Bobby Earl Life

You’re probably wondering about not being a baby’s momma, well maybe you’re not, but I’m gonna explain it anyway. I must warn that there are probably gonna be explicitives in this entry as I get pissed when I think about what happened. On Monday morning at approximately 2:00 AM I was abruptley awoken by a LOUD bang. I jumped up and found my roomate in the hallway very disturbed looking. Turns out, some jackass had been banging on our door. Geoff heard it but I slept through that part. Unsatisfied with no response he decides to literally kick down the door. Since Geoff was somewhat awake from the banging he hops up and opens his door only to find a guy starring back at him. The guy says, “wrong apartment” and takes off.

Wrong Apartment?! WTF?!?! You just kicked our friggin’ door down at 2 in the morning and you’re dumbass isn’t even sure it’s the right damn apartment? How friggin’ stupid can you be? Geoff said the guy looked as surpised to see him and he was as suprised to see the guy. The guy took off and we weren’t able to find him so we called the cops. Our first question, why in God’s name did you just kick our door down? Looking for crack money was my first guess.

Man I am tired. Oh God, look at me now. I’ve started this blog by complaining. I can’t do that. I don’t want you to think I’ve have a bad summer. This past month has just flown by. Work has been quite the learning experience as far as becoming more familiar with a few programming languages and allowing me to tune my skills some. There were several times I started to write to tell you about all the good things that were happening and of course I can’t remember them now but I’m sure they were good.

A little pity now. I’m taking 18 hours (that’s six classes) this semester. That last 18 hours I’ll ever take unless I take graduate classes but I seriously doubt that will happen. They claim you should study/prepare 2 hours for every 1 hour you’re in class – so that’s 36 hours. Then there’s my 20+ hours for work. Top that off with my involvement in Kappa Sigma, Lacrosse and whatnot. That’s a mimimum of 74 hours a week I’m dedicated to something. I’m sure things will ease up a little as I get back into the swing of things but man these first few weeks are gonna be rough.

To end on a happy note Friday is my birthday. I will be 22. Whooptie-doo. I am going down to Charleston to relax and have a great time. I really need it seeing as how I didn’t even get a good vacation this summer. The virginia trip was fun but I needed more. Hopefully this stint will hold me off until spring break. Anyway, wish me luck.

That’s the feeling I had yesterday. It started on Friday. I worked for a few hours in the morning then took off to sign my lease papers. Soon there after I started moving. I moved from 1 until about 8, that time doesn’t even including packing. I weighed myself that morning and then around 7 PM – six pounds difference. All sweat I know but just shows how hard I actually worked. I spent the remaining time on Friday just putting up all my stuff. I live further away from Winthrop now but much closer to the “nice” part of Rock Hill. It’s where the shops, mall, and a lot of eating places are. It was harder to move than I first thought, not physically. I’ve spent the past three years and three months at the same place with basically the same people so there’s a lot of comfort there with a lot of great memories. After getting setting my stuff settled into our new place I feel a lot better though. Being organized and having everything clean gives me those warm fuzzies inside.

On Saturday I unpacked and straightened up some more. I also worked in a little time at the pool. There’s not jacuzzi (which I’m obsessed with) but it was still nice to just relax by the water. Saturday night I just hung out with some friends at the place and realized just how much stuff we stil l need to get, like a deck of cards.

My original intentions for Sunday were to be lazy by the pool all day. Instead I ended up coming into work and helping move equipment in our server room. We recently got new racks and a battery backup system so we’re moving everything around. We worked for about four hours but got so much work done. Pretty much all the work we can do right now until we get some more equipment. It looks ten times more organized and cooler in the room now.

I’ve chosen a profession. I am going to be an evil villan. I have decided that I do indeed have a nemisis. I’m sure my friends that know me are thinking, “don’t you already have about 40 of those?” Well indeed but this time it’s a professional rival, okay another professional rival because I know I already have one of those too. I don’t want you to think I have nothing but enemies, I just have a hard time with the “forgive and forget” slogan. More-so just the forget part.

