its beginning to feel like 3 am on christmas

That would be because....it actually is 3 AM on christmas day.  The most recent disovery I've made is that Torchlight is a pretty deent game, anyone who enjoys the Diablo/Action RPG type games will feel right at home.  I wouldn't go in w/your hopes TOO high but as far as single player goes its actually quite nice.  I downloaded it quickly after realizing that this Risen (pc game) dvd disk was blank. 

Its offiially christmas...well 3 hours into the actual day.  I'm thankfull we have that beautifully baby Jesus to watch over us now.  He certainly isn't a baby, or a person we an physially see for that matter.  He is right there behind me everytime I step out into this big wide and sometimes vicious world though. 

I've grown to be rather hesitant about Lynds and mine home loan.  I know were approved and I know we lose on the 29th, but I won't really realize it until we sign the papers.  I am SO beyond ready to sign the dotted line and start investing this money into our future, our home and our life.  I totally just ripped a rather loud fart (its 3 AM) I think my new pup Archelaus woke up , pwnd. 

You see how I stopped the semi-mushy srs part right there, pretty clever aye?  I really hope this christmas goes well.  I know my mother and family will enjoy the wii that I got them.  It didn't cost any out of pocket money b/c I just did some trading and things were good to go.  Truth be told i've made about 300 bucks in the past week.  Thats not even counting the extra 100 that I put down to get the earlier mentioned new pup.  I'll write a blog about that whole process a bit later. 

I'm thinking that Lynds and I def need a good camera here soon.  I figure if we're getting a new one we might as well get a rather nice one.   SLR cams are nice but not sure that any are quite affordable for our lifestyle at the moment.  I cant really think too straight b/c I am actually starting to get tired.   Hadn't wrote in a while...so figured I would. 

...agian so boring w/o the format or pics in post.  iSux , sry.

merry christmas

I come to you now defenses down. Defenseless now.

     I wish I could've seen growing up that when I was told to "be myself" that it really would work.  There will always be those who shut you out or push you down.  What matters at the end of the day was that you kept on doing what you feel is right and didn't bend.  I'm not saying that I was always right, god knows that it's completely the opposite.  In high school I felt like god was just sort of something that was there.  God was something that gave people the decency to stop people from asking me why I had coke bottle glasses.  God was something inside of people that would take me as I was..no questions asked.  This could be true, but really the part of the picture that I wasn't getting was that it wasn't God.  It was really morals and standards. 

     Tie all that into my present...I often wonder if it's God or my standards that keep me away from alcohol and drinking.  I have never been one to like that.  I did however, dip my toes in the waters of smoking pot as a teen.  I thought that was okay...but never was keen on drinking.  Of course now the smoking thing is a definite 100% NO, its not even in the question.  I am not against a glass or two of a nice whine or champagne, I have yet to try either of those...but may sooner or later.  I have no desire to get drunk but I do know that they help prevent kidney stones...which I don't ever care to try.   I KNOW that I hold the alchohol thing against others...and I shouldn't.  I don't even like to be around it, or have anything to do with it unless its in a (to my oh so precious standards) classy way. 

On past the alchohol and back to the being yourself though.  I really hope that when I have kids I can put this message through and really get it across.  If you really just keep it true to yourself then people will accept that and half the time you can really help people change.  Half the time a group is poking fun there's a GOOD chance that someone in the group doesn't feel that way ...they're just going with the flow.  I don't want to make a scene by busting out a bible and doing some obscure scene to pray over dinner in public.  I do however think that I should be praying over every meal I have.  It doesn't have to be some elitist prayer that clears the skies so that got himself can high five me for my awesome play of words on my thirty minute prayer in the middle of Applebees.  Just a short little "thank you for everything I have and will have " will suffice.

