Whats Up Real World? We'll See

Oh wow, it's almost been an entire month since I last blogged it up! For those of you who read the last entry in my little online journal, this one has nothing to do with part two... My bad. In all honesty I could sum it up in a few words. Me and Chad went to this craw fish feed deal where there were these little alien lookin things they called craw fish (absolutely ugly). I had one and that was about it. That's the extent of my craw fish eating adventures. Well that's the end of that story so on to the next piece of Adam's Life and Times!

Last weekend, Saturday May 15th, 2010, I graduated from college! To those who have walked the plank it may seem like a small step in the great landscape of life but to me it still seems extremely crazy to think about. I am forever done with school. No longer will academia force me to get up early in the morning (that's my work's job). I don't have to make a Fall schedule because I wont be attending school when the leaves start hittin' the ground. I'll be settled into my town house in Columbia. I'm finally taking the step out of my comfort zone. Although a small part of me is weary about the next couple of months, a very large part is excited beyond measure. I'm going to finally be a part of the real world that people have been telling me about for the last few years. So far there have been mixed reviews but I'm gonna take the positive approach and see where that lands me.

Back to graduation! Well people, on Saturday I woke up eager to get things done. I just wanted the ceremony to be right then and now so I could come home and mingle with the folks who matter most (and so i could have a few beers). The whole thing seems like a blur that I remember distinctly for some reason. It could have been that the speaker kept reciting lines from the play "Rent" or the air-horns that kept going off because family members couldn't contain their excitement. There were just a random mix of shenanigans that kept me in tune enough to remember the event but not interesting enough to keep my attention throughout. "Five-hundred-twenty-five-thousand-six-hundred minutes" is what that speaker said about four or five times during her speech. It was hilarious because it was like nobody else knew what she was quoting and they just thought she was throwing random numbers into space. Needless to say I had a few laughs. To put the ceremony in a nutshell; we all stood in a stuffy, humid hallway entirely too long, sat through nonsensical rambling by people I have never personally spoken to, walked across a stage in front of a non familiar audience, and exited to the tune of "Pomp and circumstance." That's about it.

It may have been a boring two hours but it was worth it. I have my degree and the proof is stamped on a slip of paper I have sitting in my kitchen so I can see it everyday. That tiny piece of paper is the culmination of four years of my life. Now I have the rest of it to see what I can do with that little piece of paper and how well it works in my favor. It's almost like I paid for a new car but have no idea if its going to run or if I'm going to like it in the next few years and that's a scary thing to grasp. Just because it's scary doesn't mean I wont put my heart and soul into the journey that is the rest of my life.

I know this particular blog wasn't as insightful as some others, I just wanted to fill you guys in on what has been goin' on in this guy's world. I honestly hope you all are doing well and want you to have the peace of mind that I am currently experiencing. It would take a force of nature to shake me right now and that's an awesome feeling. It's like I have a shield surrounding me keeping all of the dumb crap at bay. Watch out real world, this train is comin'! Until next time. God bless.

Weekend in Quincy: Part One

Hey guys and gals, it's that time again. I'm sittin' in the computer chair, drinkin' some water from my "jug-o-water" with Family Guy playing in the background. Yeah, I literally have a gallon of water labeled "Adam's Jug-O-Water." I've gotta stay hydrated folks. Also, you can't go wrong with the best cartoon ever going on behind the scenes. The combination of Peter's stupidity paired with Stewie and Brian's randomness is a beautifully executed masterpiece of foolishness.


This past weekend, Chad (Maverick), Megan, Breanna, and I (Goose) took a little road trip to the town of Quincy, Illinois. What was the occasion? Just a little weekend retreat to Megan's house in the country so we could attend the annual craw fish feed. Let me tell you a little bit about this awesome craziness.


