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College Graduation: 10 Year Anniversary

Posted in college life, Flickr, holiday, humor, life, personal with tags college, personal on June 13, 2007 by Paxton

June 13. On this day in 1997, I walked in the graduation ceremony at Auburn University. Hard to believe it’s been 10 years since that day. Today is Wednesday, but in 1997 it was a Friday. That’s right, I graduated on Friday the 13th, pretty cool, huh? I had received and accepted a job offer right after Spring Break 1997 so my last few months were spent trying not to fail my last few courses. I was scheduled to attend job training for seven weeks starting that August, however, several friends that were going to work at the same company changed their training to June 16th, the Monday after graduation. I thought, “what the hell…”, so on Sunday, June 15th, I boarded a plane for Dallas, TX to begin my new job (well, training). It’s been a whirlwind since then. Wow.

In honor of this day, let’s take a trip down memory lane and see a few pics of me in college and during the aforementioned training in Dallas. Sound good?

Follow me.

LOL…okay, this is my college id. Stop laughing. This photo was taken in June 1992. I used this id throughout college. You can click on the picture to see a larger version. Maybe even use it as your desktop wallpaper. Stop laughing. I only got a new id during my Senior year when I believed I would have to turn in my id when I graduated. Obviously I didn’t. Stop laughing. Even though I grew up in Alabama, I was a surfer at heart. Stop laughing.

Here I am right after the graduation ceremony. I’m posing with the sign telling the business grads where to sit. At this point, I now have a Bachelor’s of Science in Management Information Systems. I was so excited to be a college graduate. In two days I’d be flying off to Dallas to begin my career as a consultant (which would last for the next 8 years).

Here I am with my parents right after graduation. This is just outside the basketball coliseum where the graduation was held. There is no diploma in the black case I am holding. The diplomas were mailed out separately after the administration had checked that you don’t have any unpaid library fees, tuition, outstanding warrants or misdemeanors. I mean, I did, of course, but that’s a tale for another blog article.

This is my room senior year. I lived in an apartment complex called The Patio with my brother. I only lived there my senior year as my roommate the past 4 years had graduated. Tidy, isn’t it? That computer on the desk was top-of-the-line for 1996, when I got it. 133Mhz Pentium processor with 16Mb of RAM. 16!!! Oh, it also had a SCREAMING FAST 28.8Kbps modem as there was no cable internet at the time. I don’t know how I got any work done on it. Nowadays, it would be like trying to figure out your taxes on an abacus.

Well, that was fun. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. You can click on any of them to get bigger versions. Please, feel free to comment or email me to give me hell about my college id picture. Trust me, everyone does. 🙂

I may have a wrap up article on Friday. Stay tuned.

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Shut-ins: I can see the appeal

Posted in humor, living life, personal on June 11, 2007 by Paxton

Shut In Man, I promise you more content and what do I do, skip ANOTHER week? I’m such a tool. Really. It’s not like I didn’t have time the weekend before last to write a few buffer articles. I didn’t DO anything. Literally. My wife and I shut ourselves up in the house, Howard Hughes-style, and watched movies and tv shows ALL WEEKEND. I know people throw that phrase around a lot, but they still got out of the house to go eat or rent movies or go to the store. I however, am dead serious when I say the only reason I got off the couch was to get something to eat……..and pee. And it was everything I wished it could be.

Sometimes you really need to take a weekend and do nothing. Based on my blog production (or lack thereof) these past few weeks, you can see I got things going on. I’m in the middle of this big project at work so my writing time is scarce, and there are several personal things going on that are also “cloggin’ the noggin”. I needed a weekend to just shut down the gray matter for a few hours and recharge. And we did just that. Wow. This could easily become a lifestyle for me. Three days of wearing the same underwear. Three days of not showering. Three days of not leaving the La-Z-Boy. It’s almost hypnotic. I started growing into the recliner leather. We were becoming one. It was a beautiful thing. I forgot there was a world outside the den. It was like my wife, the cat and I lived in our house and nothing else existed outside. It was beautiful, yet sad, at the same time. If I had actually left the den/kitchen area to go to the garage to retrieve our bucket (never would have happened, but IF), I wouldn’t have even had to get up to go to the bathroom, which boggles the mind right there (why didn’t I think of that?).

