And for those that still wonder about the name; Logomachy.

Hopefully everyone has gone out to vote today! If not, there is still time so get out there!

I think it’s interesting how record numbers of people are going to vote and essentially our current infrastructure can’t handle it. Even without deliberate disenfranchisement issues, people can be turned away or turned off from voting because of extremely long lines, a complicated voting system, or simple lack of confidence in the system. The government really needs to work on this as the problem is only going to get worse in the future. We need a reliable electronic voting system, or a way to streamline the paper system. (Currently there is not much downside to a paper ballot in comparison to existing electronic systems.)

I casted my ballot today on a paper ballot. I know of several people that faced lines in the morning, but I waited two minutes or so. Overall the system of ensuring a voter only votes once is probably the longest procedure, and moreso than the voting system we need a reliable way to speed this up in future elections. As always, the poll workers deserve our thanks and respect for volunteering and doing their best. I haven’t seen many stories from elsewhere in the nation, but hopefully there isn’t voter fraud going on. The last thing we need is more distrust of the system.

Tonight should be pretty tense as people wait for the results of an historic presidential race. I’ll be waiting to see how Proposition 8 turns out. Either way, I’m glad I voted today!

After watching so many games I had the soccer itch really bad, so I started organizing some pick-up games and they have been a success! At most we used to have 12 people show up, but we’ve had 18 or 19 show up sometimes. It’s wonderful to be playing again and hopefully people can keep showing up. Playing these games and going to the gym I’m slowly getting back into shape.

MotoGP this year was awesome. Didn’t have to worry about heat, though I almost froze my butt off, and the racing was spectacular. Valentino Rossi showed some of his old form and it was very exciting to watch. If you haven’t seen it yet you absolutely must watch it. I have pics of it on my flickr, as do Dram and grico (theirs are better.)

The following weekend was spent camping, drinking, celebrating, drinking, playing Rock Band, and more drinking. I was pretty tuckered out, but it was a really good weekend. Now I just someone to call me back about a job!

Quarter Finals
Portugal to beat Germany
Croatia to beat Turkey (I’d like to see Turkey advance though.)
Netherlands to beat Russia
Spain to beat Italy (This might be optimistic if Italy has their tails up.)

Semi Finals
Croatia to beat Portugal (It’s possible, and Portugal has been known to collapse.)
Netherlands beat Spain (If this game happens, it might be the game of the tourney.)

Final
Netherlands beat Croatia

Croatia loses their “dark horse” status, and Holland takes all the glory. Or at least I hope so, cause it’s been awesome to watch them play and they are my favorite team. Hopefully their form continues over the next week and a half.

In my Fantasy league I actually won my group with three wins, so I’m into the knockout quarterfinals. Hopefully, I can keep up the streak!

Group A
1. Portugal
2. Czech Republic
3. Switzerland
4. Turkey

Group B
1. Germany
2. Croatia
3. Poland
4. Austria

Group C
1. France
2. Netherlands
3. Italy
4. Romania

Group D
1. Spain
2. Greece
3. Sweden
4. Russia

Quarter Finals
Portugal to beat Croatia
Germany to beat Czech Republic
France to beat Greece
Netherlands to beat Spain

Semi Finals
Germany to beat Portugal
France to beat Netherlands

Final
France to beat Germany

In any event, it should be a good tournament and being a soccer nut I’ll probably be watching every minute of it.

Now I know I’m not completely out of my mind.

Now I am so completely confuzzled.

The other aspect I’ve been working on is my physical health. I had been aware of how out of shape I had been getting since quitting Babies R’ Us, but I’ve become disgusted with how bad it has been lately. So much of my muscle mass has gone away, and I’ve got a nice ring of fat around the midsection. I’ve almost always been a physically active person, but it’s pathetic how I get winded doing anything out of the ordinary now. Snowboarding I’m fine with, but running and biking take too large a toll on me.

It shouldn’t have taken me this long to be motivated about it, but so it goes. My current plan is to do a 30 minute workout every other night. The main target of this is about 5 sets of ten crunches, ten sit-ups, and 15 push-ups. These are done in fairly quick fashion and then interjected with various body exercises using 15 pound dumbbells; calf raises, lunges, bicep curls, back rows, shoulder lifts and presses, squats, and shoulder shrugs.  Along with a 1.5 mile run three to four times a week I’m hoping that I’ll at least get to the point where thinking about physical activity doesn’t tire me. I’ve also gained a small increase in flexibility from starting to stretch nightly.

I don’t expect this to get me in shape, but hopefully it gets me to the next stage quickly. What is the next stage? An extended version of that workout (hopefully at the gym), and more sports as well as mountain biking. Provided I get a job with a regular schedule none of this should be hard to keep up with either. If anyone is looking for a workout or track partner I’d be down for either. It’s hard to push myself when I’m by myself.

Group A
Portugal and Czech Republic. Both are strong teams compared to the rest of the group and it will be a close race for top of the group, but I’m going with Portugal based on Christiano’s amazing form this season.

Group B
Croatia and Germany. Croatia are tops in this group with Germany coming through based only on their talent. They had a lacklustre run to the tournament.

