speedy delivery
i made a venison stew for supper tonight. it was delicious.
also today...
i delivered 67 packages in 3 hours (plus or minus a couple minutes).
i therefore think i've attained the level of UPS ninja, brown belt.
sorry if it sounds haughty... but our trainer told us the best anyone had ever averaged was 21 deliveries an hour. so i set my sights on eclipsing that mark from the get-go, and was pretty pumped to have surpassed it. i think now i'll try and stop screwing myself over by finishing too early and not getting any hours.
i think vanilla coke is pretty much the best soda in the world. my top-fove soda's list:
- vanilla coke
- mt. dew
- dr. pepper
- IBC root beer
- i don't even know what should go here. sprite, i guess.
"where's moxie?" is the question i'm sure you're asking. well it would blow away all the others on any sort of list that i didn't even bother including it so as to not humiliate the other sodas.
moxie rocks my face off.
(in a good way?)
-noonan-
movies and motorcycles
narnia was awesome. great story + almost perfect casting + quality cinematography = superb film for the ages. eagerly anticipating the sequel(s).
most of saturday i spent either cleaning or reading, with the exceptions of (a) going to see narnia, and (b) getting a haircut. i keep thinking i'm going to just let it grow, but it keeps getting annoying after a while so i end up getting it cut. part of my rationale is that i'm *still* in search of permanent work (at least for after christmas), so i don't want to be looking too shaggy. one of these days i'm going to make it past the medium-length stage and just let it grow forever until i have an awesome mullet. and by then i'll hopefully have a motorcycle, so i can tool around with my hair flowing free behind me.
then again...
maybe not. but i will get a motorcycle one of these days. probably not anytime terribly soon, but it'll happen sooner or later.
church was superb today, which is pretty much par for the course. i love my church. it's a hard sort of thing to define what it is about the place that makes it so attractive to me, so since i'm basically lazy i won't even try. suffice i to say that pastor mark is pretty fantastic, and the little idiosynchracies and differences from other denominations make christchurch uniquely special. so if you're ever in the area you should really visit, because i'm obviously an authority on churches so you should listen to me.
(that last part was sarcasm)
went over to greg's place for an open house/christmas party today. there was lots of food. people were amazed that not only can i eat, i can also cook (to a certain extent). i ate alot and tried to sing christmas carols even though i usually only knew the first verse. fortunately i'm good at (a.) lip synching (i take lessons from ashlee simpson) and (b.) making up lyrics. so it worked out fine. good food, good friends, good times.
new year's eve 2005... an event for the ages (weather permitting).
only 20 more days until the craziest weekend ever
and in other news,
i love my boots.-noonan-
snow day
today was a hard-core day.
riding a bike with snow on the ground is tricky enough. riding a bike while pulling a heavily-laden trailer full of packages is trickier still.
but doing all of that in the middle of a blizzard = insane.
at one point today we got four inches of snow in an hour. which is pretty intense, to say the least...it made the difference from slow going at the beginning of the day to having to get off the bike and push (literally) a couple hours later. all told i think we got around a foot of snow, which is a respectable early-december amount.
i was doing pretty good biking in the snow at first... there was only a couple inches on the ground, and once you get going you don't feel too much of a difference. but when the snow got above my boots...
while i was biking... it got to be more than i could handle. fortunately by that point i had finished most of my deliveries, so i unhitched the bike, threw it in the back of the trailer, and pulled the whole thing the rest of the way.
it's a good feeling to get everything done, and feel like you came out on top despite the weather gods throwing everything your way that they could. i didn't even have any wipeouts, although i had several close calls. but my jedi-like biking skills helped keep me upright. then i got home, drank some hot chocolate, and proceeded to shovel the driveway.
needless to say... it was a pretty sweet day.
i wouldn't like days like this all the time, but i relish adventure when it presents itself on a semi-occasional basis. plus when you're finally back inside for the day, you feel like you deserve to just sit down by the heater, sip on some hot beverage, and curl up with a good book. which is exactly what i've been doing most of the day.
some pictures:
the trailer; snow got up to the bottom of it in some spots today
the bike. it's nothing fancy, but it gets the job done. i've been attempting to switch it out with a higher-class bike from home, but the trailer has a problem fitting the scenario. oh well. at least the free spirit has gearss, and a seat, and pedals. what more do you need?
me after work today. was i stupid for not wearing a hat? probably. does it make me look like i'm prematurely graying? most likely. was i warm anyways despite the snow and ice? yes indeed. that's what being motivated will do for you
the diad. i hope it's waterproof. it still seemed to work at the end of the day, so that's good.
tomorrow, we visit narnia.
i've been there before... many, many times. but this time will be different, i think.
and i'm pumped.
