Idealist vs Realist

I was just about to leave the house when I heard a shout come from the kitchen.

"William! The ants are back. They're in the trail mix." I came rushing in to assess the damage.

The ants were all around the kitchen, but mostly in the drawer where we kept a hidden stash of well sealed food. I sighed and replied "Ok, I'm gonna spray again" as I reached for the bottle of RAID.

Adrienne whimpered and complained about using the spray. I sighed again, this time with a hint of frustration building; I knew it was coming. Something as small as killing a few ants got us into arguments because our ideologies naturally clashed. Adrienne was an 'idealist' and I was a 'realist'.

To make it worse, we had this discussion before. The first time the ants came, I said I was going to get rid of them by going to the nearest supermarket, buying a can of RAID, and then spraying to kill. She complained saying that there was a more natural way to get rid of the ants.

I agreed and gave her a week to figure something out. A couple of ideas were thrown around, but no attempts were made to remove the ants. It doesn't matter how well thought out plans are if there is no execution. A week later, I sprayed and the ants died.

This time around I immediately sprayed. I heard the complaint again; it's poisonous. (Of course it is, that's why the ants die!!!) I argued that the amount of toxins were too small and indirect to really affect us, but were deadly to the small ants. All we had to do was open the windows, stay away, eat out for the rest of the day, then clean up. I asked again to find a natural solution, although I believe I can safely bet my left nut that nothing will be done until the ants come again.

The arguments are from the idealist versus the realist perspective. Adrienne has called herself the idealist and me the realist. I can kinda see that. A shining example of one of the things that we have constantly butted our heads on are our career goals.

I think a job is exactly what it is, a job. When it comes down to it and you need money, you need to put your ego and sense of entitlement aside. You don't have to be paid a lot and you don't have to enjoy it (even if you have a college degree); it's a job. It's not what defines who you are unless that is all you do. Now it could certainly be the opposite; you could love your job and you could get paid a lot.

However, it's usually not the case when you immediately graduate out of college and have no real experience. When you're straight out of college, you usually get to pick one; high pay or enjoyable job. When you get enough experience, you could be lucky enough to pick two.

Adrienne's an idealist. She wants both. I ask her to apply for all the ones she's interested in, but to remember that most of the time, it's either gonna pay well OR be something you enjoy. My logic is that since she's had so much trouble getting a job, she should start applying to more than her dream jobs. When she hears this, she gets mad at me for putting her down. I'll spare the details.

I admit that I might be wrong (and I really wish I am). Currently I'm in a job that pays decently and that I enjoy enough to stay at least another year. I think I got extremely lucky though. Adrienne also has a job interview next week that (based on the job description) she'll love and that pays very well.

Whether I'm right or wrong about how to pursue a job or how to kill ants... I don't care anymore. I'm just tired of it. I hate the constant arguing, the constant bashing of ideologies, and I wish there were a quick fix spray... but that's not realistic. I'll find a way to work on it.

The disillusionment of self by the self as pointed out by another

Sometimes I like to think of myself as a patient guy. I like to think that I'm open minded and respectful of how others live. I like to think I'm not judgmental. I like to think that no matter how someone else lives, I can coexist peacefully with anyone. That was before I moved in with my girlfriend.

That's one of the many 'perks' about being in a relationship; your significant other will without a doubt bring you back to reality and remind you how close minded, disrespectful, and judgmental you are (especially if you're in an argument). Ok, maybe I'm being a little harsh; she's a lot nicer than it sounds here and to her credit, a lot of times I am all of the above. The main point though, is that being in a relationship has shown me sides of myself, both good and bad, that I never would have guessed were hiding in the deepest recesses of my personality.

One of these traits that I discovered is how much I can't stand certain actions or beliefs being superimposed into my life. I could spend the night typing out an epic list, but I'll keep it short and addressed towards my main concern - Money. Like any typical couple, we have our disagreements about our finances.

My philosophy on finances is simple; don't spend it if you don't have it. Sure I use my credit card during emergencies, but it should ONLY be reserved for emergencies. I've been raised to think that there's a certain disillusioned mentality out there that believe they can use their credit cards without needing to pay the consequences of interest and debt.

I'm on the other end of the spectrum and am exceptionally wary about using credit. To me, credit is this fake magic money that appears out of thin air. As a personal rule, anything that breaks the laws of physics and creates something out of nothing is beyond my limited understanding of this world. I try my best to stay clear of it. Credit will forever be etched in my mind as this evil plastic card that's ready to trade your financial peace of mind for something like the latest laptop, a new car, or a crazy night with lots of hookers and pounds of unadulterated cocaine. (Of course this isn't realistic, I doubt hookers and drug dealers accept major credit cards)

Ok, after reading that last paragraph, some may argue that I might be the disillusioned one. I admit that that statement is very plausible. It's true that I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of credit, but the result is that my credit card debt usually comes out to $0 at the end of every month. I adapt to my environment and I learn to be happy with what I have. Money helps, but it won't certaintly determine whether you're ultimately happy or not.

