Leaving Indecision

i feel like these kind of things never fail to pop up.

there are points in our lives that are defining. after considerable time spent debating, discussing and considering our options: we have to make a life altering decision. one that will no doubt change the course of our lives. about a month ago, i made one of those decisions. i took a job in kentucky.

yes, kentucky.

now don't get me wrong, i don't really think there is anything bad about living in ken for the better part of my formative years, i've lived in southeastern ohio. i've jokingly loo down on kentucky as the hillbilly, inbred, banjo-plucking farm boys on the other side of the river. some of the guys i went to st.x with were from northern kentucky, and we were all fond of giving them shit about how it is not cool to date their own siblings. but i think know that those are only regional prejudices.

plus, i'm moving to louisville. which, by all accounts, is a pretty cool place to live. word on the street is that it's an up and coming city in the midwest (taken with obvious grain of salt). i mean at the very least, it has to be better than dayton. despite all of things knew i would be leaving behind (notably, competitive football...grrr), i knew this was the right decision. i have no doubt about that.

oh yeah, and the job seems like a no brainer. this company seems to be offering me a career; my last seemed more like a job. i'm definitely looking forward to the challenge. it would be stupid of me not to take it.

the suprise joy has been my interoccupational vacation, and my time off has been predictably spent procrastinating. while i don't quite have my shit together for the move, i've still been happy about the decision.

but on queue, just one week before my first day of work for post-college company #2... i've gotten the jitters. straight out of left field. something had to just come up and make me question my decision about leaving. is this the right choice? what am i doing? can i really leave this behind? bah.

does everyone feel like this happens to them?

OMG...Cristiano Ronaldo!

when i first mentioned a few weeks ago that i was going to write a post about manchester united's cristiano ronaldo, the man was playing at a level that nobody had ever been playing at before. and although his form has cooled a bit in the last few games (most notably, against barça in the first leg of the champions league semifinal), i still feel it is completely necessary to say something about the kid's game.

and make no mistake, he's definitely still a kid... he turned 23 in february. and since most people don't hit their peak until they're in their late 20's, it's fair to say that he's only going to get better. that is a ridiculously scary statement if you're a supporter of any other team in english football. i mean, how much better could he possibly get?

as of this writing, he has 38 goals this season. THIRTY-EIGHT. he's not a forward, he's an f'ing winger. and it's not like he's scoring these goals in the same way, he's scored in just about every way imaginable: set pieces (some unbelievable ones at that), run of play, on his own, with his head, from corners, and the list goes on. he's scored against 17 of the the 19 premiership teams he's faced this year, as well as 4 of the 5 teams he's met in the champions league.

and those are just his goal stats. i wasn't able to find out how many assists he's had, but i'm guessing more than a few. and though at times he tends to showboat, his dribbling displays this year can be best described as "unbelievable."

now don't get me wrong, my opinions about ronaldo are purely performance and skill related. personally, i think the kid is a dick and needs to grow up some. but if i were half as skilled as he is at that age, i would have enormous attitude too... probably bigger.

with all of the rumors of his leaving manchester for madrid circulating (not to mention real outright stating they would love to sign him), i can't help but salivate over the world's finest player sporting the white shirt of my favorite team. and i have no doubt that he will... at some point. if man u can win the champions league this year or in the next few years, he'll have won everything there is to win in england. i'm guessing we've got about 3-4 years before he makes the switch.

either way, ronaldo is an unbelievable talent. he's defnitely the best player in the world right now (especially with the injury plagued year for kaka and messi). and, i'm praying that man u wins a champions league title here shortly so i can see him playing for my beloved real! if nothing else, i'm just happy i'm getting to see this with my own eyes.

EDIT 5/3/2008: he netted two more today. 40 goals. ridiculous.

i'm ready for a change

for anyone lucky enough to have grown up around me, it won't surprise you when i say that i grew up in a conservative household. the switzers are easily a republican lot, and i know that my parent's/family's opinions have helped to shape my political beliefs.

i voted for bush in 2000, with the family discussions influencing my virgin-election decision making. but don't get me wrong; i'm alright with the choice i made. i still don't think that al gore would have made a better president than "w," even though he's grown on me with his environmental efforts over the last few years.

as so many other people do at that age, i began to think for myself in college. it would be fair to say that my views became a bit more liberal... i mean onu is a liberal arts college, what else should my family have expected?! but my upbringing couldn't totally be ignored, and i still wouldn't consider myself a democrat. so during 2004 elections, i chose to abstain from voting. the bush administration had obviously floundered, but was i seriously going to vote for john freaking kerry? to quote south park, it was like choosing between a turd sandwhich and a giant douche.

btw, i was fully aware that by abstaining from voting in the 2004 election that i was giving up my right to bitch about the job being done by whoever won the election. i've held to that... right?

well, this time around i'm not going to take that approach. i'm tired of going to war with everyone and lying about our motivations for doing so. the country is dealing with a looming economic crisis, and the global economy we once dominated is starting to dominate us. the planet is falling to pieces. our government is too divided on party lines. an energy crisis is also on the horizon. things definitely need to change.

in the last 20 years we've had two families running the country. the fact that we can extend that to, at a minimum, 24 years is reason enough not to vote for hillary clinton. her campaign's inability to refrain from slinging mud is, for me, a clear indication that she can't be trusted to run our country. she's done little during her time in congress, and has been caught in lie after lie during the course of her campaign. i'm 100% serious when i say i'll move to canada if she wins.

