Scotty

First off, a happy birthday to Kevin. He arrived at my door today, accompanied by Jason. They just stopped by to say hello. It was nice to see some faces I hadn't seen in a while. Especially here in Montgomery where familiarity is rare.

I did meet a Scottish man tonight, helped him move a few things in his apartment, which is across the parking lot. Tomorrow at work, a lot of clients will be in for a workshop. This will be a good opportunity for me to learn some things, meet some clients, and eat at the Cheesecake Factory tomorrow night. So I look forward to it.

In other news, I got a wireless router for my apartment since no one around me has wireless for me to steal. Well actually...no one lives around me... Anyway, I encrypted it so that people can't freeload off of me like I was accustomed to doing in Fox Meadows.

And finally, I've discovered that Lecrae has some skills that few can match. He's a rapper that gives all his glory to God. So yeah, he's a Christian rapper. If you think that's whack, give this guy a listen. Hard beats, smart rhymes while spittin the Truth through his lyrics the whole time. I'm kind of upset that I missed this guy when he came to College Station this past semester. I heard he was coming, but at the time had no idea who he was. Here's a portion of his testimony, hip hop style: Take Me As I Am. His crew, Clique 116 (for Romans 1:16) has several other members also commited to spreading the gospel through hip hop. Anyway, check em out. Reach Records.

That's it, I'm out. Keep on rockin and make sure you got clean underwear...

Liquor and Lillies

I'm easing in. It hasn't been too bad. 3 days of work the first week and now, this week will have only 4 thanks to Memorial Day. I had fun yesterday. It was good returning to the farm finally. It's been forever!

In other news, I found yet another notable store in Willis. It's a Liquor store that also sells flowers. I imagine they're trying to give men an excuse to stop there on the way home.

Wife: You didn't stop by the liquor store did you?
Man: No way honey! I stopped by the *hic* florist. I got you a 12 pack...err dozen roses!

Why is it in cartoons, hiccups are a dead giveaway that someone's been drinking. I think that's a much simpler sobriety test.

Anyway, not much else going on. I went to Wells Fargo and Philly Connection during my lunch break today. I'm branching out, trying new food places and learning the city some...well the Northwest side anyway. Tonight I'll be cooking some Sausage and Egg taquitos on my new electric griddle. Thanks Penny!

I got mail today! For the first time since living here, my mail box wasn't empty. And just when I thought I'd been giving out the wrong address. It wasn't much, just one piece of mail. But it was a check from IHS. Which marks not only my first piece of mail here in Montgomery, but also my first paycheck from a big person job. What a day! And now to celebrate, how about those taquitos?

My First Day and Other Lessons From Conroe

Well that was it. My first day is over. It wasn't bad. I don't feel like I accomplished all that much and I have no idea what tomorrow has in store for me (other than lunch with a client). I do know that over the next couple of months, I'll be traveling quite a bit around Texas.

Other than work, I've been doing some other learning. I've learned that people in Conroe are terrible drivers. On my first 4 days here, I daily saw at least one person blatently run a red light (it happened twice yesterday). That doesn't mean it turned red as they were driving under it. It means that it was red long before they got to the white line that you're supposed to stop at and sped through anyway. We don't do that where I come from! Welcome to Houston traffic, I'm very glad I live in Montgomery away from that. All I have to deal with is the speedsters.

Secondly, I learned that the people here sure love having shops that combine random products and services. For instance, on my way to work, I pass by a "Psychic." They have signs offering palm reading, tarot cards, all that nonsense. Surrounding this small building are numerous boats. And a sign sits below the sign reading "Psychic" that says "We Buy Boats!" That's got to be a good sign for the used boating industry. If a psycic is getting into the business, good things are sure to be coming... Right... Also, in Willis yesterday I passed a small shop that had two products. Liquor and Doughnuts. That's all. I can't imagine any reason that someone would decide to open Frank's (I don't remember the name) Liquor and Donuts. Well, maybe they want to provide for the morning commute and the after-work commute... Or maybe, heck, people like holes in their pastries? How about some holes in your liver as well?

The End Of Summer As We Know It

Well, today is my last day of summer. Ever. I guess tomorrow I will be thrown into adulthood. It's been a fun 22 years. Now I'm going to try something else. I'm a little nervous about the job, starting a real, meanigful careeer. I think I like all the people I'm going to be working with and the job. It's just different once you're actually in there everyday. I hope I'm a right fit mainly. It's exactly 15 minutes from here to work. I made the drive this morning at 7:30 to test it out. Then I came home and had a nap. Something everyone should do on the last day of summer. Those naps are going to become nearly extinct.

