Quiz my blog!

As another part of my 1st anniversary of blogging, I've created a Quiz of my blog on the following link. I guess technically it's an open book test, but I don't think you'll be able to find your answer fast enough to not be bored. And if you do have that patience, there's a website I want to refer to you.

Anyways, here it is! Good luck:

http://www.quizyourfriends.com/quizpage.php?quizname=070128133923-961973&

Oldie but goodie

So, as my one year anniversay of blogging is coming up, I've decided to take a look back at some oldies but goodies. If you remember my ideal Mate post where I talk about an assignment I did back when I was 17 years old about what my ideal mate was, here are the one-liners that came out of it:

"Man, you had foresight in your teenage years.

Description of my ideal mate when I was 17/18 - "big chest, straight hair, big chest".

Description of my ideal mate now - "big chest, straight hair, nice income". My tastes have obviously improved."
-Jim

"It's funny how Dale was looking for a 17-18 year old girl with these qualities back then, and NOW he's looking for a 17-18 year old with these qualities. Hmmmm......"
-Tom

"28 / 2 + 7 = 21. No more 17 year olds for you Dale, unless you went to the Chad Johnson school of math." - Winston

Respond to comments...

-No, it's not just less water, it's more active too
-No, I'm a lowly engineer, so it doesn't have my initials on it
-Yes, it doesn't seem like much to concentrate a formula and change the bottle, but if you do it for like 10 million bottles it takes a year and a half.
-Yes, there is a Downy free formula with no perfume or dye

Now on the shelves!

One of the reasons why I chose to go into the consumer products field was because you get to see your product on the shelves. Well, after about a year and half of work, the product I've been working on has hit the shelves! It's the new Downy bottles, and corresponding new formulas! The bottles are smaller, but the formula is more concentrated so you get the same number of loads in a bottle. The new product looks like this:

In April, we'll be coming out with the last part of this project... can't tell you what that is yet or I'd hafta kill you :)

Sunday Morning Badinage

I can't believe I got to use that word! Last Saturday I was playing Cranium at a friend's place and that word was one of those "Wordsmith" cards where you had to guess the definition. Anyways, it basically means witty banter... You can remember it because it starts like "banter." It's also pronounced "ba-di-nazh," like you would if you were in Quebec.

Last night I went to Rachel's Sweet 26-teen birthday party! I only wish I had the creativity to think that up three years ago when I turned 26-teen. We partied all the way to 11 PM, and after going to bed around 1 AM I woke up at 10:30. Gotta love sleeping in on the weekends!

I finally got around to assembling my sister's birthday present for me... Here's a picture of it as it hangs in front of my Brett Favre jersey (which coincidentally, was also a gift from her). These caps have personalized autographs to me from some members of the 1996 Super Bowl champion team, namely Antonio Freeman (WR), Bill Schroeder (WR), Earl Dotson (OL), Doug Evans (DB), Eugene Robinson (DB), Leroy Butler (DB), Doug Peterson (QB), Chris Jacke (K), Don Bebee (WR), Derrick Mayes (WR). I also got a Super Bowl yearbook autographed to me by Gilbert Brown (DL) to relive those glory days and how we beat the Patriots in the Superbowl.


I ordered myself an iPod Nano yesterday online. I went to the Apple store at the mall, and holy cow there are so many ways Apple can go with this iPod... iPhone, iMac. I like it so much I bought the company! (Well, a few shares of it at least). Maybe another thing we should do is to buy up every domain name that starts with "i" in hopes that Apple launches a product with it and has to buy up our name.

Pause and reflecting

It's been a while since I've just blogged about whatever... As we near the 3rd week of the new year, guess it's not a bad time to pause a reflect a bit. This is the second week of my final semester at Xavier University, the first time I've taken two classes a week during the fall. I've also started orchestra rehearsals and still play volleyball once a week to get some exercise. So far I've been able to handle it... the classes haven't lasted longer than 8:30, and the orchestra music is getting fun.

One thing I've learned to do is to make the most out of the time I do have... I try to do things in small chunks, when I have an hour here or half an hour here. And I've still found enough time to keep up with my favorite shows... CSI, Apprentice (for now), 24, Numb3rs, and even a few Milwaukee Bucks games on the NBA package (thank god for the DVR!).

I've also started to ramp up my quest for my next job assignment... It's been a bit tough trying to figure out what I want and what fits me. I will be taking a training that should help me with it. As part of it, I took an assessment, and it a couple of things came out of it... one, science/engineering isn't in my top tier of careers I enjoy, and two, that clerical is my second highest ranking job I would enjoy. So I take that with a grain of salt (something music related actually came in the top 5). I am one confused person right now.

I'm really looking forward to May, when the MBA is all done. I'm thinking I should figure out what I want to do for my next stage. I started teaching myself the piano, that's a good candidate. Maybe trying to get onto more sports teams. Maybe working on some websites.

I'm really curious to see, one year from now in 2008, what my life will be like... There are so many directions it could go.

Rachel - Someone I can't handle?