-noonan-
call me brilliant
i reverse-engineered taco bell's grilled stuffed burrito for supper tonight.
and it was actually really good.
a successful experiment always makes me happy. a good burrito makes me very happy. knowing that it's going to
SNOW tomorrow makes me giddy with excitement.
winter's here. to stay.
breakfast of champions
cold weather transfroms coffee from "occasional social drink" directly into "life support system."
gotta love it.
whenever i cook a meal, it tends to be fairly basic: hot dogs and beans. spaghetti. re-heated leftovers. you get the picture. it's not that i despise cooking... it's just i'm too much of a utilitarian to be spending vast quantities of time in meal preparation. i mean, look at it this way: you can make spaghetti in half an hour, tops. that includes boiling the water, cooking the pasta, and either making the sauce yourself or dumping in a couple of ready-made jars (som form of meat, whether sausage or hamburg or whatever, is an assumed ingredient). now i know i will enjoy that plate of spaghetti once it's done... in fact, i'll probably enjoy a couple of them. but how much more would i enjoy, say, a turkey dinner with all the fixings? it'd be more variety, and it would probably be slightly more tempting to the palate, but is it worth it to spend all that extra time preparing it? not on your life (at least, not with any regularity. once or twice a year is fine, as long as someone else cooks it all).
and frankly, i still haven't found anything that beats the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, accompanied by either a glass of milk or a can of coke, and maybe some cookies. as far as the effort to taste ratio goes, that's the top dog by a longshot.
the one meal i really enjoy going all out for is breakfast. i think it might be sort of a guy thing. i mean, there's something inherently manly about starting off the day with some gluttony. i'm talking eggs (don't care how they're cooked, as long as there's cheese involved), toast, maybe some bacon or sausage, hash browns (if some potatoes are convenient), toast, orange juice, and of course some coffee. i don't make or consume a breakfast like that very often, mostly because of time constraints, but if i had no concerns about cholesterol (which, quite frankly, i don't) and had plenty of morning leisure time, you can be sure i'd feast like a king every single morning. maybe mix it up a few times a week with some pancakes or waffles, drenched in butter and syrup. i'm getting hungry just thinking about it... boy do i love a big breakfast. cereal is good, but it doesn't hold a candle to the all-out breakfast smorgasbord.
lumberjacks are supposed to have huge breakfasts. at least, paul bunyan did. and he was a pretty manly lumberjack. according to legend, the griddle iron that they used to make his pancakes was so big, that the cooks had to strap slabs of bacon to their feet and go skating around on it just to grease it. no kidding.
speaking of lumberjacks... time to go saw some wood.
(get it?)
(i'm going to bed)
(after a snack. i'm hungry now)
-noonan-
my work history
you know that part on a job application or a resume where you're supposed to list your most recent job history? i always struggle with that, not because i have a problem with it or anything but because i can never remember exact dates of when i worked where and stuff. most of the trouble stems from the fact that i have had a very large number of jobs in my somewhat short life. and it's not because i've been fired a zillion times either... it's just life happens, you move on, and different jobs are for different times. like, i wouldn't want to be picking green beans for 20 cents a pound right now because (a) it's cold outside, (b) there are no green beans anywhere to be found, and (c) you'd have to pick a ton of green beans (literallly... two thousand pounds) every week in order to gross twenty thousand dollars a year, which isn't a heck of a lot of money. unless you eat nothing but green beans.
so to get to the point, i'm trying to piece together my "work history." which goes back a ways...
(note: this ended up being long and windy. so i recommend just reading the bold headers for a list of places i've worked, instead of reading the accompanying flowery prose. it's way too wordy, but i'm way too lazy to go back and cut and edit. this ends the public service announcement)
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french's market. worked summers there from when i was maybe 10? until about 13? not too sure about when i started or stopped... but i was there two or three summers, picking vegetables and stuff like that. not a bad summer job; i'd ride my bike there (most times my mom and sister would work there too), and on the way back buy a candy bar or a soda or something, which would often be my entire day's profits if the picking wasn't terribly good. mr. french was my piano teacher in later years... he ended up getting married for the first time at the ripe old age of 70-something. quite the chap.
