Monthly Archives: July 2012

Jul27

What motivates me?

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Finding motivation can be difficult.  Some days you wake up, and your internal reactor just can’t get going.

Some people lay this off to “having an off day”, and leave it at that.  But I find that, if I accept my off-ness, then I stay in that funk for a day or two and get nothing valuable done.  I waste my time.  And I hate wasting my time.  So what do I do to get myself moving?  How do I get my “mental engine” firing on all cylinders again?

The answer is simple: I look for inspiration.

There are a few Youtube videos that I keep bookmarked; videos by amazing people who accomplish amazing things.  They remind me of what I COULD be doing, and what I can accomplish if I put my mind to it.  These people are peerless in their fields… but they’re still people.  Thus, no different from me… except for their drive to succeed.

I’ve added two of them below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj6ho1-G6tw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVRDb1CBh58

Jul26

The T Reunion – Saturday and Sunday

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Saturday, 07JUL12, through Sunday 08JUL12.

There’s no rush. Saturday’s should never be rushed – instead they should be laid back affairs, taking in a leisurely breakfast before heading out to do something interesting.

This Saturday was exactly that. T and I spent the morning working on a presentation we were planning on giving the next weekend, then headed over to the neighborhood Chinese restaurant for a bit of lunch. We chilled, got stuff done, and generally felt as if we were bosses on vacation. Which we were.

After a few more hours of presentation work, we took in a quick snack and headed towards Boston for a bit of a pub crawl. Our first stop was the lovely Penguin Pizza in Brigham Circle, where we met up with our compatriots Chirag, John, and Filipe – I’d been hanging out with Chirag for a while, but Filipe and John hadn’t been around since I’d gotten back from New Zealand, so getting a chance to chill with them was rather nice. We drank and relaxed, told stories congratulated each other on our random accomplishments in the past few months.

Our next stop was the Squealing Pig, where we lost Filipe and John but picked up Mike, and listened to a bit of Mike Barrett’s singing. If you’ve never been to the squealing pig on the first Saturday of the month, Barrett is an amazingly dirty folk singer – I really don’t know how to describe his songs, aside from giving a few titles such as “Bristol’s Baby Daddy” and “The winky-wanky bird”. They’re awesome… but definitely aimed at the slightly-intoxicated college crowd.

From the Pig we moved on to Boylston St (where Mike ordered another five Quesadillas), but soon enough we were all pretty bored of the “club scene” that we’d run into. Seriously… I’ve seen a lot of popped collars in my time, but this was just too high a density for me to survive. We had to leave.

And so, we picked up Chirag’s hookah and headed back to Mike’s place to relax and banter. Now, before people get the wrong idea, Hookah’s are used to smoke tobacco, not any illegal drugs you may be envisioning. So Chirag set it all up, and we pretended that we were old-school Arabian princes, discussing philosophy and how exactly to rule the Persian empire most efficiently. I think at one point we even had turbans on, though they were less “silken robes of a prince” and more “bath towel from K-Mart”.

It was amazing, relaxing, and exactly the kind of de-stressing that I’d needed. I think we finally hung up the hookah around 3:30 in the morning, and T and I didn’t make it back to Medway until a bit after the sun had risen over the horizon.

And so, we slept in. Late. Or… sort of late – we were mobile by a bit after the clock struck noon, and finally out of the house in search of breakfast not much later. Unfortunately for us, towns like Medway don’t really cater to the “lazy college student” crowd, and so we had to drive around a bit before we could find a real breakfast joint that was still serving the pancakes that I required. But once we did it was just like old times back in Boston – shoveling food into our faces while laughing and remembering the insanity of the previous night.

T headed out shortly after we finished breaking our fast, citing his need to keep up on the job search before the next week rolled around. I was in the same boat, and so we gave each other a righteous bro-fist and went our separate ways… at least until the next time.

Jul25

The T Reunion – Friday

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Friday, 06JUL12

 

I met T when we were both freshmen at Northeastern, and from the first day that we hung out we became fast friends. But for some insane reason, I hadn’t seen him for more than two days since I’d returned from New Zealand!