Group C
Such a tough choice for this tourney’s “Group of Death”. Ideally I’d like Netherlands and France to advance, but Italy is the strongest side (especially having won the World Cup), and have a slightly easier schedule by getting to play Romania first. Romania will be the spoiler here. Holland is still young, and France barely made it through. I’ll have to go with Italy and Holland realistically.

Group D
Spain and Greece. I wanted to say Sweden originally, but they never seem to come good in international play despite having a lot of talent. Greece had a strong run and are looking to prove themselves better than just “lucky” from last time around.

Overall, things will probably play out different depending on first and second within the groups, even if all my picks do advance. We’ll see Germany vs. Portugal and Italy vs. Spain in the semi-finals. This is somewhat wishful thinking on my part as I would love to see Spain or Portugal win. Along with the Netherlands, they play a very attractive brand of football. Overall, somewhat realistic pick is Spain. The team I’m rooting for will be Holland, and the disappointing truth is that Italy might take it all again.

Lastly, there is a free fantasy league on the Euro Cup site. I’ve put in my selection of “Swing FC”. Anchoring the net I have Edwin Van Der Sar. Holding the middle back there is William Gallas and Fabio Cannavaro (I may hate Italy, but they do have some great players.) On their flanks are Per Mertesacker and Phillip Lahm. In the mid-field, Deco and Genaro Gattuso hold the middle with Christiano Ronaldo and Arjen Robben on the wings. Up front I have Fernando Torres paired with Robin Van Persie, and an extra in Marcus Rosenberg. As a fantasy team there is a good holding mid-field and defense, with a ton of attacking power on the wings. The drawbacks are a young front line without much power in the air. The offensive minded wings could leave things open to the counter-attack, but for the league it’s all about minutes and goals!

By lunch time I got a call back from Public Storage. Talking to the recruiter there was some urgency on their part as well. An interview was set-up for the next day. I interviewed with the District Manager who seemed straightforward and likable. Not 24 hours from applying I was offered a position. I couldn’t say no. I took a drug test the next day and a week later I had a starting date. I planned a huge dinner party to celebrate.

I never intended my tenure with Public Storage to be long term. I was hoping by now I would get some sort of return from my resume at a publishing company. It hasn’t happened that way, but I thought PS would be good enough to make some money while I did more real job searching. My first day on the job I was working with two other people. Both were actively looking for other jobs. How do I know this? During lunch they had the classifieds out and were circling prospects.

The job wasn’t horrible, and at first I just thought it was boring. A mostly retail/customer service job paying $12 that had some autonomy. Location wise it was farther than I was hoping, but overall I was happy. I wouldn’t have to work nights and it was more money than I’d previously made. The people I was working with weren’t horrible and the tasks weren’t hard. Getting back into the rhythm of waking up every morning was the most difficult thing. I failed at that on a pretty regular basis. When my body isn’t happy it’s hard to do anything, and I generally don’t force the issue. Calling out didn’t put me on great footing, however there was no established attendance policy, and I didn’t care enough to place the job over my own health. Still, the job was tolerable.

The only malaise I had came from being off-schedule with my friends. I would frequently get off work when everyone was already meeting up doing stuff. As well as working weekends I would frequently get split days off for the week. For the most part though I had a fairly set schedule and worked at one property.

At the start of February that started changing. I was frequently scheduled farther from my house as well as getting a different schedule every week. I had a request for time off to go to Mammoth, but ended up being scheduled during that time anyway. This both continued and worsened until I quit. Once I had gotten through the Whistler trip without bankrupting myself I thought of continuing, but that changed as it became all too clear the company had no respect for the employees, and in some cases the law.

For the majority of my last two months with PS I was scheduled at a property in Santa Ana off Grand and 1st. The only good thing about the place is that it’s busy for the most part. The bad thing is that most of the clientèle only speaks Spanish, and the job I did there could more accurately be titled Janitor/Maintenance. I would spend the entire day cleaning out units, and while mostly dust they also contained various trash, half-eaten food, and even feces (human or otherwise I couldn’t tell).

On top of this the Regional Manager, whom coincidentally looks and acts like Delores Umbridge from the Harry Potter movie, was giving special attention to the property. This included denying a break area for employees and the ability to eat lunch there, taking away a water cooler and denying the right to have drinks in the office. Ideas of questionable legality. To add to discontent a new lunch policy meant I was regularly forced to take my lunch earlier than I wanted. When questioned about these policies the Regional Manager actually got in yelling matches with the employees and threatened their tenure with the company.

I thought it funny that someone so obsessed with the appearance of professionalism would act in a manner completely the opposite. The issue was enough to make my desire to quit into an action. For a job which I couldn’t care less about it worked for saving money, but I won’t put up with the bullshit and lack of respect for the employees. There are other jobs. There are other things worth my time.

We’ll see how long I can keep this going, but overall I have both the urge and need to write on this site. Hopefully it won’t be just pointless drivel, but that’s always an option with me. It will be good to have a personal blog to link to as far as having experience goes though. I’m hoping to design my own site soon, or just find a better looking theme since that’s easier. OSWD has some good designs as well so I may steal something from there. For now, just stay tuned!