Weather in Bowling Green today…
Steady winds of 31mph with gusts of 40… YEE HA… welcome to the suck, hold on tight!
Mood: Frozen! 
Music: Eurythmics – Sweet Dreams
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So I got a parking ticket today… 25 bucks… BUT here’s the best part… I got a ticket for parking in Lot 8 without a special permit. I have a special permit. I’ve always had a special permit… In fact, not only do I have a permit, but in order for the parking officer to write the ticket, he had to record a number off of my BGSU Pass which was partially covered…. BY MY SPECIAL PERMIT!!! Yes, it takes a special kind of stupid to work as a parking and traffic officer… but the low intelligence levels don’t stop there!
I called the Parking and Traffic office to tell them what happened… She asked for the ticket code and number… I told her. I told her I had a special permit. She says, “What color is it?”
I say “Silver… and in fact I have last semester’s red one too!”
Her response… “hmm… that’s strange… Why don’t you come in so we can look at it.”
“Why should I come in? Can’t you just run my plates and ticket number to see that I am registered for a special permit?” I asked.
“Well…. yeah, but we’d like you to come in so we can see it… maybe you didn’t have it displayed properly.”
“It was hanging from my mirror…. It was the ONLY thing hanging from my mirror…. I haven’t touched it since I got it! What are you going to do, come out and look at my car?” I asked as calmly as possible.
“Well then you can come in and get a ticket appeal form….” she said rather sharp.
“OK. Fine. Thank you.”
Now I’ve played “Ticket Appeal” before. Basically you go out of your way to pick up the form, take 30 minutes to fill out a lengthy explanation of what happened and why you are right, go out of your way to drop it off, then wait for 3 months only to get a letter that says, “Denied.” Then they bill your Bursar account accordingly. It’s a great process that could very well be the solution to ending all democratic processes in the judicial system… if that’s your thing…
Anyway, I decided to go there and talk to them in person. I drove to the place and (the best part) illegally parked in a state vehicle only spot since they have NO student parking within a mile (almost litterally) of the place. Then I went in and more stupidity ensued:
“Hi… I (blah blah blah)…”
“Hmm… did you have it displayed properly?”
“Yeah. Yeah I did.”
“Can I see your ticket and pass to run the numbers?” I gave them to her… She ran them… She sat puzzled…
“When did you get this special permit?” she asked.
“Before students even came back to campus. I’m an RA and have parked in that lot 24/7 since August of 2002.” I stated.
“Was it hanging on your mirror or blocked by anything?” By this point I was getting frustrated… It is an amazing thing that they assume the officers don’t make mistakes… ever. I understand that a lot of people must try and get out of tickets… but come on! This is nuts!
FINALLY an old lady who works there actually helped me out… a sign of intelligence DOES exist at the Parking office! She pointed out that the officer saw the pass because he read the number off of it and thus should have seen the permit sticker (Especially because it was touching the numbers he had to read)! She wondered aloud why he didn’t see it and I stated, “THAT’S WHAT I’VE BEEN WONDERING!!!”
When she saw the number on my special permit indicating that I was among the first to get one… she looked at me with a smile and said, “We’ll handle it.” Then I left. ::sigh:: I tell ya… some people amaze me… I just wonder how they have survived this far without losing a limb or having a vending machine fall on them or something…
Mood: It’s a rainy day outside… 
Music: Staind – Epiphany
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Despite the cancelling of Super Blue Stuff… I’ve found a new product which intrigues me (WINDEX!)…
I’d like to thank the movie, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” for this one… my lord… what a funny movie… Check it out here, if you’ve never seen it… or heck… if you have… check it out still… 
OK… I must now try to sleep… I have to get up for work in 3 hours and I woke up after 4 hours of sleep and can’t go unconscious again… bah! Stupid bad sleep habits!
Mood: Awake… unfortunately!
Music: 12 Stones – The Way I Feel
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It’s a sad day for the world of T.V. Infomercials…. the amazing product “Super Blue Stuff” (Here) has been discontinued… It was the miracle blue cream that could relieve all problems… pain, dry skin, cuts and scrapes, dandruff… and we added a few that seemed to fit when we heard about it…
Welcome welcome welcome…. try SUPER BLUE STUFF! It can relieve your aches and pains, spackle your walls, act as structural support for skyscrapers, and soothe away those nasty papercuts… It’s perfect on hotdogs, can walk YOUR dog, and even has time to listen to your problems! Can’t find the remote? NO PROBLEM! Super Blue Stuff controls your T.V. set! Watch as it records your favorite shows and then answers your phone when you aren’t available!!! Super Blue Stuff… let’s hear a word from our founder…. “Well… I done told people… I ain’t no smart scientist… I got my degree in cow milkin from the good Lord himself… But this stuff works…” YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST! SUPER BLUE STUFF! Buy some today!