That probably had something to do with the fact that he lived down in Connecticut now, but no matter – this weekend he was driving back up to Boston. And we were going to make it an epic weekend full of rocking out, hanging out with friend we hadn’t seen, and possibly going on a few adventures.

Friday night started out as hectic as anything that I plan does – We barely had time for a quick “whats up man? How was the drive?” before T and I were packed back into his car and hurtling down the road towards Boston. It was 5:30, and the plan was to catch the last showing of the new movie Brave in Boston before heading out to dinner. The problem was that the last showing was at 7:15, and we would have to deal with traffic, picking up Allison, and a Red Socks game once we got into Boston. And so, we drove.

We somehow made it into the city with a full 15min to spare, meeting up with Chirag in the lobby and rushing in to somehow find ourselves some rather amazing seats, even though we got in barely before the credits. And to the movie’s credit, it was amazing. Thankfully there weren’t any annoying babies or screaming ‘tweens in the theater to distract us, and we were able to actually lay back and enjoy the movie – and I quite enjoyed it, especially the fully-celtic soundtrack.

Afterwards we headed off to invade California Pizza Kitchen. Daniel and Mike met us there, and Mike started off what would become his new theme – ordering not one chicken quesadilla, nor two… but five complete appetizer platters of quesadillas. We nearly made it into a challenge for our poor waitress, who we ended up getting to know quite well, trying to get the quesadillas out before Mike could finish the last one. Here’s a hint – she wasn’t able to out-pace him until the fifth, and that was only because the kitchen had officially closed at that point.

From CPK, we followed Daniel to a bar called Flash that was right down the road. And when I say “right down the road” I mean three miles, give or take. And when I say “a bar”, I mean “blatantly a gay bar”. Daniel still won’t admit it, but when 90% of the patrons of the bar are extremely well-dressed and well-groomed men sitting quite close to each other, you get an idea. And when the bar specializes in fruity cosmopolitans, you get a stronger idea. Yes, I’m sure we’re being sexist and prejudice, but… it was a good thing to rag on Daniel for, especially since he had just led us on a forced march through downtown Boston.

And no matter the “orientation” of the bar – it was fun. The drinks were interesting and we had a blast throwing ice at each other and mocking Daniel for his choice in drinking establishments. The background music left a bit to be desired, I’ll admit, but we more than made up for that with our sceaming laughter and ice-throwing.

The night did have to end though, and so soon enough we were heading back to the car to get some sleep to recharge for the bout of bar-crawling that was planned for Saturday. Unfortunately though, our nights adventures didn’t end when we left Flash.

As we left the neighborhood that Flash was located in, we passed by a group of guys smoking and chilling, slowly walking the same way we were. I thought nothing of it, but it seems that I missed a key interation – Allison was wearing a rather sexy outfit, and none of us caught the raunchy comment that the guys made. Allison did though, and by the time I realized that she was being awfully quiet the guys had been left behind a few blocks back. While they were gone though, the damage remained. Allison was not doing ok with their comments, and I can’t blame her – from what she said they were rather impressively douchy. I just wish that us guys had heard them – there were four of them, yeah… but four of us too. And I feel that Daniel and myself could account for at least one and a half drunken douches each.

But the moment had passed, and so we got back into the car and headed back towards Westwood and Medway, wrongly assuming that the nights adventures had come to a close. Well, we were proven wrong when I timed a yellow light a bit wrong, and ended up getting caught in the following Red Light. “Ohh well, will be more careful next time” I thought to myself. Then I looked, and saw the car on the cross street that I had passed – a cop car. Now, with it’s lights flashing.

So I pulled over and got ready for a nice fat ticket that none of us could afford. All three of us (Allison, T, and myself) were unemployed, and with our luck this guy would completely throw the book at us. With all she’d already been through that night, Allison just gave up and lay down in the back seat, after asking how much this would end up costing her.

But I kept my head, and followed all of the rules for dealing with cops:

  • Be Honest – I told him that I miss-timed the yellow light, and that I won’t do it again
  • Be Polite – I never once addressed him by anything other than “officer” or “sir”
  • Be humble – I was the most apologetic and regretful wimp you’ve ever seen.

And… it worked. After taking my liscence the officer came back, and before I could even hand him the registration he had told us to be on our way. “Be more careful next time. Happy early birthday” was all he said.