The World of Joel

So with me not having a full time job yet and having nothing really to do until my trip in a little over a week I have had plenty of time to watch TV/Movies from online sources. I have been using Hulu.com for quite sometime now but I never really got into there Movie selection so I jumped in it today and did some searching, but didn’t find anything worth watching. So then it hit me, I am less productive when I have less to do. So I sat here thinking about how that could be, and my only reasoning is that with less to do I have less urgrency to get these done and thus I find a greater chance of procrastinating.

So I am not sure how to cure this, I have tried doing to-do lists but I never seem to even get a few done. I have tried doing as much as I can before lunch and taking the rest of the day off. I have even taken complete days off and tried working the next day, and I just feel like with each day I am getting lazier. So here is to am more productive tomorrow!

So I have never been one to study. I am a procrastinator to the fullest extent, especially when it comes to things like studying. As many of you know I am graduating from UC Irvine here in a few weeks, but I have never really done the full blown “study day”. UC Irvine is one of the tougher schools around, but somehow my poor study habits have allowed me to get by with somewhat decent grades. Unfortunately my last quarter is proving to be quite the challenge, and I have had to log some serious hours to get through.

So today I had 8 hours in the library from 10:35am to 7:00pm I was in the Science Library at UC Irvine studying for my midterm exam tomorrow, which if all goes well, will prove to be my last midterm as an undergraduate student. When studying a lot you tend to get hungry/thirsty and so college students tend not to choose the healthiest snacks. Take for example today, granted my lunch was a Subway sandwich, my 3:00pm snack was a good old fashion Snickers Bar and an Energy drink. Sure there may be one or two things that could make a less healthy combo, but I found it hilarious that college students at a top-50 University in the country are not smart enough (myself included) to pick something as unhealthy as this, and yet it tastes great. I have never been a huge fan of energy drinks but today it tasted fantastic, and there is nothing like a good snickers bar. All in all, if there was one thing I missed in the college experience it must have been the great study snacks.

So I am usually on my own on Tuesdays. I have a study session on Tuesday mornings and usually I head back home to study. However today I have a study session in about an hour for a midterm on Friday and Jenn had to stay around to talk to a professor. Instead of studying which I really should have Jenn and I went house and furniture shopping. We are not looking for an immediate buy but checking out our options none the less.

So first we were off to Ikea in Costa Mesa about 15 mins from UC Irvine. The Ikea was gigantic, its been a long, long time since I have been in an Ikea and I have to say I had fun. There is just so much to look at, it would take two or three go throughs to see everything. Of course I am looking for a great place to put a nice size plasma and my three game consoles and Jenn is looking at throws for a couch and art work.

So there wasn’t much in the way of “technology” but I would say that we did see a few things we liked. We learned we both are a fan of modern, both a fan of dark wood and black frames. We are also a big fan of black and white photography as you can see below in a photo of the Eiffel Tower that we should have bought for like 7.99 or 24.99 including frame. We would have went with a black frame however.

I wasn’t as big of a fan of the art work, but there was this one piece that we both liked and thought it would be good for a dining room. I wonder if Ikea minded me taking pictures in there store. Either way these were all taken with my iPhone, not bad right? Once again dark black frame.

So I didn’t take more pictures of Ikea, I decided to take pictures late in the long maze that is Ikea. However for whatever reason instead of studying, we went to Portola Spring which is one of the nicest new developments I have ever seen. We went through a ton of developments, the place a few years back would have been sold out in weeks, but this new development seems to have been stalled by the economy. Needless to say it is just really quite the community with tons of tennis and basketball courts, and a nice Olympic pool in the middle. The picture below is from the official website.

The one that Jenn liked the best and for me was tied for first with another was a 3 story town house called San Carlos that ran for the mid-400’s, which is a ton for a 3 story town house however in the OC its a lot less then a year or two ago where the same house would have gone for 500,000. Not to mention the fact that we could probably knock it down to the low 4’s or high 3’s which would be much more affordable. Needless to say the townhouse was great. At first three floors seemed intimidating but if you walk this house it really helps make a little over 1,000 square footage feel much larger.