     Lynds has been doing a great job of keeping us praying before dinner and I really think it does help us.  It's always good practice to have reminders in our life.  We use sticky notes to remind us to do small errands throughout the day.  A simple prayer before a meal is a good reminder of what we should be thankfull of.  A bible/cross or anything that may remind you of what you believe in on your desk may help you remember whats right and wrong when your browsing the oh so enticing internet.  I'm no saint nor am I a preacher, just things that have helped me in life.

This post has been on and off for almost an hour and at this point waking up for church will certainly be a slight challenge.  Today Katie got married, twas a very well put together reception.  I could tell Lynds was getting semi emotional and most likely thinking about the fact that we will be doing the same thing in about 3 months.  Had a great time catching up w/Jamz0rz and playing wii for like...prolly 2-3 hours, lulz.  My nerves are on edge to hear from these underwriters.  If we get this loan approved and move into our house this month it will no doubt be one of the happiest moments of both our lives.  Its such an amazing house that I can really see us raising our kids in if that is where we are when kids come into play.  Schools going so-so, there are some things I'd like to change but its completely out of my grasp.  looking forward to seeing what Mr. Crocker has as a surprise tomorrow.   It's almost 3 I need teh sleepz0rz.

if anyones reading this sorry for the lack of photos along the post...no time tonight

A constant work in progress

Would be a pretty good summary of life and an effective way to view it.  I know that I've had my fair share of speed bumps and there are many more to come.  I do hope that I'm making the right decisions now so more than ever.  It's not just myself that I am responsible for, I feel that I am making decisions that will effect Lyndsey as well.  I pushed to back away from the townhouse we were pursuing, and instead go for an actual home.  I know that Lynds was heels over head in love w/the townhouse...but if we get stuck somewhere for more than 5 years and kids come into play that may not be the best place.  I feel 100% certain that this house is an actual home that we can grow old in if that's the way the cookie crumbles.

     This is a dummy pic, its similiar but just flip it around so the door is on the right band side of the garage.  I am actually VERY excited that this place has a 2 car garage.  I really miss doing music, I'd trade every 360 I have to be able to get up on stage and do music again.  It's always nice to have a crowd that enjoys your music, but I 100% enjoyed just gettting up there and performing with the guys.  Its somewhat funny b/c I use to be known as the shy person growing up, I thought on stage I'd clam up and let my nerves get the best of me.  It was actually the opposite, I wish I would've been more social with the crowd but overall I'm not let down with my part in the band.  I am not so sure that I have time to do it in school, and I know that Lynds def doesn't think I should.  However, if a really promising opportunity came up I don't know that it'd be all that easy to pass it up.  I start to sit down and run through stories in my mind, which later turn to ideas for songs...but never seem to write them down.

    Lastly, school is going rather well in my opinion, I'm super stoked to actually start my networking classes.  I started to work on a layout for twitter and consider using it.  If you clicked on the link you can clearly see the oh so beautiful avatar that is...AyyoitsBrandon.  I also went into my template for blogger and figured out how the crap to make a "read more" link.  It used to be easy in the LJ/DJ days...technology fails this time.  It's almost midnight...so I need to get some rest.

hope meet reality and lets all come to an agreement

One thing that's become so vividly clear in my life and mind is that growing up there isn't always a clean cut right and wrong choice. I find myself rebounding from making the wrong choice and ending up much better then planned, and in the same instance. This whole home purchasing thing has shed light that really a marriage is more than just love, more than just hopes and dreams. It really involves so much decision making and coming to an agreement. I have no doubt that I'll grow old with Lyndsey , but really you never get the full effect of it until you have to start coming to a decision on serious matters. I think that both her and I will learn more about each other then we can imagine.

The funny part is I've heard this all before...and always said nah you know what I already know my fiancee' quite well. What'd everyone always hear growing up...ah yes, never say never.''

I find myself STILL having constant conflicting thoughts in my head about if something is simply morally/personally not right or if its rather sinfull. We all make mistakes and its a day to day thing that we most likely will never be able to break. That is a whole different story in which I don't have time to get into. I really do want to consistently blog, but for (what i'd think) a good reason. I'd like to be able to show my kids that yes I did go through.

