Checking on my goals for the year
August 01, 2007 //
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I'm at home sick today. Woke up and felt like crap so I decided it would be a good day to call out and catch up on some rest.
And since I have nothing new to post I've decided to go back and review the goals for 2007 that I posted at the beginning of the year. It's been about 4 months since I last checked it. A few things have come off the list and a few things have been added. I've crossed off the ones I've succeeded in, and I've made comments on most of the others.
- Travel to Peru - Scrapped. Ireland instead. Peru comes next year.
- Eliminate credit card debt - 50% of the way there.
- Reduce all other debt - Comes next.
Get a gym membershipGo consistently until late spring-- Go consistently again in the winter
- Improve my photography - I can't really measure this, but I think I'm slowly getting better.
- Meet Brian Wilson - still not sure how, but there's half a year ahead of me.
- Spend a weekend in California - in the plans.
- Spend a weekend somewhere in Europe - next week I'll be in Ireland.
- Find more friends with common interests - Done. But I'm not ready to cross this off yet.
- Strengthen the friendships that already exist - A few steps forward and few steps backwards.
- Learn about wine
Get paid to design and develop websites- Promote with a separate website. - Being worked on now.
Continue my education at SCSU- Glad to be back but I can't wait to finish. So much stress.- Find 4 new interests or hobbies
- Read more books (at least 1 a month) - July=Wikinomics....
- Meet Sir George Martin
- Start doing community service again
Get to know some Black Rock locals- I succeeded, then moved away.- No fast food - Very difficult living in Fast Food Valley.
- Eat more veggies, and enjoy it. - Failed. See above. Will try again.
- Be earning 20% more by the end of '07 than I was at the beginning of the year - I hope.
- See Spamalot on Broadway - In September.
Stop whistling when I have nothing to say to somebody that I don't know that well- Revise this list every few months and check progress. - 50% done.
- NEW - Learn to play guitar. - Started mid-July, slowly making progress but keeping at it.
- NEW - Cross off two items on my To-Do-List posted on the right hand side of this blog.
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This blog is not dead
May 11, 2007 //
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I've been too busy. My laptop broke and I haven't had time to sit down and add stuff. But the semester is a week away from being over, I'm buying a new pc, and I'm nearly settled into my new place, so I'll try to get back to normal shortly.
I have tons of pics from the past two months that I want to get up here.
Also, I'm thinking about picking up a new digital camcorder and posting video every couple days or so. It will be unedited random stuff.
I've been doing some cool stuff over the past month, just haven't had time to write about it.
That's all for now. Keep coming back. Don't ditch me just yet.
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"Plans for 2007" Progress Report
April 01, 2007 //
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Back in January, I posted a list of goals that I have for 2007. I said that I'd check my progress in April, so we go:
- Travel to Peru - Would love to but we'll see.
- Eliminate credit card debt - Maybe 25% of the way there.
- Reduce all other debt - Making the appropriate moves.
Get a gym membership- Go consistently until late spring - So far so good.
- Go consistently again in the winter
- Improve my photography - I can't measure this.
Continue reading ""Plans for 2007" Progress Report"
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The Henri's
March 14, 2007 //
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Picture compliments of Kevin to the H. Had to laugh when I saw this. My poor mother.
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I'm Moving
August 28, 2006 //
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I've decided I need a change. So starting September 1st, I'll be living in an apartment on the Bridgeport/Fairfield line with my good friends Bryan (Nugget) and Steph. It's something I've been wanting to do for a while and I'm extremely excited to finally try something different. The house is pretty nice, has 3 bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, living room, and an entrance room where there is a staircase leading up to the second floor. The location is great. We have a private beach just a couple of feet down the street, a boat ramp into Black Rock Harbor for our kayaks, two movie theaters, a batting cage, and a baseball field on our street, and downtown Fairfield is just minutes away. I picked up an extra job right in the area, and Bryan just started working as a bar back at a really cool place called O-Bar right next to Archie Moore's. It should be great.
I'm really hoping that all my Derby friends will come down and hang out a lot. It's just a 15 minute drive down Rt. 8. Extremely simple to get to. Just ask me for directions. We're minutes away from really nice beaches, bars, restaurants, New Haven, Milford, Westport, and South Norwalk so it's worth the visit.
We start moving stuff in tomorrow so I'll take some pictures of the place and post them.
In other news:
I FINALLY bought a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT! I've been wanting one for over a year and I was worried that I wouldn't have a camera for Ireland so I'm extremely happy to finally have it. One more thing to cross off my "Things to do" list.
Here's the first picture I ever took with it. Just a test photo of Justin and Nugget:
Also, I picked up our tickets for the return flight from Dublin. We go from Dublin to London, hang around in the airport for 3 hours then make it back to New York City by 10:45 pm on a Thursday. Only 16 days until we leave. I'm EXTREMELY excited.
-Green Eyes - A Day In The Life: "Moving To Fairfield"
-Bryan Von Bondie's Journal: "No time to explain."
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Kidnapping Steph
August 22, 2006 //
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Shane and I put on our Super Spies gear and kidnapped Steph from her bed last night. Sucker had no clue what hit her. She wrote a good summary of what went down on her blog. Here's an excerpt:
"I'll set the scene for you: It's a dull, quiet Monday night. I fall asleep in my bed to a horrible/fabulous movie that involved ninjas kidnapping 3 children. Suddenly, I'm woken up from my slumber to find two panicked adult men, dressed all in black, with stockings over their faces, shaking my body to get up. As soon as I'm upright, a black bandana is placed over my face, impairing my vision. A deep scary recording announces my name, and declares the plan to kidnap me and demands I remain quiet. My shoes are put on, and they procede to bring me to their car which is waiting in front of my house. I'm placed in the vehicle, which starts to drive away from my house, blasting very dramatic and intimidating classical music."
Just so everybody knows, this was just a joke. No illegal acts occurred.
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Black Rock Harbor
August 20, 2006 //
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I ended up going kayaking today in Black Rock Harbor near the Bridgeport / Fairfield line. I spent about 3 hours out there, stopped at Penfield Beach, went around the Fayerweather Lighthouse and then came back in. Afterwards I drove around the coastline in Fairfield, Southport, and Westport. It was a really good afternoon. I'm excited to start spending time in a new area.
P.S. I'm moving there on September 1st. Come visit.
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Hakuna Matata Bitches!
August 06, 2006 //
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I really had a great weekend. I know that in almost every post I make I say something along those lines, but that's because it's always true. Not that every day is great, but I try to make it that way. Up to this point I've mostly been writing about the more significant days, mostly weekends, simply because I didn't wanna bore people with anything too standard like "Today I went to work, came home, and went to sleep". But today I was thinking that it's often small little happenings that I reflect on from day to day, and I want to be able to look back at any random day in my life and see what happened and what I was thinking or feeling. So as boring as it may be sometimes, I'm going to make at least one post a day from here on out. Nobody ever really comments on anything, so it's not like I have many dedicated readers to please.
But back to this weekend. There was Thursday night at BAR in New Haven, which was a bit of a disappointment at first because I couldn't get many friends to come out, but I had a great time with the friends that did come, and played a good game of SRPS on the way home. Friday was my trip down to NYC with Steph. Saturday I booked a flight to Dublin for September. I worked most of the day, but the excitement about the trip got me through it. Plus the weather was incredible, so I didn't mind driving around too much. That night Matt, Joe, Shane, and Steph came over. We grabbed some fast food, had a couple beers, and played Things for an hour or two. Matt lost his Cream cd and went on an obsessed rampage in search of it, Steph had a sever case of deja vu, and Shane had a good laugh over my Kriss Kross reference.
This morning was how all Sunday mornings should be, slow, timeless, and relaxing. Sundays are becoming my favorite day of the week. It's always the one day with the least plans. I really hate the concept of time and it's the one day of the week that I get to forget that time exists. Unfortunately I had to work an open house up in Waterbury for 2 hours, but that let out early so my day was saved. Justin got back from Wildwood so I hung out at home for a lil bit. Then my mom declared she wanted a new parakeet so I took a trip down to the pet store with Steph, popped one in a bag and introduced him to his new cage-mate - another parakeet named Blue Bell.
After that Steph and I met up with Patti and Scott and we all hung out Walnut beach for an hour or two with was EXACTLY what I needed. The temp was perfect, sky was blue, there was a strong breeze and the sun was getting low in the sky. From the beach we went to the mall for some food and then stopped at Patti's for a lil bit before heading back to the mall to watch Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby for the second time this weekend. It was even better the second time around. Then I came home and did a lot of thinking. And that was my day. So now I'm off to bed. More to come tomorrow.
P.S. This is funny.
Pictures from StephBell.com
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My 200th Post
July 28, 2006 //
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Here's my 200th post since I began this blog in April of 2005. Starting this blog was one of the best things I could have done. It's a great way to keep a record of everything I've been up to in the past year or so. I only wish that I started this earlier. Everybody should really start a blog. Don't tell yourself you have nothing to say because that isn't true. As long as you're capable of thinking and walk out your door each day you're capable of making one. Go to Typepad.com and sign yourself up. It's affordable and they make it very easy. Once I get up to 250 I'm going to turn it all into a book so I have a hard copy.
It's been a bit of an uneventful week, but still a fairly good one. Last Sunday me and Steph went on a quest for hot dogs in Newtown, then hung out at Wolfe Park in Monroe for a while. At night a bunch of us went to go see M. Night Shyamalan's new movie Lady In the Water which was pretty bad yet kinda funny at the same time. On Monday I stopped down at Walnut Beach in Milford to meet up with some friends before I was called into work. Spent the rest of the week working and helping some friends move out of their apartment in Hamden. Today was pretty good. I got to sleep in, had some pretty good dreams, a nice easy day at work, a pretty good paycheck, and a huge thunderstorm on my way home which I loved. Tonight some friends are coming over for the Yankee game then we're headed out. I'm looking forward to rest of the weekend, I have nothing planned and it should be a great opportunity to get some things planned out and organized.