I'm mainly excited because my Penny is coming up to see me this evening! Apparently she misses me enough to drive the 45 minutes after work. I've missed her too. Well, it's time to do something... I haven't quite decided what yet. But here's what you can do. Read this comic.












The story of my life...

All Moved In

After a few days of moving in, I'm just about settled. I now have internet in my apartment, so I'm not completely disconnected from the world. So far I'm enjoying the town, quaint little place. Too small for me to know anyone yet. A little different than College Station where anywhere I'd go, I would see someone I knew. Plus there I had friends and roommates to do things with. As of now, the person I know the best here is the dude that came out to fix my internet. My roommates did come out here for dinner last night. It was good stuff, I'm glad they came out so we could explore downtown Montgomery together. Well, just wanted to update y'all and let you know that Montgomery is a short 45 minute drive from College Station. That's perfectly doable for those of you that want to come see me. Anna wants to see you too. And now I'll leave you with a historic fact. The birthplace of the Texas flag is Montgomery, Texas. How bout that.

Last Day In College Station

So, it's my last full day in CS. I move tomorrow morning. So now, I sit in my empty room. I need to shower and get on with my day. I've just been packing all morning, but I need to get clean and go eat with Penny now. 4 years is not long enough to have been a resident of College Station, I'm leaving far before my time. But I'll be back, I'll miss College Station and it will definately miss me. Until then, I'll get acquainted with Montgomery. And now, on with my day.

More Packing

So, my old laptop? What am I to do with it? That was a question that came up today. It's sat in the closet for the past several months. Discarded, as it should be with its crashed hard drive and bad RAM. I decided to try and turn it on yesterday, what the heck. The nerds said that it would cost thousands of dollars to salvage the hard drive. Why believe them, right? I can do it for free by just sitting it in the closet and a couple of months later push the power button. No such luck... I returned it to its resting place in the closet. When I came across it today, however, it was time to take action. Most everything in my closet had been boxed up, ready to be shipped out to Montgomery tomorrow. I picked it up again, took it down the hall trying to decide what to do with it. I decided to sit it on the ground, plug it in and try once more. Amazingly, Windows booted up. And there it was! My desktop! I hadn't seen it in so long. Despite it's unstable nature, all the errors and text boxes that kept popping up reminding me that the drive was corrupt, I was amazed that it worked. All the stuff that I was upset about losing was at my fingertips, now if only it'll stay up long enough to allow me to burn it to CD. 8 CDs later, I rescued everything that I had been missing. Most notably, the last CD contained the hundreds of away messages I had created in college. As you may have seen, I've been displaying random selections from the Chris' Comments series. I was so excited. What good fortune! And it provided a nice break from packing all day. That is not a fun thing to do.

I had a short conversation with my across the parking lot neighbor (hippie) on my way to the dumpster. He admitted he liked moving. I don't know if it's something he naturally likes or if he grew to like it. He'd previously told me that he moved 17 times in his life so far. He's not even to his 20's yet. That's a heck of a lot of moving. After our short conversation, he returned to packing himself up for his short move to Bryan. I returned to my boxes, I've had enough of moving already. Nonetheless, I plan on taking another trip to Montgomery tomorrow if anyone cares to join me. It will probably be in the afternoon, 2PM or so. I have some more stuff that needs to get up there to make life easier on Friday.

Well, it's nearing 2AM now. I'm getting old, I'm supposed to be getting on a regular sleep schedule, I guess that didn't happen tonight. Oh well, there's always tomorrow...as long as it's squared away by Wednesday morning, I imagine I'll be ok. I'm hoping we can all do something Friday night in CS too, one last horrah if you will... More details later. I'll see y'all later and I think it's too late to come up with a random made-up saying to insert here. So I'll pass. Good night.

What Now?