So, for the time being I’m back……again. Yes, I said it before, then promptly left again, but again-again, I’m back. Prepare for an article on Wednesday (which I’ve been planning since earlier this year) which happens to be an anniversary for me.

Of what, you ask? Well, I answer, check back on Wednesday to see you cheeky monkey.

Till Wed, I’m OUT.

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I’m in Training. Glorious, Glorious Training.

Posted in humor, personal, work with tags personal on February 1, 2007 by Paxton

Take a look at the picture to the left. Was this picture taken in like 1978? What’s with the tri-fold Science Fair display in the back? Or the easel with the paper and permanent marker? Wow, that’s old school. That’s how the people who worked during the Crusades had on-the-job training. Hard to imagine right? I’m used to sitting in stadium seating like you are at the big game. I’m used to Powerpoint presentations that look like they were directed by Michael Bay. I’m used to a table of bagels and muffins in the back with the 30 different kinds of cream cheese (do we really need a pistachio cream cheese? Really?). Things have come a long way since the Golden Days of training. You wouldn’t know this, however, if you sat in on training with me this week. Actually, staring at that picture is more exciting than the class I’m in right now. Watching the grass grow would be more exciting.

But, Pax, you say, you are learning new skills, broadening your horizons. Nay, I say, NAY. I am dying a slow death, twitching and spasming like a fish on land. The training class is attempting to teach me about the functional implementation of PeopleSoft General Ledger…….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz……Wha?! Huh?! I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I think I dozed off telling you about it. You see what I mean?

Since the instructor is going to continue to talk, let’s take a tour around the classroom.

Here’s a picture of my instructor teaching. He manages to drone on about General Ledger concepts as if they were old friends. “Hey, I remember when Balance Sheet and I got hammered and peed in the water supply of a small town in West Virginia! Those were the days!” That just was a fictionalized example. I had to make it more exciting so you wouldn’t lose consciousness reading it. You get the idea, though. He is so dry and boring and he keeps stammering through his sentences. He peppers his lectures with uhhs, ahhs and umms. When he talks, he literally sounds like this:

mumblemumblemumbleUHHmumbleJOURNALSmumbleUMMMmumblemumbleLEDGERS
mumblemumbleAHHHmumbleSPREADSHEETS

You think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. How productive can I be listening to that? Answer: Not very.

So, here’s a picture of my shoe. I got bored watching and listening to our instructor so I just stared staring at my shoe. Pretty boring, right? This was better than the class.

Here’s a grouping of cables sitting on my desk. These cables became good friends of mine while the instructor started talking about transaction codes and how they map to journal entry lines. During that lesson, he actually used the phrase “…service my intraunit…” Look, buddy, I don’t know what you like to do with your intraunit, but keep it out of the classroom. Yikes.

Also, whenever an unexpected result happened during one of the instructors “demonstrations”, he says “that’s interesting”. Trust me, dude, it’s not. In fact, it’s anti-interesting. If what you just did and interesting were to ever come in contact, the entire universe would explode. Seriously. It’s one of Newton’s Laws. Look it up.

So, that’s what I’ve been doing this week. Thought I’d let you feel my pain. If you have any pity left in your heart, point it my way. I’m losing consciousness quick.

Technorati Tags – personal work humor

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My Name is Pax and I’ve Lost All Feeling in my Legs…

Posted in exercise, humor, personal, random, spin class, Thanksgiving with tags exercise, humor, personal, spinning on November 22, 2006 by Paxton

Well, it’s the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Everyone is prepping to wear their maternity pants tomorrow to stuff in the largest amount of food you can possibly eat in one sitting. Then, a few hours later, create leftovers and do it again. It’s a ritual, and I love it.