We loaded up the Explorer with some clothes and beer. You know, the essentials. Letting Megan drive was a fantastic decision because this enabled me to throw back some cold, refreshing beer after a long week of academic madness. That, and I didn't know how to get there so it all worked out. We finally pull up to Megan's place and by that time, I think we're all ready to get out and cause some mischief in the town of Quincy. So we, The Four Musketeers, with the addition of my best pal Billy went out and got a little intoxicated. At some point during the night we made it to a night club called Phoenix and this was about the time where everything kind of ran together into some convoluted mess and not much seemed to make sense. So I was standing there aimlessly with Billy and that's when Chad approached the little group and stated that some douche bags wanted to fight him for walking by their crowd with "his fists clenched." Hmmm, interesting. After some other conversation unknown to me, Billy departed and then there were two. Chad and me, being in no shape to throw down, and our counterparts wandering elsewhere in the club, we took off out the door.


Now, I don't know exactly what we were thinking but apparently power walking through downtown Quincy sounded like a damn good idea at the time. As I sit here and think about it, I remember we were looking for another bar. The problem with this mission is that it was 2:30 a.m. and there was NOTHING else open. Plenty of neon signs we're strewn across the buildings but not one building had its doors open inviting us in for a frosty treat. In hindsight this was most likely a good thing.


As we continued our jaunt with absolutely no destination, we stumbled upon a gas station. It was almost like an oasis in a desert without the sand and sweltering heat. Nonetheless, we found some refuge so we waltzed in the door and began meandering through the aisles. This is about the time when weird cravings start hitting me so I snagged a fudge brownie off of the shelf.


Here I am with a fudge brownie walking out of this "very" convenient store along with Chad who was equipped with a bag of Cheetos. We made our way over to a bench out front and began to eat our snacks that had the likeness of steak dinners thanks to the alcohol consumption. The whack part of this whole snack-eating endeavour is that we just sat down with no care in the world. Never mind the fact that we wandered a couple of miles away from anybody we knew in a peculiar town. None of that had any precedence, we had our food and we were content.


Somewhere along the lines, we made contact with our sober chauffeur and figured out he would be there with the crew shortly. So as we sat on the bench, no concern for the rest of the world, we contemplated the journey that we just made across town. The ride home seemed fairly quick and everyone promptly proceeded to hit the sack. I'm going to allow you to process the former information and hit you with part two later on down the road. It might be the next blog I write, it might not. You'll just have to pay attention. Until next time. God bless.

Reality Can Be a MoFo but It's All Good

Howdy howdy people. It's been a while since I last wrote something with any meaning (rare occurrence) so I thought in the midst of trudging through the last few weeks of my FINAL semester in college I would attempt to write something cool.

Like I stated in the previous paragraph, it is indeed my last semester of college. My last hoorah, the grand finale, the final show, etc. Before I started this past semester, I honestly thought it was going to be a magical land of trees that would release their "answer leaves" which would fall to my feet. And in this magical land with answers a plenty I was also hoping to be boated down a calm river of classes by a pleasant, as well as attractive, maiden and that we would ultimately reach the utopia of graduation. Far be it for me to wish for such hocus pocus.

I have not found this magical land on my journey toward graduation. I am currently wading through a forsaken river, minus a boat and maiden I might add, in hopes of finding this graduation utopia. The trees I thought would submit these answers are bare-limbed, sad excuses for foliage. No magical land here people, just a desolate and forgotten wasteland.

"Only five weeks left" is what I keep telling myself. I repeat this every day. Technically I have four weeks and three days left and I will say that when I wake up in the morning. I know you're thinking that I've done enough complaining but it gets better. Within this desolate wasteland, I've found a shred of hope, a diamond if you will. It doesn't look like much at first glance but after much inspection, all of its complicated qualities can be seen. Yes, I have found something to take away from this last semester at Lincoln University.

It is not facts and numbers that interest me most about school. This type of knowledge can only go so far and then it becomes obsolete in my eyes. What really matters most are the little nuggets of information that one can take from a book, a lecture, or from any avenue of learning and apply to everyday life. The funny thing is, I've found something very valuable in the oddest of places. My Exercise and Conditioning class or PE 201. What? Why are you in a PE class? I thought your major was Criminal Justice. Oh, it is but this was one of those classes that I thought would be in that magical land with the calm river and maiden. Not so much. Not to worry though, it is this class in which I pick up a very useful piece of information.