When I see someone living 'beyond their means', I have a hard time accepting it. Sure if it's a stranger, I couldn't care less how they live... but when it's someone you love, it's extremely difficult to see them digging themselves a deeper financial grave. It's even more difficult when they're so closely entangled with you that you become involved.

I guess if I were more open minded and not so judgmental, I could adapt and coexist with anyone. Well, I learned that I'm not like that; I really can't coexist with just anyone. I am adamant and unwavering about a lot of things, and finances is one of them. I'm glad that I had the opportunity to learn this about myself.

The reality is that there's a line that has to be drawn, and I'm definitely sticking to mine; I believe in living simply and within my means, even if it means picking either the hookers or the cocaine, but not both.

Tired...

I have the urge to move and do something different. Travel the world by scooter? Volunteer for Doctors Without Borders as a logistician? Move to South America and brush up on my Spanish?

I'm getting tired of trying to make a difference by just sitting in front of a computer compiling reports. Maybe it's just a phase. Maybe...

Pictures!!!!

I've been slacking on my writing... but hey, a picture is worth a thousand words and I've got plenty of pictures to make plenty of stories. I'll skip my normal dragged out style of writing and just make comments every few pictures:

Haircut Donation Pictures (Before and After)

William Before Hair Cut (I was going for the Homeless Guy Look - Success!)

William After Hair Cut

Surfing

Although there was a recent death of a tri-athlete who got bit (and promptly died) by a great white shark in San Diego, everyone's still hitting the beaches. I got a chance to use my new (to me) surfboard and wetsuit. Hey, I know that some might consider it gross to buy a used wetsuit, but think about it this way: "It automatically gets washed everytime anyone uses it!"

Surfing uses a lot of muscles that I normally don't use so I'm trying to build up my 'spring up' ability by doing some pushups everyday. I normally do about 3 sets of 25 pushups. Despite the training, I have yet to stand on the board for more than a second. Thankfully Adrienne didn't get any pictures of me going under or getting smacked by my board after a nasty and unexpected second wave.

Rock Climbing

This is one of the older set of pictures lying around. Adrienne and I haven't gone rock climbing in a couple months and I'm really looking forward to the next time. I'm actually terrified of heights, but love scaling walls. (Climbing down is another issue) There's a great feeling when making a great dyno or figuring out a difficult problem. Here's Adrienne doing the beginning traverse and me playing around the padded bouldering section at Vertical Hold.

Memorial Day Weekend

For Memorial Day weekend Adrienne and I decided to visit my parents up North in my hometown of Reedley. It's easily a 300+ mile drive one way from San Diego to Reedley. To break up the monotony, we visited a few friends along the way. We visited some of my college friends and even one of the our Peace Corps Trainers from the Kingdom of Tonga, who just happened to be in Long Beach!

It's always great to see my family too! :)

Scooter

Gas prices are up, world food prices have increased dramatically ever since we started doing all this research for alternative fuel, and our environmental issues now include this giant plastic clusterfuck that's somewhere in the Pacific. Sure there's growing demand in India and China that's causing food shortages, but we're also to blame for creating this demand. Why?

Ignorance; we just don't think about the global welfare (just in case people didn't get the clue when we invaded another country for their oil under the false pretense of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Terrorism). Anyways I disgress. We don't think anything past the number at the gas pump. We don't think about the food riots happening across the world when families cannot afford the doubled price of $.57 for the pasta that's necessary to feed their families. Our gas guzzlers are creating this shortage of grain and people are buying gas because they simply can. I wish people would try to find an alternative means of transportation, EVEN IF THEY CAN AFFORD THE INCREASED GAS PRICES! Try public transportation, try carpooling, try... scooters?

Today I bought a Buddy 125cc scooter. It gets 90+ miles per gallon and it's orange. What's there not to like?

125 cc Genuine Scooter Buddy

Yum, beer!

When Adrienne and I backpacked through Europe, we tried as many different, local beers as possible. There's no point in traveling without experiencing the rich culture that each country has to offer (and by culture I mean especially their beer).

Now there's so many beers out there and so little time to try and rate each one according to categories from best stout, pilsner, etc. I wanted to keep my rating system simple. I rated them all on a 1 to 10 scale based on one factor "After I have this beer, would I want another?". This is a quick breakdown of the scale and my findings based on my limited time traveling:

1: Do not ever drink this again...
1.5: Drink Listerine for the alcohol% instead
2-3:Coronas, Budweisers, etc. (American Beer)
4-5: French Beer
7: German Beer
7: Guinness
8-10: Belgian Beer

Now Belgian beer won hands down. The sad part is... I wrote all the beer names in my little black book and I somehow misplaced this precious information! I forgot exactly what great beer it was that I had in Bruges, Belgium!!!

