They say that in the Army...

Dear Readers,

Tomorrow morning I will embark on another Field Training Exercise(FTX) with the Army until Sunday. It should be a pretty good time with everyone, complete with some weapon training, Chinook (big helicopter) ride and some other activities.

Readers, the last few weeks have been interesting, to say the least. My last BLOG was fairly serious and I hope it didn't turn anyone off of my writing. I feel it was necessary to let it all out in words instead of just keeping it to myself, I mean come on I have a BLOG so I just said to myself, "When in Rome." To get my mind off of various topics invading my mind lately, I have been concentrating on school and keeping up with the news. One story that is always mentioned at least three times a week is the cost of oil/gas. I have come up with a unique and extremely feasible solution to lessen the burden on 'ol mother Earth.

In my eyes, there are two different ways we can go about defeating this seemingly inevitable loss of mankind.

1) Stop using gasoline! Just STOP! If scientists and inventors can make a sponge in the shape of a microphone (click here), then they can make some sort of engine converter that makes water work an engine! Let me put it to you this way: imagine going down the street and hearing a huge truck start up. Instead seeing smoke come out of the exhaust, you see bubbles in the shape of kangaroos. The kids will love your new BMW™.

2) Go back to horse and buggy, with one key difference: Genetically enhanced Stallions! Think about it; scientists could create these horses that can run up to 128.9 mph, only needing to stop for a fill-up of steroids and water every 80 miles. That means you'd be getting 40 miles to a syringe (on the highway, city driving will vary according to traffic volume and amount of traffic lights).

So those are my ideas. Obviously it would take some money to get this accomplished, but I think with our country being so wealthy, out of debt, and being economically stable consistently for the past 75 years, we can do anything we put our little minds to.

Goodnight and remember to take it one day at a time,

If something's in your way, move it.

Dear Readers,

I am sincerely sorry that is has been a quick minute since my last post. I have had more problems with my "new" HP™ than I can count. I finally convinced HP™ to let me send it in to get a full repair. In my quest to suck the most satisfaction I can as a customer, I also acquired a larger hard drive for free; I am good.

Anyways, my life has been interesting the last few weeks. I was stricken with a strange nosebleed phenomenon that lasted a combined total of 18.5 hours. Luckily, with the exception of a few instances, it seems as though my "Nosebleeditis" has been cured by nothing except my love for How I met your mother. See, when one of the main characters, Barney, talks about when he gets sick he says, "I don't get sick. You see whenever I start to feel ill, I just become awesome instead." I took his advice and after being awesome for a few days, I decided it was time for the nosebleeditis to stop; and stop it did.

Other than my nosebleeds, I have been just taking every day in stride. I'm treating every day truly as a new day. It seems logical but that simple concept gets lost all the time. I am a planner, which means I am always making plans for the future: I want a career in the Army, I want to graduate on time, I want a wife who I can love unconditionally for the rest of my life, and I want M&M's to always be available for me to eat. All of these things seem simple enough, but to acomplish these time sensitive objectives, I have learned in the last few months that it is much better to set goals that are time bound, attainable, and realistic. All of my plans are all of those things, however, in order to achieve them I must set micro goals along the way to ensure I can complete the major goals.

My recent breakup is a prime example of how micro goals are essential. I was so "sure" of the future and attaining my goals that I got set in my ways and did not try to make the present worthwhile. If I had made micro goals, who knows what may have happened. I will not dare to say it would have ended up differently, but I will say that it would have left me with zero regrets.

It is no secret that I screwed up last semester. I am man enough to admit my mistakes and man enough to say what I could have done differently. Readers, I am not keeping any secrets from you, I lost my Aunt to cancer in the early months of 2010 and it hit me HARD. I alienated myself from reality, my fraternity brothers, my girlfriend who just wanted to help, and even my family. I spent my semester lying to myself saying everything was OK when in reality, it was the contrary. Micro goals could have saved my grades, the respect of my Batallion's Cadre, and my best friends in life, but hindsight is truly 20-20.

My newly found micro goal idea I am sure has been said in motivational speeches and many books, but I think the things in life I would re-do, make it more real to me. I know everyone always says, "I have no regrets," but they are lying to themselves. Do I regret letting myself slip away from reality for over two months? Absolutely. Do I regret being so stuck in my ways that I let the love of my life slip away? Again, Absolutely. Do I regret not being goal driven this time last year? More than anything in my life. The fact of the matter is, I have regrets and you have regrets. My lesson learned is to wake up every morning and ask myself "what are you doing to make yourself better today?" Sounds corny, but after the year I've had, it is necessary.

I realize this is far from my usual funny rants about life, but I am in one hell of a funk. I'm still not losing my way like I did 8 months ago because I have learned from that, but I am still trying to figure myself out. I hope when you read this you see that there are bigger things in life than partying, playing video games, Facebook™ stalking, and looking too far in the future. With that in mind, all of these examples (except my generation's obsession with social networking), are a fact of life and there is nothing wrong with any of them. Life is truly about enjoying the time you have here and becoming the best version of yourself that you can. Give it all you have, love hard, be nice to people even if they are not necessarily nice to you, and you will never have a single regret; but having regrets are, unfortunately, the way you learn and the way you shape yourself for the future.

It is now 4:02am, I am sitting in my parent's house and really enjoying my time here. I hope you are too.

Live it up, Readers.

Lies

Dear Readers,

I would like to think of myself as a very honest man. I don't cheat on my significant other, I do my taxes every year, I give back one of the ten dollar bills stuck to the other, and I don't give my iClicker to my friend when I don't go to my psychology class. I do, however, have one thing I like to do. This little thing is something that may seem to you a childish, stupid thing that maybe makes me a sick person.