Well I'm graduated. It's been a long road. I guess all of my schooling since Pre-K has gone towards this. So how does it feel? (A question nearly everyone has asked me) Well, honestly, not all that different. When I sit and think about it. Not having to sit through another class, something that has become commonplace in the past 18 years. Having to move away to my own place, do my own thing, get a job and actually start a life. Yeah, so when I think about it, it's pretty surreal. It's insane. But just going about life, not really stopping to think about why I'm packing, why I'm signing a lease in a different city and why I've been telling friends goodbye, that's when it gets lost on me. I don't really think about it, I just do it. So to sum up: I don't feel that different yet. I guess it hasn't sunk in and I don't think it will for another week. When I'm thrown into a new life (that in a while will become commonplace as well), that's when I'll feel different. Grown up? Nah, I doubt it. But different. Uncomfortable no doubt.

With all of this graduation talk, I haven't been able to share all the stories I gain from my adventures. Here's a few

Clinton, Jason, and I were going to the park down the road a couple of weeks ago to play some wiffleball. Along the way, we picked up a kid that wanted to play with us. And then another. So we begin trying to play a friendly game. That's when all of the neighborhood kids converged on our park. They came running, they rode their bikes, discarding them in the grass and sprinting over. Some kids even came carrying others. So, within minutes we had over a dozen of kids surrounding us. This was enough to disrupt the game and make us start a couple of alternate games of catch. This also prompted a boy to yell to me (after a perfectly thrown ball no less) "Watching you throw is like watching Michael Jackson getting executed." This was followed by, "That was like watching Forrest Gump 3 times in a row," among other insults that I don't quite understand. He also guessed that I didn't have a driver's license. "I bet you have the knowledge to drive, but you ain't got a license." When he was told that I did he insisted that I "drive one of those old ugly cars." Soon after, he ended up running off with one of the wiffle balls. With a 1-2 Punch of the ice cream truck coming by and the children's mothers calling them home for dinner, we were free to go. We only lost 2 balls in the ordeal. One to Mr. Insults and the other to my new little friend (that one was given to him).

Today I was in Montgomery and it seems that Bob launched an attack on the local schools. All of the area school's marquees were changed to say "Bob Was Here." Interesting little town I'll be moving to. I went to the Wal-Mart about half a mile from my new apartment today and everyone there was pretty friendly. And old. I guess that's to be expected though. I'm not living in a college town anymore.

And lastly, CIS finally got the new van in today. The one I'd been waiting for since January. We'd always joked that they'd get it in the day after I graduated. And lo and behold... Ah well, a little irony never killed anyone.

Alright people, I'll be moving Saturday, so if you want to help out, it'll be a blast. And also, my roommates abandoned me for the week (the last week I'll be here), so if you want to visit me, I've got an empty apartment (don't mind Kitten and Anna) and tons of cake. Seriously, come get a belly full. Until then, get some rest, you got a whole summer in front of you.

Closing Time

15 Minutes till I go home from CIS for the last time. It's actually kind of sad. I'm going to miss all of my co-workers and the friends I've made. I'm going to miss Robin who will no question be the best boss I'll ever have. No more pimpin the university van, which of course makes driving on sidewalks and parking anywhere I please off limits as well. I just finished a small booklet outlining job responsibilities and such for the future generation of student workers, including Ryan who I started training yesterday... It's coming to an end. Work today. Tomorrow graduation. Next week I'll be in Montgomery. Everything that's comfortable and familiar is slowly dissappearing. The next chapter will soon begin. But for now, I'm going to go tell a couple more people bye and collect a few more hugs...

The Ultimate On Campus Bathroom Guide!

When compiling this, I based the ratings on several things: comfort, privacy, reading material, and type of soap. So I bring you my top 7 favorite campus bathrooms in no particular order.

Bio/Bio 1st Floor: This bathroom is relatively private during class time, but between classes you get a variety of people. This was one of my favorite West Campus bathrooms and my most often used. The janitors keep it clean for you and every semester, they put up fun, new, colorful signs reminding you to keep it clean (something other bathrooms lack). For me it's a cozy little place and it makes me feel at home. In addition, someone has usually left a Batt folded on the floor. And additional clean reading material is provided on the wall of the stall, the far stall (roomy handicap stall) has a math equation scratched into the wall... And yes, I have solved it. And then I checked my answer.

Wehner Cox Wing 1st Floor: This bathroom is in the new wing of Wehner, just down from the trading center so you know it's nice. This bathroom is probably the cleanest of all of these listed. There's very little foot traffic through that bathroom during class, so it provides privacy. This bathroom also ranks the highest on reading material because it features on each stall and urinal behind a plastic cover "The Stall Street Journal." This provides short stories, jokes, school tips and inspiration. It's updated often, every week or 2 weeks. And of course, everything in the bathroom is automatic as is the business student standard. Pure Lavatory Luxery.