The sad part is… that quote from the founder guy… actually WAS on the real infomercial… thus the reason I laughed my butt off. But anywho, they made a replacement for it. It’s just called “Super Blue” and they have a whole line of “Stuff” products now…. (Cat Stuff, Dog Stuff, Green Stuff… etc.) But NOTHING will ever compare to that first infomercial with the cow milkin dude and the million uses for Super Blue Stuff…. nothing…
Mood: Whacked out!
Music: Kittie – Brackish
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New dumb moves of the night… by one of Offenhauer’s own…
When you’re underage, and you have 6 shot glasses and 4 beers on a table in your room… a table that you stole from the lounge… and the RAs are in the hallway…. DON’T STAND THERE HOLDING YOUR DOOR OPEN!
When we ask about it and we confront you, don’t dump the 20 other beer cans on the floor from your bookbag that we didn’t know existed…
When you are gathering the alcohol to destroy… don’t throw back the final shot glass in front of us and then tell us that you were “getting rid” of it…
And finally…
When you are emptying the beer down the sink… don’t beg us to let you at least have “just one sip” for yourself…
One other fun quote of the day by a resident…
(Said by a girl walking with 4 other girls as she lights up a cigarette) “Man… I just burped up Tequila” (I was concerned she’d explode shortly after lighting up… )
Mood: GOOD!
Music: Evanescence – Bring Me To Life
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::sigh:: I realized today that a lot of the friends I had last year really don’t give a rip about my life anymore…. Nothing personal… I just realized that we are now simply getting to be aquaintances instead of friends… I no longer get to hang out with them… I no longer get to hear about their lives and share mine with them… I’m not really sure how to feel about it all.
This whole RA thing really takes up my time like nothing I’d ever expected… and living in a single room only lessens the “other people” contact I have. Yes I have a floor of 48 residents whom I have regular contact with… but they see me as the RA and very few see me as a college student…
So here I am working a full time school schedule, a near full time schedule at CedarCreek, and a near full time schedule as an RA…. any free time I have goes to developing my relationship with Sarah…. what can I say though??? If I have to prioritize my life, the woman I plan on marrying has to get the time I can offer! I don’t regret that at all. I just wish I had more time to hang out with my old friends…
I don’t know… I’m naturally a loner kind of guy… I can survive on my own and all, but something still cries out for those late night spontaneous Zzas runs… the crazy pranks on the neighbors… the group lunches and dinners… bah. I wonder if they ever even think, “Hey, what happened to Brent?” Somehow I think they are hardcore thinking that I ditched them when I started dating Sarah… but that couldn’t be farther from the truth…. This stupid RA job sucks the time you have and makes it pretty much obsolete… Thus the reason why I’m not returning as and RA next year. I’m going to try and live in a single room somewhere else in Offenhauer, but I can do without the work. I wish I could live in an apartment with some guys next year… but alas, no cash to finance such a deal. Stupid debt.
ANYWHO… I don’t say this to get people feeling sorry for me… I don’t want pity… I just want to vent and get people who read this to think about their own lives… Hold close the times you have with these friends of college… Change appears quick and often without notice. Swiftly it sweeps away our life and we are left wondering what happened. Are you really going to stay in touch with your friends ten years from now? How about five? Two? Man… you never see it coming. I didn’t.
Mood: Looking ahead… but not too far. 
Music: Counting Crows – A Good Year For The Roses
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I finally retired my old wallet… I feel so …. dirty… like I just shunned a member of my family or something. I had this old nasty brown leather… dry rotted… worn out… flaking…. smells like a cow…. wallet. And I just bought a new one tonight. My old one was with me for a good 7 years at least. Pretty much as long as I’ve carried a wallet other than like a little kiddie wallet with some cartoon character on it. This wallet even had a rivet in it from where I self installed my own wallet chain in the 9th grade… HAHA… I used to be a skater punk… those were fun days… so much punk music, so much vandalism… so many dirty days of sweat and asphalt stained clothing from hockey and skating… man I miss that smell. ANYWAY, the wallet… yeah… so my new one is full of cards and stuff that I rarely use (but just enough that I can’t throw them away), and it’s all big and looks full, but don’t fear… I’m still broke. The world isn’t ending. I actually have a dollar in there… a whole buck. It’s a power dollar. The last dollar in your wallet… it’s always called a power dollar. It does feats that normal dollars can’t… like… … … buy a buck of gas when you’re on empty and only have one dollar… … … yeah.