I don’t want to get too specific about who this person is and why they’re my nemesis in an effort to not bore you. This person is the “master,” let’s say, of something that I am passionate for. I know I’m not the best at what I do and I doubt I’ll ever be. I do not, however, doubt that I am good at what I do. I am always learning yet I’ve learned so much already. It just amazes me when I see people in positions that my turds have more qualifications for. Especially when ultimately I as a student and taxpayer am paying for their job. This person’s roll has such a huge impact on the public’s perception of the overall institution. This person’s work is continually shitty. It’s ridiculous that I as a student have to come in and fix things which are supposed to fall under the realm of this employee which makes thousands of dollars. I just hope one day I will be able to find a job which matches the skills that I am so passionate about. I can promise that I will always do a better job than this person either.

Well, not Scott but Bobby. Scott might be on fire to but I don’t know Scott so I don’t want to speak for him. I’m amazed I can type this right now without my ginormous head falling over. I went and saw the Orientation skits last night. That was good. I almost backed out from going at the last minute. I knew that if I went I was going to miss it a little, lo and behold, I did. Luckily it turned into more of an ego booster for me than anything, which explains why my head was so big.

I was introduced to someone who’s response was, “the infamous Bobby Earl?” Talk about a rush. I also found out a freshman of mine was an OA which is cool. I then went on to converse with the assistant dean to some other folks. In normal my-mother fashion she was so boastful of me. I did not complain as you might imagine. I just soaked all the compliments in. It was awesome.

Work has been going great to. I do miss being in student affairs, a lot, but being able to complete some of these projects is so rewarding to me. I need to find a job where I can be around people and still have my fun computer time. That would be nice. I’m still trying to find somewhere to live. Geoff and I have both been pretty busy so it’s hard to find time to go and look for places. He did get a job at Fort Mill middle so we might be moving closer to Fort Mill than originally expected. I don’t mind… gets me a little further from Rock Hill.

I can only hope the rest of my summer will be as good as the past couple of days. If that be the case there’s no doubt it’ll be a great one. Only a few more goals I want to start working on for the summer. I ain’t no holla back girl. Search that google!

“Work Work Work Work, Hello Boys, miss me?” Five dollars to anyone who can name that movie. Anyway, I’ve devoted so much of my time to my work lately. It’s not bad because I thoroughly enjoy what I’m doing. I’m currently preparing a template for our new student email message server which will blend into the university’s overall theme for websites. I’m gaining even more valuable experience through it all. I have no question that my hard work will pay off.

It’s become my belief that college students end up doing one or a combination of three things during the summer.

1. Take classes
2. Be incredibly lazy
3. Work insane amounts usually due to the fact that you’re the low man on the totem pole

As said I have been doing lots of work, the low man fortunately isn’t applicable to me. Sitting down writing this entry have I remembered all the work I’ve done so far. Started off by creating a website displaying time and date, current weather conditions based on an xml feed from weather.com, and a snapshot of a campus webcam. I then began tweaking our shared network drives to be accessible from off-campus. That one’s not quite finished. Turns out setting up new accounts wasn’t so much of a problem but changing our 8,000 some accounts is difficult. I created a few FireFox “Search Engines” to search the Winthrop web, faculty/staff, and students.

I shall tell you. Tillman. In the basement for hours and hours. I have no one to blame. The assignments I’ve been working on, I’ve known for sometime they were due but I procrastinated. Shocking. The only reason I’ve kept my little bit of sanity is that they are computer science related assignments, two of which were even webpages. A little about the projects:

The first being my software engineering II semester long project. On my behalf, this is the second working version which I’ve done. My first was done in an older language which was slapped together. I then decided that I wanted to write a new version. So, on Saturday night I started. I really didn’t dig down deep until Sunday. I was in here (I say here because I’m writing this in Tillman) for almost 14 hours with only 20 and 30 minute lunch and supper breaks respectively. I then worked for a few more hours on Monday morning and had my completed version by afternoon, just in enough time to get dressed for our presentation of the site. During our final run through a mere thirty minutes before class the main function of the site stops working. I manage to miraculously slap together some crappy code that worked. Just goes to show why you don’t develop a semester long project in one night.

