Time to get old...

So I graduated on May 25^th. I’ll be adding a more personal picture soon, once I acquire one. And while I won’t get into the details of my five-day weekend (Thursday counted as the weekend this time) of merrymaking and revelry, I will say that I enjoyed the entire experience quite a bit.

This year's graduation. I'm in there somewhere.

I’m not a very emotional person or anything, because I look at graduation as a logical step in life rather than a major achievement. That might sound pretentious (in which case I don’t care), but that’s just how my life has always been: you go to school and then you graduate from it and move on.

Now I have a job, but I’m going to try my best to keep work and personal blogging separate, so I won’t mention my job on here (quite yet). I will be writing with my new job though, so that’s nice. I’ve enjoyed every day of work so far, which not everybody can say, and things are going well.

Anyway, my final weekend as a college student was just about perfect. While numerous people had various gatherings on different nights, one of the weekend’s highlights was getting to see my good friend (as I claim him to be) Joey Ryan perform both Friday night and Saturday afternoon in Sioux Falls (click that link by the way…my current favorite is “Speak Easy, Mr. Darling”). Every time he plays I like his solo stuff more and more, which is awesome. I also informed Joey that when I get a career as a professional film scorer/soundtrack producer, I plan on using his music as frequently as possible. So get ready to hear him in the movies sometime soon.

I also had a great weekend with my roommate and his brother/brother’s friends. Andrew Hewitt and I have lived together for three years now, and somehow he manages to keep putting up with me. His brother and sister-in-law threw an awesome party for him on Sunday night and a bunch of our friends showed up. Unfortunately, a bunch of his brother’s friends showed up too (Durns and Gellart, for example), but all in all, it turned out to be a great finale to an awesome four days. By the way, just kidding Durns and Gellart.

I also somehow ended up on a friend’s party bus (p.s. – our bus was about 1/30^th as nice as that one…and that’s not a typo…) Saturday night, when I certainly was not expecting to do so. That randomness turned into a substantial amount of fun though, so I have no regrets about it.


No more student sections for me...

So now I’m old, and while I’ll still do some collegey things over the next few years, I’m looking forward to what the rest of my life has to offer. Hopefully when my current job ends, I’ll be able to get a new job that I enjoy just as much. It’s easy for me to say I’m not worried about the future when I know I’ll like what I’m doing for at least six more months. After that, I’ll just have to make it good. Luckily, I’m awesome so I don’t think I’ll struggle too much with making my career enjoyable.

Anyone else have some exciting graduation weekend stories? I’d love to hear about them, even if they happened many, many years ago.

"Pop in my CD and let me run a rhyme, and put your car on cruise and lay back cause it’s the summertime..."

Get Excited...I'm Finally Back!

I’m alive. It may seem shocking, but I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. I’ve just been really, really busy. Which will take us right into distraction #7, so that’s convenient. But first, if you haven’t read the previous posts, the bottom three of my top ten distractions were: 10) Eating, 9) Comic book reading and buying, and 8) Searching for crap I don’t need online. Onward, to number 7...+6?!?

P.S. – I know this post is long, but it's been so long since I've posted and there are tons of good links in this one. If I were you, I’d take the time to peruse them sometime when you need to be distracted. I’d be lying if I said I weren’t a little proud of this post.

#7 AND 6 - School

What?!? Two distractions in tandem? “Blasphemy!” you say. As much as I’d love to tell you that you’re right, the truth of the matter is that school takes a special two-spot rank on this list as a result of the last three weeks of my life. During the last twenty-one days, I have been subjected to 7:00 AM wake-ups to watch scary movies (for school), writing three 25+ page group papers (for school), and devoting any time that could have been spent in fun and debauchery instead studying and preparing for the end (of school). And while Augustana College has certainly owned me during its various mid-term and finals time frames over the past four years, the rank is no higher than a 6-7 ranking due to one fact: I’m done with school forever after Sunday. So, while school has been a distraction (as can be seen by my supreme lack of blog posts), it will soon be the Artist Formerly Known as a Distraction. And in less than a week I will be out of the tyrannical clutches of the non-living organism that is school…forever.

#5 – On-line Humor and Fun

This is not the only on-line distraction I deal with, which is why a #5 ranking is slightly lower than what may seem logical, but anyway, some of my more enjoyable and distracting experiences on-line come in the form of humorous videos and cartoons (warning...VERY violent), as well as fun games. I think a major part of this affinity for said internet elements first presented itself in this Strong Bad e-mail from the Homestar Runner website. While my love for the site has since diminished, it was this video that made me realize how much the internet had to offer in terms of humor. One of my newfound favorites, discovered courtesy of my friend Brenni Fresh, is this one (WARNING...you might be offended if you are a scientologist…or if you don’t really have a sense of humor).

Also, this game presented the biggest hindrance to my success in Statistics class my junior year. I’m going to go with an external locus of control on this one and blame the game rather than myself. By the time I reached my Line Rider peak, I was creating jumps where my sledding stick-man was soaring through the air over roaring dragons and spike canyons. Nothing as impressive as this though. However, similar games, (such as the ones found at Addicting Games…such a fitting name) have kept me from accomplishing goals and tasks countless times. As a result, these games and videos get a number 5 ranking.

I know what you’re thinking, and you’re absolutely right; “If these unbelievably distracting distractions are only #7, 6, and 5, the rest of the distractions must be insane (ironically, this video was the first that came to mind when I thought of a link for “insane” and when I searched Google videos with the search term "insane," it was the first result to come up...crazy…or…insane). And the soon-to-come distractions are insane. So get ready.

P.S. (again) - My new address is now easier and faster to type out. It's just www.wisdsomsmouthpiece.com. Woohoo! (I'm so glad to be able to blog again).

I'm a educated fool with money on my mind... got my ten in my hand and a gleam in my eye...

Twitter: My (not so) early adopted child...

I should just give up on the distractions because they are taking me forever to get posted, but I'm not giving up yet. If anything, this just goes to show you how easily I get distracted. In fact, one of the reasons I get so distracted is due to what I'm writing about right now.

This blog post by Robert Scoble (a "technical evangelist") is a perfect example of how I feel right now as a result of Twitter. Very, very few of my myriad friends use Twitter, so they wonder why (and get angry because) my Facebook status always says that I'm Twittering. Luckily, I felt really tech-savvy because, with so few people on Twitter, I feel like I might be one of those "early adopters." And they always seem like such cool people.

In the grand scheme of things, I'm probably not a true early adopter, but at least I'm trying. Anyone else having issues with wanting more (real life) friends to get on Twitter? Anyone I'm (real life) friends with on it already without my knowledge? Let me know so I can follow you. If I'm not already (real life) following you. Because I do that sometimes. If you want to follow me (like all of these people), it's just "MikeBilleter."


Federal agents mad cause I'm flagrant, tap my cell and the phone in the basement...