Other than that, I’m pretty busy with work right now. I just had a meeting with my boss (Kyle), his boss (Mark), and his boss (Lee). So the four generations of hierarchy met up and I explained our multimedia package that I’ve been working on for months to them. Lee had questions… Mark had questions… I gave answers… We added stuff here and there… and we got the green light to order it. FREAKIN YEAH! So my near $33,000 proposal just passed. I am proud to say that I am the sole owner to the right of saying this is the second biggest purchase CedarCreek has ever made next to the building itself (which barely edges me out at a mere $6,000,000 
). So now I need to get ahold of Roscor (the multimedia company in Cinci) to pull this big fat trigger.
In other news, tonight was my sister Sarah’s birthday. (HAPPY 17th B-DAY SARAH!!!) Yes… my sister is named Sarah. My girlfriend is named Sarah. My best friend’s girlfriend is named Sara. I work with another Sarah, two of my residents are named Sarah, and Sara…. and I know about 785 more of them through school and church… how fun is that? I’ve just given up and started assigning them numbers.
My stupid palm pilot won’t sync up with my computer now… and the thing is long overdue for a backup. I’ve tried dang near everything to make it work… uninstalled and reinstalled everything I can think of… So now I have a 7 page email reply from Palm support that I have to sort through to see if it fixes this…. grrr…
HAHA… my photography class killed me last week. I got this assignment to shoot on Kodak Ektachrome film. I went to Meijers and asked if they had it and the guy was like yeah… here. He gave me Kodachrome film… I assumed it was the same since they both give positive images (for slides) instead of negatives… I was wrong. I shot the entire roll then found out that it’d take a week or more to develop it since it had to ship to CHICAGO or SANDIEGO!!! HAHAHA. It was due that night. whoops. So I explained the problem to the prof and since other kids had issues, he let us off till next week. WHEW! So, important lesson kids…
Kodak Ektachrome = GOOD
Kodak Elitechrome = GOOD
Kodak Elitechrome II = GOOD
Fujichrome = GOOD
Kodachrome = STRAIGHT FROM THE FLAMING, INDIGESTED, GASEOUS, I JUST ATE 51 BRAN MUFFINS AND I’M STUCK IN TRAFFIC, BOWELS OF HELL.
Mood: Swamped with stuff to do……..
Music: Good Charlotte – Emotionless
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I had a really rough night on duty Friday night… so it’s 4am Saturday morning and I’m about to go sleep… But before I retire for the night… hopefully… I want to share a few tidbits of info I’ve picked up over the last semester. Enjoy!
It takes a special kind of stupid to be some of the residents we have here in Offenhauer…. So let me enlighten you few… you proud…. you morons of the towers… This list of eleven tips may help you next time you are involved in an incident you’d rather not be in…
1) The walls AND the doors are NOT soundproof! We can hear your every whisper and shuffling of bottles being hidden as we wait for you to open the door we just knocked on due to your loud yelling, loud music, and/or funky smell coming from your room.
2) The sneaking of people in the side doors after the check-in desk is open works sometimes, but when it doesn’t and we catch you… realize that we are NOT being jerks, pricks, or any form of the explitive array of words you can come up with. WE are protecting the building and it’s other 900 residents from your drunk butt friends vandalizing the halls and waking up the residents who actually DO go to classes here.
3) Running from an RA is not always a good idea. We can run too. In fact, most of the time we don’t have to run, rather we just call the desk and have them stop you on the way out or we know where you are going anyway and meet you there later. So not IF, but WHEN we catch you… we’re only angry for having to chase you and now our sense of mercy and any niceness that we could have used just flew out the window from your idiotic attepmt to escape your own responsibilities.
4) If you absolutely MUST be dumb enough to drink, be loud, and cause a disturbance… and we confront you. DO NOT attempt to bribe us to leave. This is our job. We get paid to tell the truth… Bribery is a felony and it isn’t worth attempting. No… I do not want money from you… No… I cannot have you clean my room… No…. I do not want a cold one…
5) Not opening your door when asked to is just about the stupidest thing you can do. If we have reason to believe you are drinking underage or commiting any other crime, and you don’t answer the door after we JUST heard you behind it, we WILL gain access to that room. Both RAs have master keys. The Hall Director has a master key. All police officers have master keys (and mace and guns for that matter)… which one should we use? So when the cops are knocking… don’t pretend you aren’t home… cuz then they just get angry…. and angry cops…. arrest people.