That's why when we went to a Belgian Beer Tasting this weekend, I was hoping that I could be reacquainted with the mysterious beer whose name has escaped me. Sadly, we did not find it, but still had a great time. Thanks to Adrienne for suggesting this! I <3 her so much :)

Offices Wars!

So I inadvertently started an office prank war. It all started with April Fool's Day when two of my coworkers stepped away from the office.

I took a PrintScreen (PrtSc button) of their desktops. I opened up Microsoft Paint, pasted the picture, saved it, and set it as their desktop picture. I then hid all their desktop icons into a temporary folder. This way, they see a picture of their desktop, but the icons aren't actually clickable.

When they came back and started clicking on the desktop icons, they noticed that something was wrong. Another coworker and I played ignorance, but I'm so bad at lying. I ended up laughing and they finally caught on.

They fought back. They retaliated with blue tape. Let me explain; I share an office with one of the coworkers that I played the first prank on (technically, she's my immediate boss). As a joke, she used blue tape to separate the room between 'my office' and 'her office'. I slowly moved the tape inch by inch and 'my office' slowly grew larger.

It got to the point where our Executive Director, who was more than happy to abide by our 'office rules', finally pointed out that my office was much larger than my boss'. I confessed to moving the tape little by little.

I came to work on Monday and the tape on my side barely covered my desk. I didn't even have room for my chair. In fact, my chair was gone too. My boss hid my chair and in its place, there was a piece of blue tape with black text that said "STAND HERE". I laughed a hearty laugh while my mind raced with revenge schemes!

The pranks have gone on from taping the light to always on, a pretend Earthquake, taping a laser mouse so it won't move, and a lot of emails with fake complaints using an automatic complaint generator using http://www.pakin.org/complaint

On the latest prank I called in to the newest hire and told her I was sick. It also happened to be the day that we pulled in all our agency administrators so I could train them. I said she had to cover for me. She's really nervous about public speaking so she panicked. I walked in a couple minutes later. She was not happy.

The new and old Executive Director is on their side as well; they've been changing my seat height and unplugging my computer. I need to watch my back... and make allies fast... because this is WAR!!!

P.S. I have a secret weapon: They all drink coffee and I drink tea... someday, if push comes to shove, the coffee maker will be held ransom!!!!

Motorcycle Class

What do you call a doctor that passes medical school with all D's? We still call them a doctor.

That's how I feel about me and my motorcycle class. After I completed the course, the Department of Motor Vehicles says that I know the basics of how to operate a two wheel vehicle with a 50cc or larger engine. Even though I passed their test, I really don't know why they let me; I AM NOT SAFE ON THE ROAD! I'm not even remotely close!

Throughout the riding portion of the class, I kept stalling my Kawasaki. I never learned how to drive manual on a car and let me tell you, riding a motorcycle is much tougher. Not only is there this 'clutch' and 'shifting' required, but you also have to worry about balancing a 350 pound bike.
I had no previous concept of balancing the clutch, throttle, or how to manually shift. Throughout the first day of riding, I was easily the worst guy to be around. I kept stalling whenever we stopped and my engine could always be heard roaring above the other motorcycles since I hated switching to higher gears. My foot kept missing the shift and in order to reach a higher gear, you have to tediously switch through neutral to get to second. Everyone was very patient and by the end of the day, I was doing all right.

We learned and practiced everything from the basics of starting up a motorcycle to advanced topics like how to brake while cornering. The one that had me a bit nervous was when we rode over large pieces of wood on our bikes.

By the end of the course, I had seen my first motorcycle 'accident'. It wasn't what I expected at all. I expected someone to take a spill on a sharp corner where the motorcycle and driver goes scraping against the asphalt across several yards and finally rolls to a dead stop. (And partly I expected that person to be me)

Well, it turned out to be quite the opposite (and thankfully not me). I was behind the unfortunate student on an exercise to practice quick motorcycle braking. The guy revved up his engine, started zooming along a straight line, shifted to second, and quickly braked hard when the instructor gave the sign.

The bike abruptly stopped similar to a car slamming hard on the brakes. The only difference is that the car has four tires to stabilize itself, whereas the bike managed to fully stop, yet the balance wasn't maintained. As if in slow motion, the bike fell slowly to the left. The rider extended his foot, but the power of the stop must have caught him off guard as he and his bike slowly hit the floor. (The student had bought motorcycle armor so he walked off fine; it was also a very slow fall)

Our final test started with a couple tight U-turns in a small box, swerving and changing paths, quick braking, and basic cornering. Again, all of us passed, but I don't know how. I easily rolled outside the box while doing the U-turns and if it were a real life situation, my abrupt stopping speed would likely land me into another car's rear window. Hmm.. maybe I'll check out scooters.

When we left the course, I saw the guy who had fallen and dropped his bike. The reason why he had motorcycle armor was because he already owned a motorcycle and that's how he got to class...

I guess it's no joke that California let's anyone get a license.