Tonight Lynds and I went to a local show with Todd and Sam. We met up with our buddy Adam there also. I REALLY enjoyed In Regret they had so much passion and energy. It's one thing to work a crowd but it another when you can tell the music really means something. I've been listening to them for the past hour or close to two , hah. I REALLY didn't enjoy Calvary, the guy was cussing the entire time while talking in between songs. I understand profanity gets thrown around...and while I don't cuss I'm sure I say words others don't agree with. Show was at a bar so I also understand that its most likely gonna happen, however when you say "oh f jesus he isn't real" thats a line that you really shouldn't cross. I was glad to see that people were leaving after that. Major props to Craig (from ophira) for immediately waking out and being the first. Show was overall a good time . Afterwards me and Todd rocked out some New Super Mario Bro's Wii...good times.

I'm about to head to bed , tomorrow should be full of working on my powerpoint, chatting it up with Coleseph and hopefully helping Lynds with some packing and what not. I'm walking on egg shells with this house! Also working on a new comic with a friend, I'll hopefully put it up online and do a new comic every week...we shall see. If it gets good responses maybe we can increase the count and what not.

How I turned 165 dollars into over 500dollars...

Its been a while since I've updated the good ol' blog. A lot of stuff has happened, in hopes of keeping good spirits I'm just going to write about how I have actually progressed forward and trippled my money without doing much besides emailing and holding out for good deals. I actually was inspired by the story about how a guy traded a pen or a penny (something of the sort) and kept trading until he got a house.

As my dear sweet fiancee mispells it "husselin" but everyone else would hopefully go the correctly spelled road and spell it "hustling". With that being said let me demonstrate how I turned a ukulele I didn't use anymore into well over 500 dollars.

I picked up a Cordoba Uke a few years ago for about 150'ish b/c they didn't have the cheaper one I was told was in stock. That being said, it was collecting dust since I prefer to play acoustic and/or electric guitar over it. The only reason I wanted to get the uke was so that one of my good friends James and I could play/sing songs in the car ride to Warped tour in NC. It served as a great time filler for the ride and my baby sister Gracie LOVVVVVVVVVVVED to play with it any chance she got. Actually all the kids in the family wanted to, its just a tad too pricey for kids to play with as a toy.

That being said I decided I'd sell it, I got 175 out of it. I took 165 and purchased an Xbox 360 with a 20 gig gig HDD and 3 games. The games were

Lost Planet
NBA 2k6
Smackdown Vs Raw 09


I ended up selling this without the hard drive and only with the nba game for 140.


After this I bought this package for 140. It was Guitar Hero 3 w/wireless guitar, Perfect Dark Zero (collectors edition) and Ghost Recon 2. Also had wirelesscontroller and 20 gig hard drive. This left me with an extra 20 gig hard drive. I ended up selling the extra for a quick Ulysses. Now for those of you who dont know about the good ol' Ulysses...shame ...shame on you. Mr. U is a step below the ever so popular Benjamin. I would just call him Grant but ya know we use Ben's first name...so hey whatever Ulysses S. Grant FTW. Hopefully you got that and realized I'm talking about the great 50 dollar bill that I'm sure everyone loves all the same. I got a bit off subject there but honestly I think that the two women that read this dont care. I love you mom and lynds, ...and anyone else who stumbles upon this masterpiece of blogging history.

So yea, took the 50 dollars and bought a non functioning Polaroid 3200 LCD TV for 50 bucks. The guy was super nice and said he'd even refund me the money (he's ballin) if I couldn't fix it. My good buddy Coletrain wants it for 50 if i dont fix it though. Heres a pic of Frankenstien. I call him that b/c hopefully one day like my boy Dr Frankenstien did he shall be ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE! I think its a power inverter that needs fixing, that costs about 140 dollars. I'm assuming a shop will do it for 160'ish or I'll do it myself...worst case scenario I get my 50 bucks back and initiate the "husseling" all over again.

