Saturday, February 15, 2014

Engagement

Here is a video of our engagement.  Make sure your volume is turned up.  Not included are the 20 minutes of setup and contemplation on where to put the different signs.  In the end, it worked out well.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Fun Stuff

The lottery is fun.  Sure, you will probably never win.  However, statistically, you have a chance.  A very small chance, but that is what makes it fun.  I think I like to play the lotto because of the fantasies it allows me.  Adults usually don't have the time to dream up fantasies because reality is too demanding.

Playing the lotto gives each of us a chance to fantasize.  We get to dream about complete financial freedom and what we would do, the types of lives we could live, the people we could associate with, the things we could own and the places we could travel and the positive influences we could be with all that money.

I think that is where most people fantasies end.  Your fantasies can become a reality without millions of dollars!  It doesn't take millions to be a good person.  At this stage in my life, I cannot back this up with examples of awesome travels or exuberant philanthropy, but, it is my hope that I will be able to live out my dreams and fantasies without winning the lotto.  I will work to make some money.  Then I plan on having fun and being the best person that I can be.

Business Stuff

...So, the business experiment didn't go so well.  It did keep me busy for awhile and I learned a lot from the experience.  I am proud to know that I had a business in MY name.  One that I invented and brought into existence.

Knowing I had a business, was an entrepreneur, is also the problem.  I'm disappointed in myself for failing.  I can't deny that the business was a complete flop.  I think the themes of EvlovE are well thought out, but, the business strategy we used didn't work.  In fact, we didn't really have a business strategy.  We had an idea and tried to morph that idea into a business without doing any real research.  For us, this didn't work out.  Some people's ideas are so revolutionary that they take off immediately without much work on their part.  That is what my team hoped for.  That is the primary reason we failed.

Our timing was also poor.  We launched a respectable, fully functional, website on schedule.  However, soon after the launch, school picked up (~14hrs/day) and we became so exhausted that dealing with a business was the last thing we wanted to do when we got home.  As a result, EvlovE became an afterthought and no significant efforts were made to sell t-shirts.

We each lost a few hundred dollars by establishing this business and then having a couple hundred t-shirts printed.  That hurts a little, but, I do hope that I get another chance to start a business.  It may not be selling t-shirts, but whatever it is, WILL be successful.

I have learned a lot by failing in this venture, probably more than I recognize.  I can't wait to try again and do it right.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Check out my new site!!!

I just started a little business.  Spur of the moment but it gave me something to do for the past month when I had a lot of free time.  Check it out:

http://www.evolvebackwards.com/

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Weekend!

What a great weekend!  Right now, I'm watching a good game between my Giants and the SF 49'ers.  Later tonight, one of my favorite TV shows, The Walking Dead airs a new episode and my girlfriend and I are about to cook a delicious dinner.

I attended the Gamecocks game this weekend against the Florida Gators.  It was my first college (D1)/professional game I've been to.  The game itself was great.  It came down to the last play of the game and the Gamecocks won.  Our seats were high up, behind the goal post and opposite of the student section.  I had a great time.

The tailgating was great too.  We joined a great group, organized by parents.  The food was terrific.  They served appetizers consisting of dips, meatballs, stuffed mushrooms and deviled eggs.  I tried most everything and had a few beers before entering the stadium for the 1220 kickoff.

After the game, we went back outside to the same group where they had been all afternoon.  Most of them didn't even go into the stadium.  They set up satellites and TVs in their vehicles and sat around watching the game on TV.  The food after the game was more like dinner.  There was ham and crab legs and a shrimp dish.  It was delicious, except you needed to peel the shrimp, which was a pain and hard to do when not sitting at a table.  Afterwards, we all had some delicious cake.

I wonder if all tailgaters are this friendly.  Was it just because we were in the South that we could just join a party and eat their food?  Or, would we have been just as welcome to tailgate with a random group at a Giants game?  I'll have to try it and find out.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Back in Charleston

And I am happy to be back.  I love it down here.  The weather is my favorite part.  And my girlfriend is here too, which is great.  I don't know how I ever lived for so long in the Northeast.

I enjoy driving, especially when I'm in no rush and I don't care about traffic delays or getting cutoff.  I just go with the flow.  No pressure.  Whenever I am stuck in a car for a while, like during an 18hr drive, I just think.  I think about a lot of things.  I listen to the radio, sometimes music, sometimes talk.  I heard a very interesting comment on a Christian talk show.  I wouldn't usually listen to Christian talk radio, but, in this case the hosts were covering about the Penn State sex scandal.  After that ended, they began taking listener's phone calls.  One caller said the following:

"The US has surpassed over 50 million abortions.  It has been proven that most people who get abortions are Liberals.  Therefore, it is safe to assume that a majority of these 50 million aborted babies would grow to be liberals like their parents, had they not been aborted.  Is this God's way of purging the world of Liberals?"

I could not make this up.  And the host's reaction was equally surprising, but, polite and professional.  They laughed and said they had never heard that claim before.  To answer the caller, they simply said that it was not God's will for any unborn babies to be killed.


Something crazy, at least to me, also happened.  I was driving down 95 in NJ when I began seeing electronic billboards warning me of an accident ahead and to expect delays.  As I came around the next corner, I saw lots of break lights and cars stopped.  I made a decision to try and exit the highway and get back on after the accident to avoid the stop and go traffic.  Well, once I got off the highway, I had a hard time finding an easy route back to the highway and for a little while I was lost.

I was trying to find my way back to the highway, taking all sorts of back roads and shortcuts.  Finally, I knew I was heading the right direction when I stumbled across the same exact deli that I had stopped at when I was headed North from Charleston.  It is probably one of the only places in NJ I have ever been and I accidently went back to the same spot.  Because of that random accident, I got off at some random exit and randomly found myself someplace I'd been only a month before.  Isn't that crazy?

Finally, I was in Northern Virginia when I decided to take a dinner break and let some of the rush hour traffic subside.  I was leaving a delicious dinner at Chipotle when I took a wrong turn.  I was mad about it because of all the traffic around and now I had to turn around.  I was headed in the correct direction again when I went through a big intersection where there had just been a 3 car accident.  It didn't look very serious, just some smoking engines and everyone was getting out of their cars to check on everyone else.

I couldn't help but think that I may have been in that accident if I hadn't made that wrong turn.  Maybe it was divine intervention, maybe it was not my destiny and maybe it was just luck.  I do like to believe that everything happens for a reason.  That is how I stay stress free.  I tend to let things play out because I believe they will play out in my favor.  I don't sweat the little things because I feel that if they are supposed to happen they will, good or bad.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

On the road again

Headed back to Charleston.

As for yesterday, we didn't catch any fish to bring home.  Caught a total of 5, but, nothing spectacular, therefore no pictures.  Still fun and not that cold.