Sky Walk 2nd Floor MSC/Rudder: Adjacent to one of my top study places. This bathroom looks old, doesn't really have anything special to it. No reading material, no grafitti, no padded seats. But it also has no people. This is one of the most private, comfortable places you can be on campus. Perfect place for a study break...

Academic Building 2nd Floor: This one is Clinton's place. He promises that in the afternoons on the second floor you can enjoy the utmost privacy. These bathrooms also feature windows, so he recommends going in there, sitting back with an open stall and an open window and just relaxing.

Political Science Library: This bathroom is over at the Bush School. I've only been in it once, but it was nice. The bathroom looks nice and is pretty clean. It's a relatively private bathroom in a pretty fancy building.

8th Floor TTI: This is the building in which Pie Are Square is located. This bathroom, since it is on the 8th floor isn't too highly traveled. It's a newer looking bathroom that is pretty clean looking. The biggest strength this bathroom has though is the fact that you'll probably break your "Highest place I ever used the bathroom" record.

Sbisa Bathroom: These toilets see a lot of business no doubt, but surprisingly they stay clean. It's pretty impressive how clean they normally stay. If you don't mind a lack of privacy and having to use an outbound to get in, this bathroom will accomadate you and maybe you can strike up a conversation with the guy in the stall next to you. I've heard several reports of conversations in the Sbisa Bathrooms.

Left to explore: Although we wanted to do it, we have not yet explored the new Engineering building on northside. It's a rather large building and looks like it would have good facilities. Also, the new Rural Health Building is a fancy looking building that I'd be interested in seeing the bathroom of.

That being said, I present you with...
Bathrooms to Avoid:

SCC Bathroom: It has been said that these bathrooms are the stinkiest around. Not to mention they probably get the most foot traffic of anywhere, skip out on these.

Teague 1st Floor: The bathroom on my side of the building is quite unimpressive. First, it's a pretty busy bathroom for one that only accomadates two people at a time. One huge drawback is the lack of hot water at the sink. And also, then men's urinal has the tendancy to overflow, so there's normally a puddle of water on the floor.

Halbouty Bottom Floor: These small, stuffy bathrooms offer exactly what you'd expect in an old building. Plus they're most always cold.

Cain First Floor - A Wing: This bathroom is heavily traveled and just isn't all that clean. The sinks are the huge downfall here. In the men's side, only one of the three sinks actually works and that one promises to splash all over your pants. One more thing that bothers me is the handicap door opens up and gives the hall a full view of the restroom.

Entomology Building: This bathroom is about the size of the one that was in your 1st grade classroom. Not only is it small and stinky, trash finds its way all over the floor and results in a pretty nasty environment.

Commons Bathroom: I haven't been to this bathroom in a couple of semesters, but it hasn't changed I'm sure. This bathroom is incredibly busy and stays dirty. There is however, always some good graffiti on the wall thanks to the Corps boys.

Weird Concept

I remember freshman year reading away messages of those that were graduating. Now, here I am with an away message proclaiming that I am done with school forever. What a weird concept. It's something back then that I didn't even think of, but now it's a reality. I took my last final today, I don't know when the next time I return to Wehner will be. Over the past 4 years I've spent most of my class time sitting in Wehner and now I have no reason to be there. Weird. So the future is here, yes. It's in my face, on my away message, and now on my calendar. I'll be moving to Montgomery on the 20th, the 24th is the first day of my new job (and the rest of my life) in Conroe. All I have left to do here is graduate and then there's really nothing else for me. So I'll head wast. Well...about 50 miles east.

Cats and Classes

Alright Kidaroos, I don't know how much time I have left here. I graduate in 8 days, beyond that it's a question mark. I'll be going to Conroe tomorrow to discuss things with the company. But it seems now that I won't be alone in going to Conroe.

This little kitten has been living in the parking lot, down by the dumpster. When we met her, some girls that had been feeding her pizza crusts were out there with her. I ended up taking her into my house and putting up flyers for her. I doubt anyone will come forward and claim her, so I imagine she's my new kitten. Tentively called Little Cat, she doesn't have a real name yet. She's a sweet little thing though...as long as she's not sharpening her claws on my Mays Business School portfolio or waking me up at 5AM...