This is where it all starts. According to the American College of Sports Medicine, for a muscle to experience growth and strength gains, it must be overloaded. "What is this?" you ask. This is when you add more weight or complete more reps to take the muscle out of its comfort zone in order for it to grow. This increase in intensity is the only way for that to take place. How did I take this information and apply it to my life? Well I do like to work out so it was helpful in that aspect but that's not what I got out of it.

After this little seed of information was read, it floated into my ear and planted itself into my brain. Because I like to sit around and think about random stuff, I backtracked to this piece of knowledge. Not only do muscles grow because of overload, I believe people are just the same. To truly reach one's potential, there must be a certain amount of stress placed upon them. Not too much because like muscles, people have limits but there is a perfect quantity for everyone. In order to grow, we must step out of our comfort zone. These changes can be subtle or drastic. As an example, I will finally be moving out of the house in August. Twenty-two years of living under the same roof as my family and it will all change in a days worth of moving furniture. I am excited about this and embrace the upcoming life alteration but it will be a step out of my comfort zone. There will surely be some growing pains but that's the beauty of it. These changes will ultimately help me grow and mature as a person. I may not see them right away but that's a fact.

Everyone will go through something that will test their limits and put them completely out of the bubble they are used to. The great thing about these situations is that we all have a choice. Not a choice in regards to when we will be thrown into the inferno but about how we deal with it. Being a positive person, I always look for the good in every situation. There have been times, even in the last few months where I've been sent into an entirely different dimension of pissed off and confused but I always look for the light at the end of the tunnel to pull be back to reality and on the right track. That was my choice, either get back on the proper course or let all the bull shit pull me under like the shadowy demon figures in the movie Ghost.

Maybe this little diamond of knowledge I have found in my wasteland is the guiding light to finding graduation utopia. The strain of these not-so-easy classes along with other real world crap is the overload that is going to contribute to my maturity. I will find graduation folks, although it is merely a step. There will yet be situations that afflict me but I'll remember the overload principle and "keep on keepin' on." Until next time. God Bless.

The New Year + Mountain Dew = Good Times

I would like to start off by apologizing to the three or four people who read this blog. I'm sorry for being extremely late. Better late than never I guess. Realizing this is the first blog of the new year... Happy New Year folks! I truly hope every one is having a great year thus far and life is going as smoothly as possible.

At the moment I'm hopped up on mountain dew and watching the end of Bruce Almighty on tv. Good call USA network. I love mountain dew by the way. It's easily the best soda out there. You know what? Go out and buy a mountain dew and some sort of chocolate (I recommend a brownie), eat that and tell me you don't feel awesome. Havin a bad day? Consume that kooky little combination and you'll be right as rain. Enjoy. Anyways, I've been drinking more soda than usual lately thanks to my job at Imo's Pizza. For those of you who don't know, I've been delivering pizza for about two months now and it has literally got to be the easiest job in the world. Except for those girls in Hawaii that lei people as they get off the plane. That might actually be easier but I'm a far cry from Hawaii. I wonder if there's a job application for that. Do they have "lei training school" or somethin? Maybe I'll Google that later. But really I just drive around listening to music, fold boxes, and do dishes. That's what I like to call good times.

Like a lot of people around this great nation of ours, I started classes. Yeah that's right, I'm back at good old LU. There is however something special about this particular semester. What's that Adam? Oh, well let me tell you! It's the last semester of my college career! Wow, its extremely odd to say that. Not long ago I was wandering the halls of Simonsen 9th grade center not knowing what the hell was going on. Now, I'm about to graduate college and enter the "real world." I have a mixed bag of emotions when it comes to that subject. As much as I'm ready to get out of the house and take a step forward, I've gotta say it's a little daunting. I don't have any idea what the future holds for me. Yes, I do have plans but there's no telling what will happen. God could throw me a curve ball and I could end up on a tropical island, wearing flowered shirts and sandals, laying in a hammock all day. That's what makes life thrilling though. It wouldn't be near as fun if we knew exactly what was going to happen each day, who we would meet, or where we would go.