Name: Rachel
How we met: Rachel is a future friend-in-law, who will be "blanking" Dave (see game night blog)
Commentary: Rachel is best known as someone who I wouldn't be able to handle. (What do you mean by that?) She's can be rather energetic, just waiting to punch you in the neck if you cross her. Also has a mean karate kick. Rachel also has an uncanny ability to read people, and aparently has a lot of karma on her side. I've decided that she needs to learn how to play poker. Loves short haired women. Her favorite girl's names: Lindsay, Emily, and Betsy... and Alison too?
Favorite moment(s): When she ripped my shirt off during a game on the cruise
Relationship defining moment(s): When she stole a cute chick from me on the cruise
If it weren't for her, I: Would not suddenly have this fetish for short haired girls

Potpourri 1/18/07

I like the word "potpourri" better than "chop suey" for entries such as this...

- Our own Apprentice Surya survived another round. He didn't have much airtime, other than modeling a swimsuit. I figured out a good strategy for the boardroom. I would go the "high road" approach as a strategy... if someone attacked me, I would say ask to have him fired because "My goal is to create a team that works in harmony, and I would want him fired because he doesn't show that he wants to join in that." That way, I can go after whoever didn't like me!

- The Wisconsin Badgers basketball team is currently ranked #2 after defeating Purdue! Go Bucky!

- The Milwaukee Bucks traded for a guy, Earl Boykins, who's 5' 5", in other words shorter than me. He's already my new favorite player. Here's a picture of him next to my all time favorite player (he's Asian, he's tall, and he's athletic... what more can you want?) Yao Ming:

Our own Apprentice!

So we have a reason to watch the Apprentice this year! A P&G assistant brand manager, a friend of Jim's, is a contestant on the show. We watched the very first episode last Sunday at a bar that Surya hosted. It was quite a blast getting to hear all the behind the scenes stuff (numerous times he said "that never happened!"). Based off of one time I had met with him, I think he either goes about half way or goes close to all the way. He seems like a really nice sincere guy, who's completely over my head in terms of initative and motivation. So he either gets out because he's too nice, or he turns it on and gets recognized and goes far.

Jim and I watched The Apprentice a couple of seasons ago as a means to learn about the business world. It definitely taught us some stuff, but near the end it was getting way to catty and turned into a typical reality show where people yelled and screamed all the time. The last straw for me was when a lawyer who did nothing but argue all the time made it to the finals with a guy who was a great leader, innovative, and even came up with some principles for how each project manager can better lead a team throughout the experience. Trump kept saying how hard of a decision it was to make, but for me there was no reason Jen should've even been close to the finals. Trump loved her (maybe because she was a blond?), but in a real life board room, all of the yelling, screaming, back stabbing, and name-calling would've never flown.

Nevertheless, Jim and I agreed that this time we will watch it... until if and when Surya is fired. (Pictured: Karen, me, Surya, and Jim)

The thrill of victory... the agony of defeat

I've just pulled myself off the floor after my hero Tony Romo (previously blogged as someone I was thankful for) inexplicably fumbled a snap for the game winning 19 yard field goal and got tackled a yard short of a first down. That's why you gotta love sports, extreme jubilation to extreme despair. It beats any reality TV show in terms of unscripted realism.

Now I will wallow in my own despair figure out what to do next. Once again Dave prevents me from doing anything rash by IMing me. :)

Sick Day!

Today I took my first ever sick day from work... Last night I had worked out and afterwards and I ached all over, more than normal. I don't get sick much in general, and in the past I would tough it out when I did get sick. I woke up at 7 AM and decided to pull the plug on the day. At 8 AM, I went back to sleep and woke up at 11:30. I then ordered a pizza for lunch, logged in to work, called into a meeting. At 3 PM, I went back for a nap and woke up at 5 PM.

Of course on a day like today I watched a lot of TV. I watched some MSNBC today, where they talk about the stock market and stuff. They make it feel like there's a lot of activity going on, a lot of talking, shouting, opinionated people. The thing that really amused me was when the showed the graph of the stock price of the company they were talking about, just to show how real time it was, they showed the current time down to the HUNDRETH of a second! Just made it look that much more busier, and hundreths of seconds counted by.

Insomniblog, New Year's Edition

So, after four days of averaging a 2 AM bedtime and waking up at 10 AM, plus taking a nap this afternoon, it's a little difficult falling asleep. So I guess it's a good time to blog, since I've been a little negligent on it... I also seem to have deleted my "blog idea pipeline" post it note. Oh well.

For some reason, 2007 seems to have come upon me a lot faster than I expected. I haven't even gotten my New Year's resolutions in yet! Maybe I'll think about it some and come up with them a little later.

So the last four days back from SoCal have been awesome. I had to keep telling myself that I need to go to work tomorrow, and that taking an impromptu leave of absence was not in my best interest. The day after my return was a game night at the Eutslers, with many fellow blog gers there (Karen, Jim, Dave, Rachel, and even Martha and her twin sister!). Some highlights of the night:

- Trivial Pursuit, where I got the twins on my team. It was like a peanut gallery in stereo. I got like 4 out of 6 sports questions right and still got razzed.
- Playing Catchphrase (where you have a word and you're supposed to make your team guess the word without saying the word)... Dave says "I will be BLANKing Rachel at our wedding." I just about died laughing... (turns out the word was "marry").

Well, time to give sleep another try. At least I got to see the fabulous ending of the Boise State - Oklahoma State game (thanks Dave!)