Anyway, onto my college tips. Let's begin with classes. Need 3 hours of electives? Not sure about your professor? Here's a handy guide to my favorite professors and easiest classes around. And if this doesn't help, umm...ask MB for my Pickaprof password which she is keeping alive for the next several years! Thanks MB!

With my only A's freshman year coming from MATH 141, 142 and Geology, I'll share a couple of hints. First, if Jen Whitfield is still around, she's no doubt the best Math professor to take. If Ruvane Marvitt is still around, he's no doubt the craziest one around. I'd strongly urge you to avoid him, the only way I even knew what was going on in class was from teaching myself from the book, not fun, but effective. Second, if you take Geology, just know that the lab is going to be the most boring hours of your life...

If you're going to take accounting, seek out Charley Clark. He teaches night classes because he's a CPA during the day. He's a great guy and the best ACCT prof I ever had.

The best class I ever had was the History of Rock Music. It was MUSC 200 that semester, which happened to be the first semester it was ever offered. I had H. Berger (the H did not stand for Ham unfortunately) and it counted as a Performing/Visual Arts credit. My final grade was something like a 98, it was interesting, and it's actually knowledge that I apply (in Trivial Pursuit mostly...). So if you need an arts credit, check into that, but make sure it's still acceptable as an arts credit, otherwise it's a great elective.

ECON is a tough subject for me, but for 203 I had Nelson (not Neilson) and he was one of the funniest, most effective professors I've ever had. With a dry sense of humor that I appreciate and a manner comparable to Will Ferrel, he was a professor I seeked out to take more classes from. If you have to take Econ, take it from this guy.

Elective Alert! If you need an elective and you're a U1 or U2, Intro to Business (MGMT 105) is for you. It's a class all the althetes take to boost their GPA first of all. And secondly, it's taught by the number one best professor at A&M, Ben Welch. I had him for 2 classes (MGMT 363 and 105) and aced both classes with very minimal effort. But he's a great guy, he's geniuine, caring, and he'll keep you laughing. If you ever get a chance to take a class from him, do it. Especially 363, because the alternative professor is tough, but Welch only teaches that one during the summer. 105 is taught strictly by Benny, but that class fills up quickly.

MGMT 211 may very well be the toughest class you take, be aware of that. Don't take it at the same time as any other reading intensive class. Swim's a good guy though. Strict, but a good guy, no matter what Nick says.

Sociology of Sport was a tougher elective than I was looking for, I got a B, but the class was somewhat interesting and did not require too much reading (very rare in SOCI classes).

Alright, now for my favorite MKTG professors:

Dr. Busch was my favorite professor. He's kind of zany, but he cares for his students, I probably had the best relationship with him than I did any other professor here, he offered me advice about when I talked to him about pursuing grad school (he's also a grad school prof). His classes are very interactive.

DeWald is a very good guy with a sense of humor. He teaches the intro class, so even non Business majors can get this guy as a prof, and I highly recommend it.

Lampo is a nice woman, I enjoyed her Retail class and did well in it. Her classes are very project intensive, but the projects are interesting. I enjoyed her as a prof, but her 347 class brought me my only B in MKTG...

Jelena Spanjol is not a name I thought I'd put on this list at the beginning of the semester. Early on she scared me (I think this was on purpose). I seriously wanted to switch to another professor, I was worried. But towards the middle of semester, we saw that she wasn't so tough. The class was tough, but she was a fair teacher who was concerned that her students learned. We built a good relationship with her and on the last day of class, we went and met her at Fitz's.

Mona Srivastava was hard to learn to spell, but she was a fun, energetic prof. I really enjoyed her as a professor and if you need to take Buyer Behavior, take it from her.

I guess that's all I have about that. A lot of rambling I know, I'm sure not many of you will get any use out of this at all, so luckily I am working on a suppliment for you entitled: The Ultimate On Campus Bathroom Guide!

No More Class

Fountain Hopping last night was superb. Probably the best round of hopping, we even hit all the fountains. Well, except for the one at the Bush Library, but that was just to avoid being shot at by secret service...

So, I would say it's a weird feeling never having classes again. I'm never going to sit in an college classroom again and learn. Almost as odd was having the professor of my exit level MKTG class take us out to Fitz's yesterday. It was actually a good time, but I'd never hung out with a professor outside of class before.

Alright, I had 4 minutes to type, so now I'm out. Talk to y'all later and just keep the toast poppin.