-riverside farm market. once we moved from south china to the waterville area, i needed a new summer job. and lo and behold, i found one. more of the same... picking peas and green beans, as well as doing some hoeing, planting, rototilling, and whatever odd jobs mr. tyler had for me to help him with around the farm. i think i worked there for 3 or mabe even 4 summer... again i'm pretty hazy about my past. i'm horrible with dates. if you asked me when i graduated, i'd have to stop and think for like a minute or two while i worked out the dates... and then finally remember that oh, that's right, i haven't graduated yet (from college, anyways).
-the chore store. worked for them during the year i took off from school between high school and college. part time work, low pay, but it was pretty entertaining. helped do stuff like build a house (well, i didn't do much of the actual building... just lots of runs to the dump, and doing painting and pounding some nails), as well as lots of other stuff i can't remember. they specialized in doing pretty much anything that needed fixing around the house, so my experiences were many and varied. good times.
-garbacik surveyors. this might still be my favorite job ever... another part time job i worked between high school and college. i was seriously thinking about going to school for a degree in serveying (umaine has a super program), so i was pretty excited to take this job. it was a small business, so it was just me and mr. garbacik. he taught me all the tricks of the trade i needed to know to do my job well; how to cut sight lines through the woods, how to set a point, how to measure distances correctly, how to set a pin, blaze and paint, not do constant faceplants while wearing snowshoes... all sorts of awesome stuff. my favorite times were when it was just me, traipsing through the woods, hacking at branches with my machete. i'd hike in, cut a few thousand feet of line through the woods, then hike back out... usually by using my compass to plot my path back to the car. of course, there were hot days, and buggy days, and swamp days, and hot and buggy days when you were in a swamp, but overall it was a pretty amazing job. i still miss it sometimes... and occasionally wonder why i didn't go to school for that. then sometimes i remember why i didn't, and other times i don't. but anyways... i digress.
-u.s. census bureau. also took place in the same time frame as the last two... this was my best-paying job to this point (i think i was making 11 and change an hour, which made me feel like bill gates at the time), but having to deal with government bureaucracy made me want to gag. it took us an entire day of training... AN ENTIRE DAY... to be properly instructed as to how to fill out our daily payroll forms.
rediculous. the job itself was fun, mostly... i got to drive around, sometimes to remote places, and depending on which phase of the census we were at i would either (a) drop off a form, (b) stop back to fill out a form with the residents, or (c) keep trying to get the cantankerous, privacy-obsessed individuals to please fill out their census form. i had the misfortune of being at the top of the heap as far as performance rates go after the first couple phases were complete in our area, so i ended up getting shipped out of town to "help" with some amazingly crazy/hard cases. some people are just belligerent... and some people are just hard to track down. anyhow, it was a pretty cool job, except for the fact that the governement has a way of making even the most mundane tasks paperwork-intensive
-blueberry raking. i did this for two summers, sandwiched around my freshman year of college. it usually lasts for about 6 weeks, starting the first part of august through middle september, so it's a good end-of-summer job. when the raking is good the pay can be pretty sweet... it was 3 dollars a box back when i did it, and in a really good day i could get 50 or (on one occasion) as much as 70 or so boxes in a day. some people would get
over a hundred on a regular basis, but they were mostly migrant workers who were way more hard-core about it then i was... i'd try and get there at sunrise to beat the heat, but usually only stay till 12 or 1, because by then the heat just gets too insane. one day i'd drank every drop of water i had (2-3 gallons worth) by 11 a.m., and i just decided enough was enough so i drove to a lake and went swimming. wicked hard work... kills your back and your hands. but it's pretty fun, and you get to eat tons of blueberries. a pretty sweet fringe benefit
-alternative warehouse services. i've been there the longest (or, i should say, i was there)... from right after my freshman year (which ended early, in march; long story there) up until about three months ago. that'd
four and a half years... an amazingly long tenure in the warehouse world. base pay was decent, but with the performance incentives and bonuses you could get for working fast, accurately, and safely, it turned out to be a really profitable job. that's mostly the reason why i was there so long... helped me get through college, and land on my feet again once i got out. but it was never a job that i did because of the place, or the work, or anything like that... i was there for the paycheck. i mean, not just for that, there were other reasons why i stayed on, but that was the driving motivator. and it payed off pretty well... it was a good job for the time, but i'm glad to have moved on. no offense.