Now for the big bang shibang dont soil your pants when I drop this bomb of crazyness upon you. I traded the 360 console w/wireless controller and 20 gig HDD, Lost Planet, Ghost Recon 2 and Perfect Dark Zero for none other than an 80 Gig PS3! I really have never enjoyed any sony products...but this was an AWESOME deal. I was told it was a 40 gig with 3 games...its an 80 with 4 games though. I did about 15 happy dances in a row followed by a macarana and most likely something Micheal Jackson would have coreographed himself. Of course I had to put a pic up since I did all the others.

I was actually planning on most likely selling the TV for somewhere b/w 300-400 but now I may hold onto it so I have something to play xbox on if Lynds wants to watch TV. Who knows though, I think the goal is to get a 42 or bigger downstairs for when we have people over and then we can move the 32" to the office. I really need to get to bed now.

I'm trying to sell the ps3 bundle for 450

Viola!

I am unbelievably tired but wanted to write this out tonight while it was all fresh in my mind.


************EDIT*********

PS3 was old read newer post for moar information'

The economy sucks, more student loans please?

I'm not looking forward to taking out over 20k worth of student loans. It's 6k~ per semester and should take hopefully around 2 years going all year round. I am rather headstrong about going to ECPI for a BS in Network Security. I get the best view of both worlds nowadays....

I see people that have degrees living pretty good lifestyles. At a previous job though, I saw first hand how a degree didn't really do much. I think when it all comes down to it a degree helps a TON. What really puts you where you are is your desire and push to do well. I will be the first one to admit I am by no means a handy man...what so ever. I do however think that I am fairly good at learning what I need to. If you put something in front of me and say I need this, you can bet I'm going to try my hardest to learn how to it thoroughly in and out.

As of late I think I've really gotten a good grasp for just doing my own thing and not really caring if thats cool or hip. I don't think anyone at work likes the same music that I listen to the most. I don't think that makes me cool by any means, actually it kinda makes a gap...but its all good. I love my job and have already learned a good bit of stuff from electrical work to network troubleshooting.

Anywho back on track, the average network security engineer position in the US pays 77. If I could just make 50k in a few years that'd be pretty dang amazing. So here's to hoping I finally get this right and buckle down. I feel a lot better going into this w/Lynds in my life. She is amazing at keeping me on track and headed in the right direction.

This saturday her, myself, my little sister, mother, and grandmother will be headed to the Cola zoo. I know that everyone is looking forward to that quite a bit. I am not excited about the zoo...more so the people and seeing them all happy and what not.

This post was pretty comic-less, next time I'll try to bring the full force.


Fun-fact - Microsoft may actually fix a modded xbox if you try to send it in....lets see if it works for me.

Also there was a bday party for a cousin that we see all the time at any family occasion. For some reason his mom/dad (my aunt/uncle) didn't throw me nor lynds an invite. Shame on you guys for hoe'ing out on us like that.

Now I shall join Lynds in watching one of her fav shows...American Idol. Lets hope for dinner being done, lulz.

Testing

If this lovely contraption work then I can update el bloggo via the
iPhone

Sent from my iPhone

The richest man I've ever met

You may think of a few names when you read that...maybe Mr. Buffet, Mr. Gates or that one guy who wrote iShoot for the iPhone? Well I'm sure they make more money than my encounter, so forget about any of those people and just focus on this guy I'm about to bring into your e-life. Ready, set, ..who cares here it goes.

So recently Lynds and I had a full fledged drug bust across the street. It was complete with a battering ram, swat team and 2 flashbangs. I'm sure your thinking...a flashbang...okay its light? No friend its not just light, your forgetting the bang that exists. Heres a youtube vid to display it.