In all honesty I wouldn't mind that tropical island right now. Lets make it happen because I'm done with winter. I've always wondered what it would be like to live on an island for a while, go off the grid. I doubt I'll experience that because I like being around people and at the end of the day our relationships with others are really what make the world go round. Seriously, think about it. As much as we like to think we're independent, we really can't function to our full potential without other people. Even the kids that isolate themselves in their rooms playing Halo on Xbox 360 can't exist without other people. Who made the game they're playing? Who do you think they're battling for online supremacy? You guessed right all-star. People.

Well ladies and gentlemen, the mountain dew has slowly worn off and now I'm tired. No late night drinking shenanigans right now. It's time to throw the engine into neutral and recharge the batteries so when Saturday night rolls around I'm ready to get crunk and rock out. I get it, I'm a dork but I've stopped worrying about that sort of thing. We all have an inner dork so just let it happen. I'm hittin the sack now so sleep tight. Until next time. God bless.

Way to Drop the Ball Criminal Justice System

Hola! Yeah, that’s right; I’ll throw some Spanish around every now and then. During the last few weeks, many finals on college campuses across the nation have taken place. I actually finished my finals a little bit ago. It’s crazy to think that those were the second to last finals I will ever take. The last three and a half years have gone by extremely fast. Faster than high school even. I haven’t exactly had the college experience that is treasured by so many people but I will say that I’ve gotten a good education at a low price. Yeah, I know it sounds like I went to the Save-a-lot of schools but sometimes that’s the way to go.

Before taking my finals I had a song stuck in my head, a motivational song that is. It was pretty much my “finals anthem.” Lil Flip: Game Over. I know, it’s a little kooky but it was the inspiration that got me through those bad boys. I would say it took about an hour and a half total to complete all of my finals so I was lucky. Even in that short amount of time it still felt as if I was in a bit of a prison. You’re gonna like the way I tie this in to what I really want to talk about.

A few days ago I was on yet another Yahoo adventure and read a very interesting article. It was about a man in Florida that had been exonerated after serving 35 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. What…the fuck?! 35 years! 14 years stands between me and being alive for that long. It’s rare to find a marriage that’s lasted 35 years! Imagine what this guy was thinking. He’s had to sit in a little 6’X6’ cell for that long. Easily the longest and hardest years he’s ever spent on this earth. Further reading exposed the fact that he’s just one of 246 people to be released on DNA evidence. Wow, that shit is important! Thanks CSI.

The way I see it, one man wrongfully imprisoned is one too many. In this case its 246 too many. That’s crazy! I guess I can’t be way too mad because they didn’t have the sophisticated technology that we have today. Still, to convict that many people of shit they didn’t do is weak sauce.

After this guy’s stint in the pen he even says he’s not mad. Wow! This dude is one patient mofo. The reason: “He has God.” I can’t even begin to describe how pissed off I would be but this guy takes the high road. For that, I give him mad props. To sit in a place nobody wants to be for 35 years for something you didn’t do and on top of that say your not mad is some inspirational stuff. All the stuff that’s happened since 1975, this guy has completely missed out. The internet, cell phones, and ipods are just a small percentage of the shit he has no idea about.

Missing out on 35 years of ones life would have to be extremely hard to deal with. He had no opportunities for success, no opportunities to start a family. NOTHING! I can’t even begin to fathom how difficult it was to sit there and have that swim around ones mind. Like I said, an hour and a half of finals sucks so spending that much time in prison can only mean that there is no word in the dictionary to describe the suckiness of that situation.