6) NO, I cannot pretend I didn’t see that…. you stupid ignorant moron. If you don’t want me dealing with your stupidity, don’t show me it when you know I’m standing right there….
7) If asked what a substance is in a clear cup… and it’s yellow…. DO NOT reply…. “It’s milk.”
8) Don’t carry a case of beer through the lobby and then act shocked when we ask for ID.
9) Don’t play dumb. When I watch you carry a green tub into a room, watch the door close, hear 5 guys discuss the brands of beer you just bought, and knock on the door… don’t act like you aren’t sure what I’m talking about. And when I ask you if that green tub… the only one in the room… is the one you just carried in… don’t respond, “I don’t remember.”
10) If you leave your trash in the recycling room or in a lounge…. make sure you remove all info that points back to you. I’d much rather open the bag and look for a paper with your name on it than take all your trash to the dumpster… … So yes… I know who left the trash… and yes… we’ll be talking tomorrow morning… (I thought about dragging your butt out of bed at 4am, but I’m too tired to smack you around right now.) I am not your father… I am not your mother either. I don’t clean after you. So if you must litter, don’t leave your name on it…. …. … stupid…
11) If emptying beer into a toilet because you were busted for underage drinking… DO NOT under any circumstances, lean on the toilet with bare hands as you empty the cans… especially when that toilet that you’re laying all over…. …. is a urinal…. you disgusting pig…. oh yeah… and …. when I ask you if you want to wash your hands after they are covered in urine and beer…. don’t tell me, “No I’m alright…” Because…. well… you’re not.
Mood: Tired. Annoyed. Blah.
Music: Moby – Southside
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Today’s weather…. COLD! IT’S SO COLD! DON’T GO OUTSIDE, YOU’LL DIE ON CONTACT!!! Actually, the weather report wasn’t quite that dramatic (although once I heard the college station do a report like that and I laughed my butt off….), but it’s really cold out!
It’s 14 degrees with a wind chill that makes it 0 degrees…. that’s right… 0. We here in Blowing Green… er… Bowling Green… have a steady wind of 14 mph with gusts of up to 22mph. WHAT THE CRAP IS UP WITH THAT?!?!?!? Ah well… it’s still fun to me when I hear freshmen going, “Man it’s freezing here…” and I laugh cuz MY freshmen year (2000-2001) it was so snowy and cold that they cancelled classes for the second time EVER at the university due to extreme temperatures. We had a foot or more of snow for 2 months straight and temps dropped to -20s with wind chill. SO…. let’s talk cold… Then last year it was so warm it was pathetic… So now that the temp is getting back to normal coldness everyone is shocked… HAHA… oh boy…
Mood: Frozen!
Music: Smashing Pumpkins – Landslide
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Well… news-o-the-hour. We’ve hired ONE new RA so far and he starts tomorrow! YAY FOR THAT! Granted it’ll be a couple of days before he’s up to speed and working… but he moves in tomorrow. His name is Nick. SO, we only need 4 more and life is good.
I just bought a digital camera… a new new one… like… I had bought one just before christmas for 418 bucks…. and now I just bought a 550 dollar one and am going to sell the old one…. I have Photography II this semester and I can do the work digitally if I have a nice enough camera…. Mine was JUST under par and wouldn’t work, so for the 70 some dollars worth of film and processing, the driving to process film every week, the negatives that have to be scanned in, the scratches and dust that has to be touched up on the pics, the fighting for equipment in the labs, and the long butt hours of lab work that can be done in litterally minutes with a digital camera…. I’ve opted for the high road. The expensive… high road. But this new camera flat out rocks and I can use it the rest of my life… so…. props to that.
Now I gotta sell my HP Photosmart 720 camera on Ebay or something… It’s barely used and has a case with it!!! Sigh…. I’m hoping to get 200 bucks for it. With any luck that’ll work out. The actual camera cost about 300 and I bought 100 some worth of accessories which all can carry over to my new camera… props for compatibility! ANYWHO, I’m going to go to bed. I have a early day tomorrow… word.
Mood: Cruisin at the speed of… … moderately fast?
Music: 3 Doors Down – Love Me When I’m Gone