The Poem that Produced a Pink Slip

I thought this guy's poem was hilarious, and I can't believe Apple fired him for it. You would think that they'd realize he was deliberately exaggerating about American customers. Then again, Apple is famous for its cultlike corporate culture.

Boulder Canyon Hike

Amber and I took off today and went on a short hike in the Superstition Mountains. We both agreed it was vital to our mental health to get out of Tempe for a while, so, after making a fabulous breakfast this morning (pancakes, eggs, strawberries & blueberries), we headed east.
I'm not sure which was more beautiful, the drive up there or actually getting there and doing the hike. What a great, scenic road that was. We drove with the windows down and the music up, arms out the windows.

When we finally got up into the mountains and started hiking we were both absolutely shocked by how quiet it was. We stood at the edge of the cliff and looked out over the canyon below us, and there was absolute silence - the kind of silence that makes your ears start to ring. It was so incredible to me that something so big could be so quiet. That huge valley was completely still, and nothing moved. It was so unbelievably relaxing. Our student lives are filled with constant stimulation and noise and distraction - it was really refreshing to go to a place where you'd swear that time itself had stopped.

We met a man at the "summit" (I say "summit" because that's where we decided to stop and sit down and look at the view - we ended up calling it quits and going back down after that) who offered to take our picture. We got into conversation with him on the way down the mountain, during which time he informed us that he had smoked pot all his life (he was 39) and that, despite several decades of hallucinogenic drug use, he had never noticed any "negative side effects." We also described to him what it is that we study at ASU and apparently my course of study, Supply Chain Management, makes no sense to him (after several decades of using pot, I can hardly imagine why). When we told him we were students at ASU he howled, "I thought we were two kids on a date that had hooked up on Match.com or something!" Yes, I'm serious. Honestly, the people you meet on random mountains...
Pot-smoking guy aside, it was a very relaxing afternoon. I've been in "take a nap" mode ever since coming back from the hike and not very productive as a result. But thankfully it's now bedtime and I get to lay my slightly sunburned body down for a good night's sleep.

Aaahh....Nostalgia!

So tonight while looking for something to do to procrastinate and avoid more studying I decided to read over my earliest entries last year right after I arrived in Tübingen. Man, what an awesome time that was. Reading the entries (and the comments) made me smile. Some of the fun memories:

-Seeing Tübingen for the first time and being totally blown over by it.

-Taking the train up to Hannover to visit Matze and his family and sitting out on the porch half the night in the warm evening air drinking wine and talking and laughing. I remember thinking then that I felt totally at home, and it was such a great feeling.

-Going to the Nordsee with Matze and his family and eating AMAZING seafood. Also, forgetting at least three million times what the German word for "tartar sauce" was and having to ask Matze and his family three million times to repeat it for me. (I know it now)

-Memories of my old running route through the farming lands and forest of Waldhausen.

I found an old post about my first run on that route on the blog, and it's just incredible, the memories reading this brings back...I can smell the fields, feel the warm air, see the castles in the distance, picture the sagging farmhouses....

Tonight I went for my first run in Germany.

I ran from the student village into the adajcent countryside, where trails run through huge fields of corn and wheat. The cornstalks were shining in the evening sunlight and the rolling hills of the Schwäbische Alb were stretching into the distance, covered with beatiful green and yellow deciduous trees just starting to show the first hints of fall.

As the sun warmed my face the path turned into the deep, cool, dark forest, where it zigzagged up and down and all over . . . I finally emerged back at the edge of the fields and retraced the route back to the dorms. The smell of farmland, mixed with manure and the sweet smell of flowers, flowed over the landscape. Fresh air. Truly fresh air.

And as I neared the end of the fields a smile broke out on my face that I just couldn't put away, edged on by the freedom in the moment and the upbeat sounds of Sugarcult.

Reading old posts like this just makes me sigh with happiness. I wish I could do it all again, just one more time...

Oh My.

It's amazing, the things you find on eBay. Check out that current bid.

I guess what's even more amazing is that someone is willing to pay that kind of money for something like this.

Facebook Infomercial Parody

Hilarious. The first couple is my favorite. "Confirm! Confirm confirm confirm!"

New Dollar Coin

The new dollar coin is in circulation. I really hope it catches on! Using coins instead of paper dollars would be so much more convenient. And if this one catches on, it would pave the way for a $2 coin, which would be awesome on so many levels.

Big, big sky

Well, with the majority of midterms behind me (except for one) the week is finally beginning to slow down a bit - although there's no shortage of stuff to do. I have a second internship interview on Thursday via phone, and of course my Econ midterm, which I will be cramming for tonight and all day tomorrow. Livin' the dream, people, just livin' the dream.

I have to say that as much as I'm getting absolutely sick of Arizona, I will miss this amazing desert sky. It's so big. And the sunsets are just incredible, night after night. I'm continually amazed by the colors in the sky and each time I see a new formation of clouds that are reflecting colors I didn't even know existed, I always find myself thinking, "I wish I could just make it stay there, forever." It's gone far too quickly.

"I was distracted by so much beauty ... I could have gazed at the fluttering mosaic all afternoon. It was captivating, and soothing, and intriguing - all the things that gentle, intimate, flowing beauty offers ... those of you who have had this experience will know what I mean, when in a crowd of people one face stands out to you almost to say look at me, or when you are reading a passage and one sentence causes you to stop and linger while all the rest of the page fades into the background but for that phrase ... A kiss from God. A love note."
-John Eldredge, The Way of the Wild Heart

Quote of the Day

"For university hipsters, there is nothing more pathetic than taking business courses. My friends and I were above that. In our classes, we studied literature and unglazed pottery. We were 'seeking, questing, growing.' It did not occur to us that the frat-pack dolts and the tri-delt tweedies hurrying to get to Econ 101 on time in their square fashion were the REAL intellectuals. We never realized that grappling with the concept of aggregate supply and demand was more challenging than writing a paper about the effects of cool jazz on the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe ... Business majors intended to - and it was a loaded phrase in those days - "make money." And they were going to do this even if it involved some activity that wasn't a bit artistic, such as running IBM. We artsy types would have been shocked if anybody had told us - and nobody had the nerve - that making money was creative. And we would have been TRULY shocked to learn that a fundemental principle of economics - that wealth is created when assets are moved from lower to higher-valued uses - is the root of ALL creativity, be it artsy, IBM-sy, or whatever."
-P.J. O'Rourke, "Eat the Rich."

Raincatcher

A short story I'm writing, piece by piece.

Scottsdale's a weird town.

Last night we all went to a wine bar in Scottsdale to celebrate Amber's birthday. It was real swanky and we got all dressed up, Scottsdale-style. Scottsdale is such a weird town. On the way there, there was a biker bar on one side of the street and a trendy RA sushi bar on the other. The wine was good and so were the appetizers.

I also got an email yesterday from another firm from the career fair that wants to interview me next Thursday. I won't name any names, but I will tell you all that it's an energy company. It's going to make things interesting with the other position because they'll probably call me by Thursday to either deny or offer me the position and now there's a whole new interview in the mix. Still, it's probably good to not have all the eggs in one basket (although I still think it's a pretty darn good basket).

Having (finally) reached a much-needed weekend, I don't have much time to enjoy it. I have a ton of crap to do, and it's important that I get totally caught up because I cannot afford to fall behind. So many projects all starting, so many tests coming up....and all I wanna do is sit in here and watch episodes of LOST all day.

Sigh.

Quote of the Day

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great moral teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."
-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

The Interview

How'd the interview go, you ask? It went something like this: