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Bracket busted badly

Well, thanks to a 2nd round upset of UK by UAB, my bracket is toast. I guess, in a way, that’s what the tournament is all about. Ultimately, it comes down to matchups and it’s not necessarily true that the “best” team wins the Tournament. Rather, it’s the team that does the best in its particular string of matchups.

But, that’s why they play they games, as they say.

Relaxing weekend

I had a great weekend of watching basketball and relaxing, but now it’s time to start winding things down, so I can be ready for work tomorrow. After last week and a few marathon meetings, this week should seem like cake. I’m not looking forward to it, but I’m not dreading it nearly as much as I did last week.

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Bummed about basketball

Apparently, because CBS does regional coverage of the NCAA Tournament, I won’t be able to see the Florida game tomorrow because they’ll be showing the Texas Tech game instead. So, I guess I’m going to proceed as though they are showing the Florida game–keep my cell off, stay away from IM, avoid e-mail and keep out of earshot of any potential basketball conversations at work–and TiVo it, so I can watch it when I get home. Of course, by “it”, I mean “any little segments or tidbits they might show during the Texas Tech game.” If I remember correctly, CBS tends to sort of bounce around and show bits from games in other regions all day. Hopefully, they’ll show some of the Florida game. Also, I’m thinking that if the game is close down the stretch or goes into OT, CBS might show it. I’ve made my picks and I’ll try and post my bracket once they’re “public.”

Sleepometer runnin’ low

I only got 6 hours of sleep last night, I’ll be lucky to get 6 tonight, I slept horribly on Sunday night and Monday night was only a moderate night’s sleep. So far, I’ve been feelin’ great, had plenty of energy and haven’t felt like I needed a mandatory naptime. But, I’m afraid my lack of sleep is going to catch up with me before the weekend is here. I spent all day today (almost 10 hours) in a meeting and I’ll be in the same meeting tomorrow, although “they” say it’ll only run about 6 hours. I just hope they’re right, ’cause if they’re not, they might have to adjust their voices to compensate for my super loud snoring.

Tunin’ up the workouts

I took last week off from the gym and came back this week with a whole different philosophy. For the past several months (years?), I’ve been training primarily to build some strength and secondarily to build some tone. Mostly, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t getting pushed around when I played basketball. Last week, I realized it’s been a really long time since I’ve worked out really hard and pushed myself to do a lot of reps and a lot of exercises in short time. So, I decided I’d go back to a workout similar to what I was doing in high school, but only three days a week instead of five. I’m hopin’ to “lean up” a bit and maybe get some of my speed back on the basketball court while maintaining a reasonable amount of strength. I’m also trying to eat better by eating lots of veggies and focusing on not consuming ridiculous quantities of unhealthy food. We’ll see how that goes…

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Bad night’s sleep

I slept pretty badly last night, so I’m hopin’ for a better night tonight. I think the culprit may have been a combination of things, not the least of which was all the light coming in my windows. My bedroom is the best lit room in the apartment and I hate it. I like my bedroom to be as dark as possible because dark means more sleepy time. I think this weekend I might have to go buy some curtains… or at least something to put over the windows (I’m hoping for something other than garbage bags or tin foil).

Off to Ft. Worth

I live in the Dallas/Ft. Worth “metro” area, but that title is really pretty deceiving. Tomorrow after work, I’m driving over to Ft. Worth to see a friend who’s in town, but I doubt that drive will feel as though I’m in a “metro” area. It’ll probably be about an hour and a half with lots of traffic and plenty of tolls. I’m not looking forward to the drive, but I am looking forward to hanging out with my friends.

March Madness is here

This post is actually a few days late, but I kept forgetting about the Madness until now. I’ve almost got my bracket finalized and then I’ll be entering at least two pools (both for small stakes: one for 5 bucks, one for 2 buck, winner take all). I won it two years ago and got demolished last year. That’s probably because I feel it’s necessary to take risks to win the pool, and last year’s risks didn’t pay off at all. I’ve tried to educate myself a lot more this year, so hopefully my bracket will look pretty good going into the Sweet 16 (if my teams are good into the round of 16, I feel confident I’ll pick pretty well from there on out).

I guess anyone could say that, though…

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Back from my ~~vacation~~ business trip

All in all, I had a great time and met some great people. While I was there, I went ahead and did some work and spent some time layin’ around my hotel room like a bum. Before I left, I had grand plans of seein’ the sites and hobnobbin’ with the celebrities. Well, as I said in a previous post, I did get to hang with a celebrity for a little while, but that was the extent of my glamorous experience in Hollywood (or en route, really). I really don’t have much to report except that I had a good time, California is beautiful and I hope I can go back some time soon.

Finally bought some clothes

Since I was in middle school, I’ve been in a clothes-buying routine that landed me at the mall every couple years and rarely afforded me any significant changes to my wardrobe. Well, before I graduated and headed out here, I decided that was gonna’ change and I was going to have some sort of a respectable wardrobe. Now, I’m not really into having tons and tons of clothes for all occasions, but I would like to have a good amount of clothes for the situations I encounter regularly: work, workin’ out, sittin’ around my apartment and going out with friends. Although I don’t feel I’ve got everything I need, I’m starting to make progress and much of that progress was made this weekend at the GAP. I bought a few shirts and some pants and such and I’m well on my way. The thing that slowed me down most was my tendency to be picky when selecting clothes. It’s nice to be limited by my tendency to be particular rather than my wallet for a change, though.

Gators in the SEC Tournament Finals

Well, it seems we’ve decided to take a shot at winning our first even SEC Tournament. Yesterday, we played ok against Alabama and our team showed a lot of heart as we held on to win in overtime on a tough baseline jumper by one of our freshman. Today, we struggled early against Vandy, but we pulled away in the second half and turned what could have been a nailbiter into a cakewalk. Tomorrow will certainly be the most difficult game we play, though. We’ve lost to Kentucky four or five consecutive times (although we should’ve beaten ’em earlier this season, but we choked late and totally blew the game) and they’re just the kind of team that gives us fits when they’re on defense. They’re really nothing special on offense, but they know how to jam our perimeter players and deny passes into the paint for our big guys. Their defense–in your face, fast, aggressive and constantly pressing–is the kind of defense that our guys have the worst time with. Essentially, we’re not fast or aggressive enough to take them out of that defense. We’re going to have to find some aggressiveness by tomorrow afternoon if we want to win.

I honestly think we can win, especially if Roberson and Walsh can combine for almost 60 points again, but I’m afraid we won’t. This season, I’ve only seen a few instances (and for very brief durations) where our team played with enough energy to potentially thwart an aggressive team like Kentucky. We’re capable of it, but I just think our guys are too young to understand the necessity of stepping onto the floor at 100% effort and maintaining that intensity for 40 minutes. I hope they prove me wrong.

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Birthday trip

They don’t know it, but my company is sending me to CA for a couple days for my birthday. I mean, they think they’re sending me out there to train and work with some people on some stuff. But really, they’re flyin’ me to L.A., payin’ for my meals, puttin’ me up in a fancy-pants hotel, rentin’ me a car and giving me two evenings to gallivant around Hollywood and hob-nob with the celebrities. I mean, seriously, I can’t think of a better birthday present. Oh, and after I get back on Thursday, I don’t have to go in to work on Friday because I’ll already have my 40 hours in for the week.

Train schmain! Suckers!

Or maybe I can think of a better birthday present

Some awesome friends of mine have informed me that they are with child and are expecting in about six months. I’m not sure how this all works, but they said, “You’re gonna’ be an uncle!” I mean, I obviously won’t be a biological uncle, but I’ll be that guy that comes around a few times a year–mostly for the holidays–and they say, “There’s Uncle Josh!” and then the baby gets all happy to see me ’cause Uncle Josh always shows up with presents and stuff and, whenever he comes, that means some kinda’ holiday is comin’ up and that means gettin’ stuff.

They will be my first friends to have a child (I mean, I have other friends with children, but these kids are my age and we’ve been close for years) and I couldn’t be happier for them. The world is an awesome place because of these two and it’ll be even greater with a little one of them runnin’ around.

Possible break from the bloggin’

Seein’ as how I’ll be outta’ town for the next couple days, I may not be able to update my blog. Hopefully, I’ll find me a cyber cafe or something, but if I don’t, consider myself on hiatus until further notice.

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Designing away

I think I’m about ready to start designing JoshDoody.com. I was going to wait on a friend of mine to help me out, but it sounds like he’s too busy and he may not be getting around to my site for a while. I’m very comfortable with design in general, but I’ve never been too good with aesthetics and such. So, lately, I’ve been reading a lot about different design techniques and I feel I’ve learned enough to design a decent site. I guess I’ll know in a bit.

Lazy Saturday

I played basketball this morning, but I only got two games in. That was frustrating, but what was more frustrating was that I didn’t score any points in either game and I was 0-2. I usually expect to play poorly my first game–I’ve always needed a “warm up” game to get going–but I didn’t expect to play as badly as I did. Granted, I only took one shot in the second game, but that’s because I got so gun shy after my 0-for-5 performance in my first game. I think we could’ve won either game (I think we lost both games by a score of 12-10), but my team just didn’t seem to gel. In the second game, I was guarding my guy out on the perimeter when all of a sudden, I ran smack into a pick. I guess that would’ve been ok if I’d been warned and just didn’t pay attention, but since my teammates never called the pick for me, I was pretty peeved. What was worse was that the guy guarding the pick-setter wasn’t around to switch when I lost my guy. That was one of many easy buckets courtesy of our poor communication.

Later in the day, I took a nap.

This evening, I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond to pick up a little blanket to keep by my couch. The couch is right under a vent, so when the A/C comes on, I get chilled. While I was there, I realized how much easier it would’ve been to decorate my apartment if I’d gone there to begin with. I mean, Target and Wal-Mart have a decent selection and decent prices, but they’ve got nothin’ on the Triple-B. I saw a few things there I’ll probably end up going back to get: a couple bar-stools at 30 bucks each and a little “telephone table” that I would put by the front door and use as a place to drop all the stuff outta’ my pockets when I come home from work.

I’m going to sleep now.

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Proud Owner

Or at least owner. I decided to go ahead and pay-off my car today (there wasn’t too much principle left) since I had the money and my financial decisions lately consist of figuring out which particular debt to knock out. For now, it was the car. I guess it’s nice to not have to worry about the monthly payments anymore, but it’d be a lot nicer if I didn’t dislike my car so much. I’ll try and count my blessings, I guess.

Time for the sleeping.

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Through The Horse and His Boy

I finished up the third book of the Chronicles of Narnia this past Sunday and I’m working on Prince Caspian. I’m starting to get into new territory, meaning I haven’t read these books before, so it’s all fresh and new and I’m really enjoying it. Normally, I’m not a big “fantasy” or children’s lit. fan, but C.S. Lewis just does such a great job painting word pictures and articulating concepts through metaphor that it’s impossible for me not to enjoy his writing.

California: attempt 2

Well, I’m going to try to go to CA again next week. This time, I think it’ll happen and the timing seems pretty good. I’m going to e-mail my co-worker out there tomorrow so he can give me a list of places to go and things to do while I’m out there. I figure I’ll use it as sort of a field-trip to learn about L.A. and that general area. It’s been about, oh, 20 years since I was out there, so we have a lot to catch up on.

The Passion

Well, I’ve been itching to see it since I first heard Mel Gibson was working on it and I’ll finally get to catch it tomorrow night. I’m going with a friend who’s already seen it, but he says he’s excited to see it again. I’ve already heard lots of opinions on different aspects of the movie, but the great thing is that I already know what happens, so I can watch it simply to appreciate the gravity, intensity that the movie is said to create.

Pay day approaching

I get paid again on Thursday afternoon. This way of life is so different from being a college student, I still can’t get used to it. In college, my bank account would spike once every four months or so, then it would slowly decline as I spent my scholarship and loan money. Then, as a new semester began, so the cycle would recycle. Now, I get a fresh influx of cash every two weeks and I have a lot of freedom regarding how I spend or invest it. Right now, I’m focusing on paying back my student loans and the other “debt” I incurred this past year at school. I say “debt” in quotes because although it is technically debt, I’m not paying any interest on any of it, so I don’t stress about it too much. If all goes as planned, I’ll be paying back all of this past year’s living expenses by October without having paid a penny of interest on that money. Then, I can start whittling away at the real debt.

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Vulnerability

Since my move, I’ve thought a lot about my future. Specifically, I’ve thought about who I will (or won’t) be spending it with. I mean, I guess for most people, marriage is an inevitable part of the plan. For some, it’s a five-year plan, for some a ten-year plan, for some an ASAP-plan. I’ve been realizing that I’m probably on the 10-year-plus plan because I’m just not comfortable with my future–where I’ll be, what I’ll be, who I’ll be–and I don’t see any sense in adding another person into the already confused mix.

That said, I was workin’ out today (I don’t have much to do but think while I’m workin’ out) and I realized that, somewhere out there, there’s a girl who, with one look, could completely obliterate my 10-year-plus (not) plan. I mean, I don’t really have any grandiose picture of who I’ll be (although I’m leaving my options open and I’m always up for suggestions), but right now I’m very comfortable with the idea that I could be romantically alone for the next several years–I’m actually kind of looking forward to it–but I am also realizing that I could be put in a situation where I meet a girl and have no alternative but to think, “Yeah… I’m supposed to marry her.”

I guess I was just struck by how fragile something as big as a “future” can be. I might think I’ve got me some plans, ideas, hopes and all that, but it wouldn’t take much to force me to scrap it and start in a whole new direction. For now, I’m really happy with the vague direction I’m headed in, and no, I didn’t have anyone in mind when I wrote this.

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Phone home

The highlight of my day was a 45-minute conversation I had with a friend from back home. This has been a common theme since I got here and it seems that nothing I do is ever more refreshing than talking with someone from home. Tonight’s conversation was all over the place, but the common thread throughout the conversation was the commonalities that we share. It’s nice to realize that I’m not alone and, although I’ve begun a new phase in my life, there are many other people experiencing things just like I am. It’s interesting how we can be in different places in life, but still be experiencing the same things.

Group blog

I don’t think that I mentioned the other blog I’m a part of now. A friend of mine decided it would be good to have a blog where many people post to discuss our perspectives on transitions. Specifically, we’re all in some phase of the college-to-real-world transition. I think it’s a good idea and I hope I can contribute something meaningful. I’m not a super writer and I often have trouble thinking of interesting, useful and creative things to say, but if I do think of something that has all those attributes, I’ll post it over there.

Still reading the Chronicles

I’m in the third book and still enjoying the series. Nothing to report except that I’m still reading them and I’m going to knock out another chapter right now.