The World of Joel

This week for spring break Jenn and I have made every attempt to spend as much time with each other as humanly possible. This has involved a previous post which was talking about our adventure down to an art museum. Earlier today we went down to Santa Anita to go to the Horse Races where for the second in a year in a row we got box seats. Going on a Thursday was actually realy nice as we got to go on a pretty slow day for the race track and made it a lot more relaxing. then on the weekend.

Well anyways I really enjoy the race track mainly for the thrill of gambling without dropping a ton of money in a few minutes like at a casino. Unfortunately there are those days where things just don’t go your way and today was one of those days. I bet on the first five races and went 0/5. Jenn went 3/5 which made it even harder when all I could do was lose. It was truly a great time and I for one am going to miss having the time off.

So I have probably been to many one or two art museums in my life, and those were in elementary school when I was forced to go to these sort of places. I never thought I would go to one of these art museums for pleasure. However the love of my life Jenn has a facination with art and thus my trip last weekend to the Orange County Art Museum. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the art museum but here are some things I did learn while was there.

- Playing with lego’s can be considered art, they had a big Lego city representing The Tale of Two Cities
- People really get into there art. There was a peice that looked like something from the old road runner cartoons and this guy sat there laughing about how brilliant it was.
- We were walking past this guys self portrait where he used some sort of weird mathematical sequencing to create the art and this lady was balling. I don’t think she knew the guy, but maybe the numbers were significant. I don’t know I must have missed something.
- Probably the most interesting piece was a guys portrait of his wife made from his own finger prints. Now that is what I called talent.

All in all I have to say that I am not a big art person so maybe if you like art you are pulling your hair out reading this blog post. For me I enjoyed my time at the museum but a lot of what they considered “art”, I considered something else. If you get a chance I guess it’s worth a look. If nothing else it was pretty relaxing and you only have the beach five minutes away.

If you look at my life, and the schedule I have been on for the past three months, you can see why I am thrilled to say that I have some free time. After my Thursday Final I have had sometime to gather my thoughts, do some R&R, and more over just recoup from an extremely long quarter. In fact with some of the free time I have been able to enjoy things that I haven’t been able to for a while. Like for example to let off some stress, Jenn and I hit our old past time Tennis and played for a couple hours which was great. Today we took her new dog Spark to a local park and just took it all in. It’s so hard when I am just going from school, to the bank, to either of our houses to work on Movie-Stop, Darkstation, and then Homework. If only this free time would last, that would be a great thing.

My recommendation to anyone and everyone, if you have a free second, take it, enjoy it, cherish it, and thrive in it. I am just as guilty as anyone in taking for granite the simple things in life that make living such a great thing.

“I will walk among you; I will be your God, and you will be my people.” -Leviticus 26:12 NLT

As many of you may or may not know, I transfered from Cal State San Bernardino a school I attended to for three years to take up the opportunity to transfer to UC Irvine. Now although my Coyotes are in the Division II NCAA Basketball Final Four, I digress, with my terrible Division 1 school that’s top sport is Men’s Volleyball. We are Number 1 in the country in Men’s Volleyball, now if that isn’t something to be proud of then what is.

Although UC Irvine is not a sports school, although who knows one day it may be, it is a great academic school and one one that took a lot of time to understand and to start to realize what to do and what not to do at this school. So here are some of the things I learned in my first quarter at UCI.

1) Watch out for anyone on a bike, they have the right away, and if your in the way they will have no problem in running you off the road, or worse running you over.
2) The TA’s don’t teach the subjects that well, but they can help you on assignments and that sure can make life a lot easier.
3) Don’t take the train on finals or midterm week. I almost missed a midterm and a final because of train problems that delayed me severely.
4) Don’t skip class, the day you do something important will happen and you will be out of luck.
5) I am the best at being lazy, and that is something that I just don’t think is possible if you want to be sucessful at UCI.
6) Know the Professors won’t show you the exact steps to complete a problem, they will just give you the formula and let you figure it out yourself.

There is probably more but for now I am on my first day off of school for a week and I am going to enjoy it. Now watch out for the people on the bike, they are crazy!

You know each of the last few years I have always wanted to get into the NCAA March Madness craze, in fact this year I got in David Lithman’s Blogging Bracket Challenge. However each of the past few years that I have wanted to get into the great college basketball event I really have been unable to sit down and watch it. In fact the last three years it just so happens that finals time for college is right now and that means it is nearly impossible for me to sit down and watch it. However from what I have seen this year it has been mainly a predictable tournament with very few big upsets. Luckily after this Thursday I am going to be done for a week and that should give me sometime to get some of my college basketball fix on. Enjoy March, it’s a great month for Sports!

I am coming up on finals this week and with the pressure of life and future, and even finals this week I wanted to put my new favorite verse(s) that I read this evening. It is funny how the holy spirit just guides you to the scripture your mind needs and this was another example of a night just like that.

‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’ Matthew 11:28-30 NIV

I have been talking to a lot of “bloggers” lately, mainly because I want to hear others input on what you can do to make a blog a successful one. I have been “blogging” for well over four years here on WorldofJoel, I just didn’t always call my site a blog. One thing that I have always noticed when looking at my traffic, and my success on the internet, can be directly linked to how well I schedule my time. Now sure you can be saying that hey there is nothing I can do about my limited time, but let me tell you, anytime that you have, whether it is ten minutes, or even a half an hour you can easily be successful on your blogging.

Here are some pretty good tips to keep yourself on track:

- Be consistent on your times. If you feel more alert in the morning then blog in the morning. If you feel like writing at night then you can probably guess when your going to blog. Pretty self explanatory.
- Don’t be afraid to expiriment with different topics. I have found that if I stay on one topic to frequently then it feels like more of a chore then an enjoyable experience, and thus a lack of consistent posting.
- Stop looking at your stats. To elaborate for a second, if your looking at how many hits your getting each day that’s much to frequent. It’s like watching the clock turn on the last day of school, it just makes everything go slower. Plus the more time your bothering yourself with those numbers the less time your spending on your blog.
- Make friends in the blogging community. I have a few that I have made through past jobs I have worked online with, and other’s that I just enjoyed there blogs and let them know so. However you do it, if you have a few minutes make a few acquaintances. It never hurts to have a few friends who can also help keep your blog in line.
- Have fun with your blog. I am sure you have heard the saying “let the money come to you”. Now that doesn’t mean to not educate yourself on how to best monetize your blog, but what it does mean is enjoy what you do and if you bring that to a blog people will see that and respond accordingly.

If you think I am missing anything let me know I would be more then happy to add or subtract anything on the list. I hope that helps anyone who is trying to get in blogging, or who just want a fresh perspective on keeping a consistent blog.