I guess I'll just tell you a story before I get into my reasoning:

A few months ago, I was at Wal-Mart™ with my buddy, Kyle, on a conquest to buy groceries. On my shopping list was a new pack of boxers and a stick of deodorant. Kyle, on the other hand, needed some fruit and a few miscellaneous food items, so we went our separate ways and had a set a rally point at register 5 for fifteen minutes. I went on my way, grabbed my stick of Old Spice™, and started heading towards the packs of boxers. As I was walking I had that uncomfortable sense that the people walking towards me were looking at me. Let me take a moment and see if you can relate to this, as I think you have. Have you ever been walking and had someone wave to "you" but it was actually to the person behind you? Yeah, this was sort-of the same situation. These people were walking and staring at me as if they knew me. As they got closer, the woman exclaimed, "Mr. Coleman!!!" I stared in a stunned way, and for reasons I cannot explain, I replied, "Hey...have we met?" As they got to me, I saw they were talking to an older gent behind me. I turned to him and said, "Don't tell me your last name is Coleman too!" He replied that it was and I proceeded to act as if it were the damnedest of coincidences that we shared the last name. I introduced myself as David Coleman and he introduced himself as Rick Coleman. We had a laugh at the seemingly fantastic small world we lived in, I shook his hand and carried on.

I know what you are saying to yourself: "WHY?!" I can only reply with, "Why not?". It was an awkward situation that I turned into a dinner conversation for both parties. I can't explain why I thought of this, or why I even acted on it, but the fact of the matter is that I stood there and made up an entire story about myself to avoid an inevitable awkward series of events.

A similar situation happened just a few weeks ago. Kyle and I were back at Wal-Mart™ to get a bed sheet and a package of screws. We got home and realized we got the wrong size screws and "fitted bed sheets" instead of the plain kind. So, we went back to Wal-Mart™ and got a full refund of $11.78. We walked back to the familiar aisles and got the same exact two things, just different size screws and the right sheets. As we were walking up to the cashier, we knew very well the price was going to be the same and Kyle challenged me to have some fun with the situation. When we got to the register and the nice lady was ringing our items through the scanner, I said, "Hmmm....If my math is correct, I think with tax it will come to...ummm.... yeah I'm confident....$11.78". As it turned out, that was exactly the price and the cashier was very stunned by our seemingly genius math skills. She asked how we knew that and I replied, nonchalantly, "We're both math majors". She then went on to say how she wished she could do things of the sort and we went on our way, sharing a cornucopia of laughs on our way to my old man car.

Again, I could have said nothing, gave her the exact change and carried on but I didn't. I took the fun route and had a good laugh about it. I guess what I'm trying to say is, lying is bad. No doubt about it. When you're put in a situation in your life where you need to tell the truth, or you are telling someone you care about something, you should not ever play this game; however, I feel like little things you do throughout your life to give yourself, and others, a little laugh is harmless. Think about it, neither one of these scenarios that I described caused any harm at all to any parties involved. Life is about being responsible, making your time on Earth worthwhile, and most of all, having fun along the way.

Good day, readers. Have a great Saturday. I know I will.

New HP

Dear Readers,

Recently, I became computer-less when the freak heat wave of last week caused my motherboard to take a proverbial poop. I cried a little, I sat in the fetal position a little, and I said the lords prayer a lot, hoping that the last 4 years of work would be saved somehow.

Upon calling tech support at HP™, I was put on with this wonderful, English speaking man named Tim. I told my new geek buddy, Tim, what had happened and he was very sure it was the motherboard. Also, he said, the hard drive is most likely O.K., so all I need to do was transfer my old files from my old hard drive, onto a new hard drive in a new computer.

I know you are thinking, "Woah, Dave! Why don't you just send your fact seeking machine to HP™ and let them fix it?!?!" Well, I asked about this and Tim was very sorry that my warranty was up but they would still fix it for a small fee. Any guesses on what the "small fee" might be?
$50-NO
$100-NO
$200-NO
$250-NO
$400-NO
$500-Nope....

If you guessed $786.00, you are correct. That is right, readers; for the price of a new computer, HP can fix all my problems in my old computer and ship it back to me for just 60 years worth of pocket change.

I decided I needed to buy a new computer; I have papers due, homework online due, and readers of my "insert award here" nominated blog to appease. I went to Wal-Mart™ and browsed their selection of computers. I decided, for compatibility reasons, that I would stick with HP because up until this point I have never had any problems with it. I ended up settling with an HP™ Pavillion with some numbers after it.

The story is going great. You're thinking, "Dang, were is the gripe? Where is the part where you get angry about something?" Well, man who has a low view on my personality, it happened when I tried to swipe my credit card. The dreaded letters "D-E-N-I-E-D" popped up on the screen. I know exactly how much credit I have to work with, and I know very well that this purchase is well under my limit, so I get my Black Berry™ out and call my credit card company, Discover™. I was on hold for 26 minutes! How many people, at 9:40 at night, have problems with their credit cards?! After the 26 minutes were up and I could recite the entire on-hold song by memory, a lovely lady picked up. Sandra calmly explained that Discover™ thought someone was using my card fraudulently and they denied it to protect me.

Wow. I'm actually going to end this blog in a happy mood! My credit card company actually cares. I could have sworn by my APR% that they have no desire for me to ever live comfortably, but this company actually does try to protect its consumers. Nice.

Good day, readers