Steph took a bunch of pictures pictures from last Sunday. Some of them are pretty good. You can check 'em out here.
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Much Too Early
July 21, 2006 //
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I'm awake much too early for this not to be a productive day. I just ran a pre-sunrise 3 mile run, now I'm off to Milford for some kayaking.
Update 7 P.M.:
Here's some pictures from kayaking:
Update 10:59 P.M.:
After a long day of work, I threw a small cookout/party with some friends. I've been having a lot of fun so far, but i've also realized something unfortunate...
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My apologies to the seafood industry:
July 18, 2006 //
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Only now after more than 22 years of life do I realize that I have been foolishly missing out on the glories of seafood. I decided at a very young age that I didn't like it and I've gone almost my entire life up to this point boycotting any form of food that comes from the sea. I don't think I ever had a very good reason. I remember when I was little my mom would make my fish sticks and while I think I liked them at first, I slowly began to think they were disgusting. I quickly realized I HATED tuna fish (and still do) and once I no longer liked fish sticks I decided that seafood wasn't for me. And that was it. I refused to try anything new that was labeled seafood because I was convinced I wouldn't like it. But now, thanks to the constant encouragement from Stephanie Bell, I realize that I actually do like some seafood. In the past month or so I've tried muscles, scallops, and smoked salmon. Tonight I tried grilled Atlantic salmon with saffron cous cous, olives, sun dried tomatoes, and red onion at Hot Tomatoes in New Haven and I loved it! We also tried something called Pasta Pillows, which is sweet potato ravioli covered in a sage cream sauce and is incredibly good! But back to the seafood... I'm a sucker for avoiding it for 22 years and I realize the errors of my ways and I promise I'm a changed man. To the seafood industry, I express my deepest apologies. I should have given seafood a chance much, much earlier. There's still many things I haven't tried and I admit that I'm still a little scared, but at least I'm willing to give things a shot now.
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I need a house on a lake...
July 16, 2006 //
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Soooo Friday my cell just shut down and wouldn't turn back on so drove on down to the Cingular store and bought me a new Motorola SLVR and made the mistake of renewing my contract for another 2 years. I hate Cingular. The service is great everywhere else BUT my house. I do love my new phone though.
After spending half my paycheck I met up with Steph and headed up to her grandfathers summer home in Plainfield, M.A. for some hiking, star gazing, prank calling, and relaxation. I ALMOST got to see a bear this time. I thought I heard a growl but it may have just been a plane flying overhead... I'm not too sure. We had planned on coming back for a friends graduation in the afternoon but we both got lazy and decided to stay a while longer and cooked lots of meats on the grill instead. On the way back home I wanted a milkshake so I pulled into the McDonalds in Winchester and found a baby skunk with a yogurt container stuck on its head. I know that doesn't sound funny at all... but believe me it was. We did start to feel bad pretty quickly though, and I even debated running up to the skunk to pull the container off its head. My advice to all: don't litter or you'll ruin a skunks day.
Tonight... I get to see Ringo Starr. I FINALLY I get to see a living Beatle with my own two eyes.
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Newport
July 10, 2006 //
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Yesterday, Steph, Patti and I went up to Newport, RI for the day and it was one of the best days so far this summer! Being lovers of meats, we stopped for lunch at a bar/resturaunt called the Candy Store as soon as we got there. From there we stopped in a few stores, and headed to Belleview Avenue to check out the mansions. We stopped at The Elms but skipped the tour, and rolled around in the backyard for a while. From there we drove by a few more mansions before we stopped at the Isaac Bell House for a tour, which is one of the best surviving examples of shingle style architecture in the country. From there we tried some beer for the beach, but failed, so we grabbed some bottled root beer instead and hung out on Goosebury Beach, relaxing on the sand and climbing on the rocks. After an hour or two at the beach we headed back to downtown Newport and watched the sunset from one of the docks, then grabbed a couple drinks from a nearby bar before heading back to Goosebury Beach for one more hour. On the way back Steph and Patti had fallen asleep, so I ended up getting lost and we didn't make it back until 3 in the morning. I guess at one point I had started to go a little too fast because a cop came racing up from behind me and pulled me over for speeding. Fortunately, he let me off with a verbal warning and my clean record of no speeding tickets continues.
For more pics go to StephBell.com
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Fourth of July Weekend
July 06, 2006 //
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Here's a short summary for my own memory... the crazy night at Stonebridge and the late night swimming, Derby/Shelton fireworks, free drinks in downtown Derby, the quick need for Irish spf at Walnut Beach in Milford, that Gilf who looked dead, boat rides, rained out parties on the river, and the bonus day in NYC with Steph. I got to see Dirty Rotten Scoundrels on Broadway and get scolded by a security guard for thinking about swimming in a fountain. I guess the weekend was more like a week. But it was a great time, and you could find some more pics on Steph's blog.
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