-resident assistant, cedarville. this was a really rewarding and stressful job at the same time... i lucked out because i had pretty much the best group of guys that i could have possibly wished for, but being responsible for fourteen crazy freshmen (and one sophmore) was a little intense. not because i had tons of issues to deal with or anything, but even so you just feel this constant weight of responsibility. you're being held to a higher standard, because you're the one trying to hold everyone to a standard at all in the first place. it was weird at times, amazing at times, and crazy at times, but over all
it was wicked awesome... mostly because of the guys. i still keep in touch to some extent with several of them, which to me is pretty much what makes it all worthwhile in the end
-camp squanto. ah yes... finally i realized my lifelong dream of becoming a camp counselor. was it everything i thought it would be? yes... and tons more. in both a good and not-so-good way. it was an amazing summer, in every sense of the word... but i was also stretched, worn, tried and tested in ways i never imagined i would be. but it was awesome. camp squanto is a special place, and you could just feel the presence of God over the course of the summer as he was actively working not only in the lives of the campers, but in the staff too. what a summer... and what an amazing staff. you guys rocked.
-UPS. this is where i work now. i deliver packages to people by bike. it's wicked awesome.
my butt is sore.
from biking.
-noonan-
i love technology
i *finally* got a
usb bluetooth adaptor for my computer. in non-geek language, that means i can finally get pictures off from my phone and onto my laptop. and, maybe eventually, they'll find their way on to here. i got done with work early today, so i decided to zip over to best buy to see if they had any at a reasonable price, and lo and behold they did... but only one. and i got it. so HAH to everyone else who was trying to buy usb bluetooth adaptors for their computers today at the best buy in s. portland, because there are none left. because i got the last one. so i win.
work went pretty great today. it was a blast being out on a bike, by myself for the most part, and trying to map and plan out the most efficient way to deliver all the packages in my area. i'm starting to familiarize myself with the layout of the neighborhood, and beginning to feel a little more competent using the scanner/computer thing they give us (they call it a "diad." why? i'm not sure). i'm planning on switching out the bike they provided with either mine or my sister's in the near future, because it's way too small for me. my knees almost come up past the seat when i'm sitting down. plus, the bike is a free spirit. not in the metaphysical sense, but as in it's brand name. it's pretty much in the huffy/ murray/ (insert crappy k- or wal-mart bike brand here) genre of bicycles. but it works, so that's always good.
i also now know where a couple of
rather potent inclines are in the route, so i'll try and avoid traveling up them with a full trailer of packages in the future. pulling a trailer behind the bike really isn't very bad at all... until you start to go uphill. then you really notice that extra 40-50 pounds of weight dragging along behind you. and i mean,
REALLY notice. like, "hello, did you forget about me when you were going downhill? because i'm still here. and i'm really heavy and i jerk around when you're trying to pedal hard." i practiced stopping (or rather, trying to) in the snow on one street that had retained the slight dusting we got last night. the bike doesn't do too bad... except on ice. whoa boy, now
that's an adventure waiting to happen. i'm sure i'm due at least one epic spill before the job's over
so yeah... i pretty much love this job. i lovebieng outside, meeting new people, feeling like i'm almost part of the neighborhood, tooling around on a bike, and trying to think creatively and strategize how i can be both fast and efficient. it's great.
random mom quote from today:
mom, talking to me about how her arm still aches from when she had a slight break several years ago: "patrick, make sure you never break your arm."
-brief moment of silence-
me: "um... i've actually broken it three times before, if you remember."
mom: "oh. well try not to do it again."
no need to tell me. i'd be perfectly happy if i never broke a bone again. i've had my share
is it just me, or does "bluetooth" sound more like some strange dental disorder (which the british would probably be very susceptible to) than a means of wireless communication? i can hear a conversation going like this...
"how are you?"
"not too good. my dentist just diagnosed me with bluetooth."
"oh, that's awful! have your gums started to rot away yet?"
"not yet, but my first tooth exploded today. so i guess it's all downhill from here."
i should go to bed.
-noonan-
an introspective ringtone
the crazy thing about cell phones these days is they don't just ring. nope, they can pretty much make any sound known to man, as well as vibrate and flash and sometimes jump out of your pocket and
do the macarena when someone calls. and me being one of the mindless millions who has a cell phone (as much as it pains me to admit, i am one of "those people who have cell phones"), i decided to go out on a limb and have some cool song play whenever someone calls. i'd say "whenever the phone rings," but like i said, phones don't really ring anymore.
so anyways, after scrolling through page after page of options and listening to dozens of short little clips online, i finally settled on
"this is your life" by
switchfoot. mostly because it was one of the few ringtones that didn't sound like it was either starting up or cutting off right in the middle of the lyrics, as well as it not being too loud or annoying or something i'd get sick of after hearing it two or three times. plus, it's hard to wrong with switchfoot. then somebody called (whoa, big happenings for me) and i answered it and everything but i got to reflecting on the
lyrics after the call was over, and it made me think...