Not to worry guys, under Florida law anybody wrongfully imprisoned and exonerated will receive 50 thousand dollars for each year they were in prison. Doing a little math, that equals about 1.75 million dollars in total that this guy is going to receive. Although that may seem like a lot of money, that can’t even begin to make up for the past 35 years that this guy lost. Money is something that we can spend and throw away but we can get back eventually. Time, however, is one of those things that just doesn’t replenish itself. We have one go at this life and only one shot to get things right.

Having said that, I would just like to say that the time we have here on earth is very important. The way I see it, I have about 60 good years left (at most) to leave an impression. 10 of those years I’ll be old and senile so I have just a small window to make a difference. I’ve said it before, I just want to make some sort of positive impact on someone and I’ll be a happy camper. Basically, just try to be happy and enjoy every second you have. Merry Christmas everyone! And a happy New Year! Until next time, God Bless.

Black Friday and Randomness

Two weeks later! I feel like trying to write a blog a week is a bit of a daunting task so I think from now on I’ll leave it up to chance and let the writing happen when it happens. At the moment I’m going back and forth between Monday Night Football and Family Guy. You’re probably wondering why I even tune into the kooky cartoon when there’s quality football going on. Well people, Family Guy is just a damn good show. That and I already know the Saints are going to throttle the Pats. I’ll knock on wood real quick and get back to it.

As you all know, Thanksgiving was last week or, as I like to call it, Pre game Christmas. Why you ask? As soon as dinner ends the Christmas songs make their way onto radios all over the country. The Tim Allen classic The Santa Clause creeps up on the TV. I’d rather see Christmas Vacation myself, that’s funny as hell. In addition to the spirit filled radios and televisions, lights and decorations come out of storage and seem to magically throw themselves onto houses around town. Let the madness begin!

As much as I like Christmas I feel like we don’t recognize the hidden holiday that wedges itself between Thanksgiving and the weekend. What’s that? Black Friday and it was last week. WOW! That’s all I can say to describe this crazy little day. I’ve never actually braved the storm that is Black Friday but I feel like hearing stories from my mom and watching the chaos unfold on news channels gives me a good enough idea. So I took everything into account and came up with a short list of Black Friday To-Do’s.

1) Have a game plan.
2) Take a small army with you.
3) Carry nothing less than a shank or stun-gun.
4) Practice balling up into the fetal position in case you’re an unlucky soul who gets caught under a crowd.
5) Leave the “nice card” at home, its every man/woman for him/herself (I’m being politically correct…enjoy).
6) Old people, this just isn’t your day. Stick with hangin at McDonalds that morning. It’s safe there.
7) Always be alert! It gets crazy when you stuff a bunch of adults hopped up on caffeine into what is in essence a large box.
8) Be prepared to Barry Sanders it through the electronics section. Elusiveness is key! (Barry Sanders was a running back for the Detroit Lions once upon a time. Badass).
9) Observe. There are some real characters in Wal-Mart even when the Plasmas aren’t on sale.
10) Leave the kids at home. I don’t feel like I have to explain that one.

Don’t just enjoy the list; use it as a guide for next year. It could save a life! I digress. Well guys, I’ve gotta say I had a pretty damn good weekend. It was nice being around some great friends. Especially those who appreciate the randomness that resides in me and those who enjoy a good scavenger hunt! The weekend was a little reminder that it is truly the small things in life that matter.

It’s quite unfortunate that the weekend had to come to a halt; I was enjoying the hell out of it. Now its back to school for two more weeks. You may be thinking “Two weeks, that’s not bad.” Well my friends, the next two weeks are loaded with tests and useless shit to turn in. Thanks college! It’s all good though; providing I don’t fail miserably on my finals and all of next semester I should be done in May. It’s my little light at the end of the tunnel and each day it gets a little brighter. I think Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” said it best, “Success is my only mothafuckin option! Failure’s not!” That’s the approach I’m taking in regards to the rest of my college career. Bring it on LU!