In preparation for the food orgy to come, I went to my first spin class last night. For those that don’t know what spin is, it’s a class at the local gym where two midgets wearing Gene Simmons’ spiked KISS boots jump up and down on your legs for an hour. No, I’m kidding that’s not what it is, but it feels like it. It’s like a bicycle sprint into Hell set to cheesy music. I’ve been running 3-4 miles every other day since February. I also do about 100 push ups every other day (on average). I thought I was in pretty good shape. It took maybe 10 minutes in the spin class to realize that I was mistaken.

Thanks to spin class, today, I’m a complete wreck. I am so sore. Everyone of my muscles is a useless slab of spent flesh. Sammy Sosa could come in here and start beating my legs with a baseball bat and I would just laugh at him. When I walk, I look like some kind of spasming, freak show. People throw coins at me when I walk by. I actually heard someone yell, “For the love of God, put it out of its misery!” when I was walking to the bathroom. Some people are so cruel.

Time to pop 6 Extra Strength Tylenols and make a visit to No Pain Town. Despite my grumbling, it was a great workout and I’ll most definitely do it again.

Happy Turkey Day everyone!

Technorati Tags – random personal exercise spin spin class Thanksgiving

My Compulsion to Collect

Posted in collecting, comic books, humor, personal, soda with tags collecting, comic books, Garbage Pail Kids, personal, soda on November 17, 2006 by Paxton

I have a weird compulsion to collect things. Nothing outlandish like naval lint, body parts or other people’s souls, but things more under the pop culture umbrella. I’ve tried to collect things since I was a little kid. I remember having a bottle/can collection in our garage when I was 8 or 9. I was made to throw it away because my parents thought it was just “taking up space”. What the hell does that mean anyway? Doesn’t the car take up space? Or the hundred pounds of crap I push under my bed when I clean up my room? That takes up space, too. Hey, what do I know, I was just the innocent child permanently scarred by my uncaring parents (I see an episode of Oprah in my future). After that I collected Garbage Pail Kids for a few years. Those were AWESOME. I collected them in 5th and 6th grade. I think I still have them at my dad’s, but they may have been thrown out because…that’s right…taking up space.

In seventh grade I started my first big collection; comic books. From seventh grade through twelfth grade my friend Steve and I collected comics hardcore. We frequented this comic shop in Hoover called Curious George Comics and Arcana. It was run by this guy who I think is crazy, but I KNOW is a dirty hippie. I have no idea if his name was in fact, George, but Steve and I called him Curious George anyway. Years after his store closed I saw him at the mall. He was working as a telemarketer (surprise, surprise) and he was wearing a suit and tie carrying a briefcase….and he worked as a telemarketer. That’s what I’m talking about. I still called him Curious George when I talked to him. What a wacko (him, not me). But I digress (I do that a lot), I still have my comic collection in my garage. I thumb through it every once in a while. Looking through my hundreds of comics takes me back to a simpler time, a time before I was married, with a mortgage, and a job, no cat and no car. Damn, it certainly WAS a simpler time, I didn’t have anything.

Comic collecting faded for the most part when I went to college. Partly because I didn’t have the time nor the room to do it (nor the money). The only thing I could say I collected in college was books. I frequented a used book store and bought a ton of used books very cheaply to read. That’s the closest I came to a collection until my last year at Auburn; 1997. That is the year I started collecting Star Wars. That particular collection would consume me from 1997 until the end of 2004. I realize this may label me as a dork, but I’m sure I was labeled that before some of you knew this (haha). Many of you had seen my Star Wars Room back when I lived in Birmingham. It was a spectacular site, but it is no more. I stopped actively collecting Star Wars stuff when I moved to Jacksonville in Feb 2005.

So, what am I collecting now? Odds and ends. Kool aid packets and soda cans (stop laughing, that was serious). I enjoy finding oddball sodas you can’t find in a lot of places. I have old cans of Pepsi Free, Crystal Pepsi, Mountain Dew Pitch Black and New Coke. I have a can of Russian Pepsi Ice Cream and Taiwanese can of Pepsi Gold. Crazy ass things like that. It’s something to do. I’m weird, what can I say? I’m glad Steph married me when she did, I have her completely fooled (well, probably not). I’m also glad she puts up with it.