this is my life. am i who i want to be?
and the answer, unsurprisingly, is a decided
NO.
not a sad or depressing kind of no... but the reflective kind. the kind that makes you rethink and reevaluate. a negative that will hopefully turn you back towards the positive
the hard part is that
who i want to be is unattainable. my life will never be the one i've dreamed it would be... i'll never do everything i want to do, be the man i'm supposed to be, check off every item on my to-do list, live up to my potential, or be able to lead a sin-free life. and the worst part of all of that is that i'll never get rid of sin while i'm still alive, and that's the very thing that i so desperately wish to be rid of. it's like you're trying to climb a mountain that you know you'll never reach the top of alive, and just for extra fun you're carrying along a grand piano. with a gorilla standing on it. and he's throwing banana peels out in front of you so you keep slipping and falling back down the hill.
stupid gorilla.
so this is my life. and because of who i am, i'll never be who i want to be. but the perspective i need to assume is to be so focused on a single task that i become oblivious to all distractions, and fight through anything that might try and hold me back along the way. you know those type of people who get so set on a single idea, so dogged in the pursuit of a hopeless quest, determined
to succeed when the rest of the world knows that failure is not only probable, but that success is impossible? labels such as crazy, insane, blind, foolish, and many others are often applied to them.
yeah. that's how i want to be. chasing after that impossible dream.
"this is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be,
when the world was younger, and you had everything to lose..."
what dreams did you have as a kid? are you living them? dreams are the scariest thing in the world to chase after, because three things can happen and two of them are bad:
- you don't ever realize your dream. this is bad. a common senario most kids have experienced is to want something really bad for christmas, make sure you ask for it and put it on the list... and then open up all the packages on christmas morning and realized that not only did you not get that lego pirate ship you so desperately wanted, but that instead you have a well-supplied sock and underwear drawer. crying yourself to sleep and then rolling the socks into balls which you can throw at people is the only viable way to deal with this
- you do realize it, but it's nothing like you thought it would be. this is even worse. far, far worse. imagine finally getting a date with the girl of your dreams... only to discover she has horrible halitosis. or finally going on that dream vacation to some remote pacific island, only to get attacked by a tribe of headhunters. or getting that promotion you've been shooting for and then realizing that you're suddenly expected to work 100 hours a week. or getting a pet that you've always wanted only to have it frequently deposit it's feces at the most random and inconvenient places all over your house. or... well, i think you get the idea
- you realize your dream, and it's everything you thought it would be... and tons more
that last scenario is how the biggest dream of all will end. this i know. because i dream of one day being perfect, of one day being rid of that stupid gorilla holding me back, of one day being able to truly Love, and... one day i'll be me. who i'm meant to be. not this pale reflection of my true self that is clouded by, of all things, my humanity, but the 'me' that i've dreamt about being. and it'll be "dream scenario #3" to the max, because the splendor of heaven is too infinite for our minds to even begin to comprehend. to be in the presence of God... is there a simultaneously more awesome and frightening place to be? can't wait.
sorry if this introspective moment comes across as being either pretentions or preachy. it's nothing new or profound, either to myself or to anyone else. but i just found it intriguingly amusing how an incoming call made me stop and think, even for just a moment. as james mcdonald said waaay back when he was speaking at cedarville freshman year... "hello, cluephone, it's for you."
"this is your life. are you who you want to be?"
-noonan-
i'm spider-man
spider-man is by
far my favorite superhero... so this 'test' result pretty much made my day. now if i could only get another awesome spider-man lunch box and thermos like i had back in the day, i'd be set for life....
You scored as
The Amazing Spider-Man. After being bitten by a radioactive spider, Peter Parker was transformed from a nerdy high school student into New York's greatest hero. Peter enjoys the thrill of being a super hero, but he struggles with the burdens of leading a double life. He hopes someday to win the heart of his true love Mary Jane, the woman he's loved since before he even liked girls. Right now, he just wants to make it through college and pay his bills
The Amazing Spider-Man | | 75% |
Maximus | | 63% |
Indiana Jones | | 58% |
Captain Jack Sparrow | | 54% |
Neo, the "One" | | 54% |
The Terminator | | 46% |
James Bond, Agent 007 | | 42% |
Batman, the Dark Knight | | 42% |
Lara Croft | | 38% |
El Zorro | | 38% |
William Wallace | | 38% |
Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0
working and reading
so i had my first *real* day of work today... and it only lasted for two hours. but that's ok, because it only took me that long to decide that
i love this job. really. it's already rocking my face off and i've only barely begun. but more on that later... probably not for a while. i got the last installment of my order from amazon so i'm taking a brief break from my absorption with a couple of truly fantastic books and am instead enjoying some new tunes and typing this. or rather, copying and pasting, because here's
four links worth reading:
- RIAA Bans Telling Friends About Songs (from the Onion). clever satire is oh-so-funny
- keepmanny.com. you can sign an online petition to keep manny in boston, or just read what people say they would do in an effort to retain him. have i signed it, you ask? of course. he's my favorite player on my favorite team... it'd break my heart to see him go
- opening paragraph from moby dick. thanks to luke who brought this gem to my attention... never discount the powerful draw of the sea. i need to read that book. soon.
- the art of drowning, by billy collins. an equally profound piece of literature, recommended by another good friend (thanks kristin). please take the time to read it... poems like that deserve to be read, need to be read. it's in your face, it's real, and it makes you think. not many poems do that
that's all. books are calling me. i'm a bibliophile, i admit it.
what can brown do for you?-noonan-
new job, man-boots, and a cell phone
started work today... sort of. just filled out paperwork, went over company policies and were told useful bits of information like "don't bring a gun to work" and "don't steal stuff" and my favorite, "don't pee in customers back yards." so we pretty much covered everything important. i should be starting some *real* work either tomorrow or monday, getting some training in actual package delivery (hopefully... keeping my fingers crossed... by bike!). so that will be cool.
i also got my uniform... jacket, pants, and brown stocking cap. i was slightly disappointed that i didn't get a shirt or one of their sweet baseball caps, but that perceived loss was made up for by the fact that the jacket is
awesome. i got the best one out of the pile. it has sweet pinstripes down the sleeves, you can zip a fleece or something into the inside of it, has pockets in all the right places, and it of course has the u.p.s. logo on it. (small sidenote... u.p.s. doesn't stand for anything anymore. used to be 'united parcel service,' but now it's just "ups." don't ask me why). the pants are a slight letdown... they said they were my size, looked like they were, but they're a
tad tight in the legs. i guess they didn't expect such massive leg muscles on their delivery personnel when they tailored their pants. hopefully they'll stretch out a bit... otherwise i'm going to be looking mighty fine in my form-fitting, beautiful brown pants. if you hear whistles in the streets, it's because i'm walking by. or... not. yeah.
i bought some new man-boots today. why do i call them man-boots? because they're boots, and very manly. the pair i was going to get was all sold out in my size, so i ended up doing a slight upgrade and getting
this pair. some coupons and stuff helped defray the cost... but anyways, a good pair of hiking boots is well worth the investment. and they're so amazing, they practically do the walking for you. i'm not even joking. i'm a little sad to relegate my previous pair of ll bean boots to 'backup' status, but they've given me several years of good service and they're more than ready to be retired. so i'm thrilled to death to have this pair... probably more elated about them than i would be if i got a new car. because, after all, boots can take you anywhere a car can go, and plenty of other places besides
i also bought a new cell phone today. i'm drastically less excited about that than i am about the boots, because i needed a new pair of boots due to heavy use of my former pair. i need a new cell phone because
i'm a moron and left my other one on the roof of the van... in north carolina... and didn't notice it was missing until four or five hours of highway travel later. so it died an ignominios death, and i needed to get a new one so i wouldn't have to keep paying the bill without being able to use a phone. and buying a cell phone at full-price is expensive... painfully so. but it is pretty cool, and i got more phone for my dollar than i did when i first got mine, so i basically upgraded for the same price to
this model. and i must say... it's pretty sweet. but i still like my boots better
last but not least... i got
thrifty mr kickstar by dryve in the mail today. i had a heck of a time finding a copy of it, but amazon.com came through in the end. i bought it basically for one song... "rain." was a staple in the song selection at camp over the summer, and these guys wrote and performed it. i'd still take being in the rec hall and hearing uncle elvis sing it with a hundred plus kids joining along, but this cd will suffice in it's stead. and the rest of the tracks are pretty stellar, too.
mom bought some ice cream that i need to go eat. it's chocolate and vanilla and other tasty stuff mixed in, and i'm going to put peanut m&m's and whipped cream on it. and it. will. be awesome.
"i'm a working stiff now... and that's ok."
-noonan-