I want to write about my desk. It’s so friggity diggity awesome. A little used but definitely an improve with my last desk. It is still a nice desk because Tony’s taking it which is an improvement from his current desk. Look at that nice picture of my new desk. I just don’t think I can write an entire entry about my new desk. It would be boring and no one would like it. So…

I’ll write about other stuff too. Right now, this very second, I’m exhausted. It was the final week for our pledges which means every single night is a late one. Then on Friday I pretty much got wasted. Ole Waffles had a good time too which I haven’t seen in a while since he’s a big bad teacher now. That was a nice change. I think all of my roomates had a good time that night. Then Saturday night was Buffett Bash which I had fun at. It was evident that everyone was as tired as I was. It felt really good to see people this weekend that I haven’t gotten the chance to see or hang out with in a long time because I’ve been so busy. Then today I went and saw a couple of my brother’s baseball games which merited about 2 hours of driving there, then to HG (to get my new BIG desk), then back to the thrill.

Girls want guys with great skills. Like bo hunting skills, computer hacking skills. So I got a job at Carowinds. Excuse me, Paramount’s Carowinds. I’m sure some would consider that stooping to a new low, and dependant upon the job as would I. However, I’m working the Information Services (“IT”) department. It’s really not a bad job. I get good hours which is gonna be a little tough right now but during the summer the hours will be great. The only deterant from the job was the fact that you have to be clean shaven. I just don’t like that. I look like a “husky” sixteen year old going through puberty without any facial hair.

I got advised on Wednesday. I officially have EIGHTEEN hours left until I graduate. I wish I wasn’t such a broke college student that I could afford to take a summer class in order to relieve my Fall semester, but oh well. I’m taking eighteen hours now and am doing well so I should be fine. My proposed 2005 schedule is still changing at this point. Not sure whether I’m going to take the intro to Geology class or Oceanography. I can tell you which one I’d like to take, neither.

For some reason that reminds me of a joke… There once was a man from Nantucket. Just kidding about that one. It does remind me of the joke when you’re riding by a cemetary and say “People are just dying to get into a place like that,” or “Do you know how many dead people are in that place? All of them!” Good stuff. Larry Earl originals I believe.

This past weekend I went to Myrtle Beach with my family. My dad was at a SCAPPA conference. They gave me a scholarship my freshman year so I feel a little partial to them. I really had nothing to do with the conference. Instead I enjoyed a few days of baseball with Dillon, the pool, and the best: THE JACUZZI (or hot tube).

I will own a hot tub before I die. I will drive, hell walk every where. Whatever it takes but I will own one! Despite a little wind, the weather was nearly perfect. I even got to work on my pasty white legs. Now they’re move of a dirty t-shirt white as opposed to an Elmer’s glue white. Ashley also let me borrow her camera so I took some photos of my trip. Including the one above which is my favorite. It looks like a postcard.

I only *cheated* on my diet once this weekend when I had some white bread. Oh well, I felt a reward was in order. I was on vacation after all. So far, I’ve lost 9 pounds. I’m still 20 pounds from my end of semester goal. This week is going to be a little hectic. I have three tests, am trying to get the Orientation Registration system live, and trying to find something cheap and fun to do for Spring Break.

Before I left for the beach I cleaned and organized my entire room and car. It was like I couldn’t stop straightening up. Kind of weird. But now at least everything is in it’s place. It’s so much more comforting coming home to a clean room. I’m sure by the end of this week everything will be messy again though.