Now that its out of the way lets revisit that oh so grand day two weekends ago. The lady and I are chilling on the couch all lazy sunday status and we hear some yelling. We immediately think its arguing and dont think much of it. After about 10 seconds this escalates into some yelling that we hear through our walls. Mind you this is coming from clear across the street. Now we are standing up kinda concerned. We heard two loud "thud"s that were immediately followed by two of the beloved flashbangs. From a distance we thought for sure these were gunshots. Being the hybrid mix of a man/pansy that I am....I said f this lets go hide in our bathroom away from the "gunshots". Lynds called 911 and I called her dad....911 was so kind to tell us its most likely a transformer. I'm so glad to know in the event of a drug raid you guys are clue-less and try to tell us that the yelling just happened randomly before two transformers explode one after another....right? Anywho after a few mins we go into our roomies room and look out his window. Sure enough theres like 15 swat guys and a bunch of undercover police all over the place.

Heres a vid I took sideways w/my iPhone....


So fast forward to tonight...now I hear a lot of the story. Homeboy is from Jamaica and he is BALLIN. He was making at least 1 million a MONTH. Dude had a trucking company that he transported the drugs in and had a deal with wal-mart transporting goods with his trucks. Everyone in his family drives BMW's, which had full service check and tire replacements at least once a month if not more. At this point your just looking on ways to blow your money. They also had 2 planes AND his sister is in New York...she transports 3 times what he does. Its nuts how this can go down and not get caught.

The house that was raided has 55,000.00 in repairs that need to be made....the Rastafarian Renegade is no where to be found. Everything is in his baby mommas name...the company and everything. He's just over here on a work vista. That makes it pretty easy to just bounce back to the homeland at any given time if stuff gets sour. One of his buddies apparently is in jail for kidnapping someone at gunpoint with an AK-47. If your still not impressed I'll spoil your thoughts of Jamaica. If you go outside of the resorts it is flatout dangerous. Apparently they will cut your hand off to steal your jewelry. There shall be no jammin man or killer bud smoking session w/yer boyz if you go there.

The BEST part is that my landlord told us all the neighbors were quiet and had no problems. I guess he forgot to mention how when his dog crapped in the said dealers yard homeboy said if it happened again he would straight up kill him. I don't know what part of death is soothing and friendly to the land lord...maybe someone else can fill me in?

All that aside, today I felt bad for blowing matt and kim off to hear this story. They were inside and when the owner of the house (rented out to Rasta) came over to talk about things. Karma came back in full force b/c an un-named friend toly blew off a new nightly tradition of CoD. Shame on you son...shammmmmmmmmmmmmmme on you.

I'd still pick my friends over you

but more than likely only my friends are reading this, so that need not apply. I figured I'd join the cool kids of this day and age and write a somewhat personal blog. For now I'll just go on record and say that Xbox Live is addictive. Please do add me, my tag is AyyoItsBrandon ....clever aye? But seriously if you see me on your team you might as well switch sides b/c I bring the suck in full force like your mom or dad tagging along on a date. I would actually be fine if my parents wanted to join Lynds and I on a date.

Lately life has been good, I am a very blessed guy when it the proverbial cookie has crumbled. If I wasn't such a procrastinator I think that the bank account would have about 3-4k more monies in it. Someone should help me get a civil case going against this broad that hoe'd me out for a good months worth of work. I would call my man Bill Green but I don't think he could handle the level I'm on w/this woman. In all honesty I've written it off as a loss...but that much money would be nice, knamsayin?

I REALLY miss being in a band, I definately took for granted how much fun all that hard work turned out to be. My old band Apathy For Avarice (AFA) was mucho good times. Here are some vids

This is vid from one of our more recent shows we had before breaking up, the drummer Brian is now in a new band. Check them out here



LOL @ 1:20


..yea I don't sing amazingly but this was one of most memorable practices. @ 1:30 it gets epic


this was last time I jammed with the guitarists and a new drummer

Well thats all for tonight, next post will have less music for sure. Last mention of the good times for a bit...