on a side note, it would almost be worth it for hillary to win just so we could have bill clinton in the white house with absolutely no responsibilities. he would have tail running through the white house like it was a frat house. i'd watch that reality show.

mccain is not offering me any change either. in fact, he's like bush on steroids: he doesn't even need god to justify his wars. he's promised more 100 more years in iraq, and pretty much insinuated that he'd go after iran too. john mccain will invade your privacy. john mccain is 150 years old. a president mccain will continue our country's current push towards orwell's "1984". i'm not really down with that at all either.

so that leaves us with barack obama. he has been very active during his time in office, for the most part on issues that are important to me. he cares about the environment, education, and net neutrality. he is the first president since reagan (maybe since kennedy) that can really speak to the people. his speech on race was a speech that i will never forget. he seems to get that we our country needs a fresh look. and the one thing that really impresses me is the way with which his campaign has handled itself throughout the race so far. despite all of mudslinging out of hillary's corner, obama's taken the high road and let's his principles do the talking for him.

that's a man i can get behind. obama in '08.

so it's been a while

Well hey there!

I'm pretty sure it's been about 10 years since I last updated the blog. Which is fine, because I've never promised anything more than that. And though I have said in the past that I don't intend to make regular postings on here, I might have had a change of heart. Lately, I just feel like I have had a lot to say about everything that is going on in the world.

In short, you should expect to see more postings in the near future. Though if I don't hold to that, well... I'm sure you'll live just fine.

So you may be asking yourself, "What are these important things that D.J. needs to educate me in?" That is an excellent question, congratulate yourself for asking it. The following list contains some possible posting subjects:

• Sorry, but I feel like I have to say something about the upcoming presidential elections.
• OMG...Christiano Ronaldo.
  
• My opinions about Management Techniques.
• Dayton, Ohio: WTF?!
• Skiing! Or the lack there of this season....ugh.

So be sure to check back soon, because I swear I'll have something to say that you would regret not reading. I would apologize, but I doubt anyone is reading this besides me anyway.

Um, YEAH...that DOES hurt.

Title IX. Women's suffrage. Equal rights in the workplace. All giant strides forward towards a world where women are , rightly so, equals to men.

Now don't get me wrong; I support equal rights for women in EVERY aspect of life. Nor am I saying that women have achieved full eqality already. But let's take a step back and reconsider an inequality where men have been receiving the shorter end of the stick.

One of the biggest no-no's in the world of men is hitting a woman. It's not tollerated by social standards, and is also fiercely prosecuted by the law. I hit my little sister when I was 5 or 6 years old, and have yet to hit a woman since... if for no other reason than I'm afraid my dad will come out of the woodwork and beat my ass again if I did.

But for some unknown reason, women are allowed to hit men. If you saw a girl punch/slap/shove a guy at the mall, your first reaction would likely be, "He probably deserved it." And he probably did, but that's not the point. There have probably been a thousand scenarios where a girl deserves to get hit, but no no no no no no. See my point?

I've recently heard arguments for why girls are allowed to beat men, and I've included my counter-arguments:

• Girls don't hit hard. Ahhhhhh, yeah they do. Especially when they're mad. Imagine if she has a gun or a knife...or a screwdriver.
• Men are tough and can take it. Nobody makes me bleed my own blood. I consider myself decently tough, but I don't like to get raged on either.
• Girls are fiesty/have attitudes, and are allowed to vent. I have an attitude sometimes too, but I've still never hit anyone when I've been mad.
• She is a girl. This is probably the worst excuse I've ever heard. It's like saying Hitler was allowed to kill Jews "because he is German."

One last argument against women hitting men comes from the Ohio Revised Code:

2903.11 Felonious assault. (A) No person shall knowingly... 1) Cause serious physical harm to another.

Yeah, nothing in there that says "except for girls." Maybe all of the police officers, urban socialites, and other dense individuals (i.e. Corrigan) need to re-read that. The fact of the matter is, violence is never the appropriate course of action. It's wrong for ANYONE to strike ANYONE else.

i love the 80's

originally posted: march 27, 2007

so the picture to the left comes from the signature of one my coworker's e-mails. don't get me wrong, i think she is a really cool person, and she is one of the people i definitely enjoy working with. i've got a lot of respect her for her hard work and dedication.

however, the other day i overheard her speaking to one of her customers on the phone. the customer asomeone asked her about her little logo and where it came from the other day, and this was her response.

yeah, i drew it about 15 years ago.

read that again. It said 15 years. i couldn't stop laughing. i had to excuse myself from the office to regain my composure.

the funniest part of this comment is not that she has crazy hair, nor is it that she has a logo in ALL of her e-mails that depicts her crazy hair. no, the funniest part to me is that she has had that same crappy haircut for at least 15 years...maybe longer.

gang of midgets vs. one lion

originally posted: december 15, 2006
a coworker sent me this link to an amazing news article from the BBC, and if it's true...it could be one of the most amazing stories of the year.

http://www.fmft.net/archives/BBC_NEWS.htm

even though i find this so hard to believe, if i knew in advance that this was going to happen, how much would have i paid to watch? i'm not sure there is a price that would be out of my range. in fact, i would sell off my skis and skip my yearly trip to utah to pay for one of those tickets.

not that i morally endorse this kind of activity, but can we arrange to have this happen in our hemisphere? i could see this going down in like arkansas or kentucky. someone work on this for me, please!