I’m gonna confuse you guys a little bit because I started writing this sucker on Monday but it is now Tuesday. I’ve already realized that the Saints dominated the Pats last night so either the knocking on wood helped or I can just call a football game. I’m going with the latter. Well I reckon I’m gonna get back to my couch and UFC. I hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving and didn’t get mauled on Black Friday. Until next time. God bless.

So what do I write about today? Well after looking back on the week, I figured it out and somehow it relates to Lincoln University. Normally I try to separate myself from school as much as possible but I found this subject too good not to write about. So I was sitting in my Social Psychology class the other day and was introduced to a new topic. Basically, some folks did some research to see how easily people would obey an order from a person who they thought was a figure of importance.

This guy named Stanley Milgram came up with an experiment to see if people would follow orders. What he did was tell one participant that they were conducting an experiment in regards to memory. The participant would be the “teacher” and another person, whom was an actor for the sake of the study, would be the “learner.” The teacher would ask a series of questions and with each wrong answer they would have to shock the learner. Now what they did first was shock the teacher with 45 volts of electricity to give them a taste of what it would be like. From the reactions of the participants, I could tell it wasn’t very comfortable. I’ll say again the person the participant was shocking as just an actor. He wasn’t really shocked.

So the experiment starts and with each wrong answer the voltage goes up. The scale goes from 15 to a LETHAL 450. Yea! LETHAL! Keep in mind the people doing the shocking see the actual scale in front of them. It has labels warning them of the severity of the shocks that they’re administering. During the questioning the participant has a “researcher” sitting in the room telling them that the experiment requires them to continue shocking after wrong answers are given.

What happens throughout is absolutely mind blowing. The actors in the experiment are in a different room but the participant can hear their reactions so they know the consequences of every shock. When they reach about 220 volts, the actor starts shouting “let me out of here… my heart is bothering me.” Wow! You’ve gotta be thinking that after hearing that, participants would refuse to go on. Nope, the show must continue. Some question whether or not they should but the “researcher” in the room says the experiment requires that they go on.

Surprisingly, some people went on without being phased. Oh, by the way, after the actor said he was having heart problems, he fell completely silent. The participants even ask if they killed him. Yet they still fucking go on! Some people even finished, yep they went all the way to 450. Some even ask where they go from there. Now, nobody was really harmed in the experiment of course but after finding out the intentions of the study the participants definitely had some thinking to do. There was a percentage, however, that did stop after a certain voltage was reached. With all of the instances of this experiment, the number was around 30 percent of the people actually stopping.

Some literally believed they may have killed or seriously harmed another person. At the time it was kind of funny to see their reactions during the experiment but as I analyzed the situation further it was rather disturbing. These people knew they were hurting someone and just the presence and suggestions of a so called researcher influenced them to keep going. They knew it was wrong, yet they kept going.
What does this say about human nature? We all say that when faced with a dilemma such as this that we would do the right thing. Well I’m sure that’s what the participants of this experiment said too. Milgram likened this experiment to the Holocaust because of its nature. The Nazis under the leadership of Adolph Hitler, simply just did what they were told and executed over 11 million people. That’s a lot of people! He filled their heads with so much jacked-up nonsense and they actually believed they were cleansing the world. It’s absolutely crazy that one man would go to such extraordinary lengths to cause so much pain and suffering among innocent people. The reasoning given during the trials of Nazi soldiers was simply as I said above; they just did what they were told. Just like the participants in the experiment.

This has to be one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen. The messed up thing is the people in the experiment were just average Joes off of the street. Not some crazy Nazi fuckers. This means that any one of us can be influenced to do some dumb, useless, immoral, and horrible things. After seeing this, I’ve decided I’m going to do my level best to keep thinking for myself and take the road less traveled. I don’t want to just be another Kool-Aid drinker especially when it goes against my beliefs. Granted, I’ve followed when I didn’t completely agree and we all have but seeing this study puts a new spin on that. I now see how easily people can be convinced into doing something that in their hearts they know is wrong. So let this be a little inspiration to do what you believe is right. That might be a little cliché but that’s because it’s held true for so long. Give it some thought. Until next time. God bless.