I am going to throw the rest of the pictures from the adventure on Flickr later, so you can see all of my iPhone goodness and our great adventure in Portola springs. If our plans stay the same for a wedding in the next year then that would mean this may be somewhere we look outside of renting an apartment to buy a home. How crazy would that be, to be a homeowner in a years time? I guess we can only pray on it and take things as they come. Whatever the case looking at houses and the future
is always a lot of fun.

UPDATE: I did post the pictures on Flickr. Go here to check out all the model home goodness.

I love working on projects, most of the time I get a project and then for whatever reason don’t follow through on them or in the recent case of my TV Blogs sell them. I did start up CrusoeTV.com based on the new show coming this fall on NBC title Crusoe based on the book Robinson Crusoe. That is just a minor project that I am hoping does even better then mine in the past season. I saw I already have a competitor on that, but my site is indexed on Page 2 of Google when searching for Crusoe TV, I am hoping by the end of the month we will make it to the front page.

That is not my other project, my other project is bigger then any other project I have taken on. I CANNOT WAIT TO ANNOUNCE IT.. But that won’t be happening today. It is a project I have been working on for years and it is finally coming to life and this Summer I will be able to unveil it. I am really proud of this project, I have already put a good day or two of hours into the project since starting it and figure to have put a good week worth of hours when it launches. Not only do I expect this site to flourish but I hope many of you who read my blog will enjoy it as well.

From there I will leave you with this, my posting has been irregular, posting a few days in a row and then off a week, and for that I apologize, its the last quarter of college and all I can see is grabbing that diploma and running for the hills, and I really don’t want to come back and take a class this summer.

So as many of you know I commute down to UC Irvine, a few days a week with Jenn and others by myself. Its less then an hour without traffic and can get longer then two with it. Its really the typical Southern CA norm. Whatever the case, a few weeks back it was finals week and I had a big final for a class I had to pass to graduate. So instead of waking up the next morning at 3:30-4:00 to make sure I made it to my 8am class I decided to rent a room down in the Irvine area. And for those of you not familiar with the area Newport Beach is literally two minutes from the UCI campus, so I decided to just go for it and stay in a real nice place figuring it was my reward for the long Winter Quarter.

So I drive up at around 5pm on a Tuesday night, and the place is hopping with an Air France conference. I pull up for valet (no self parking at this place) and I get comped valet for driving a hybrid, a thirty dollar value I might add! I had booked my room a few hours before arriving, and everything was good to go. I signed up for there free Fairmont Presidential membership which scored me free Wi-Fi and free NY Times in the morning.

The room itself was extremely nice as you can see from the pictures below taken with my iPhone. Here are some photos of the room and the nice 32″ LCD.

 

 

So as you can see the room is really nice and as you can see from the image below I did do some studying.

 

But of course when you are studying you work up an appetite and that is what is so great about room service. For dinner I had a Turkey Club, a Bowl of Tortilla Soup, and a Coke. Can it get any better?

 

 

 

So it was a great day. I had a real relaxing time at the Fairmont. I got my studies done. A great night sleep in an ultra comfy bed. Came back after my final and napped for 3 hours (got a late check out) and felt great. Plus I got a B in the class so it all worked out in the end. All in all it was a great stay, I hope to do it again on my last quarter here at UCI.

Yes I haven’t posted in a bit, but that is for one reason, and one reason only. Spring Break. I need a break every once in a while and that’s what I am doing. My viewers here are pretty loyal and I feel as though a week off is good now and again. So today Jenn and I are heading out to Knotts Berry Farm and just enjoy the day. We need to get away from it all, and what better then to go to an amusement park! I will return to normal posting next week! Until then!

Well I tried my best not to get sick, but that just didn’t happen, and I knew it wasn’t. I had a big Statistics exam on Monday morning at 9am, and I studied real late on Sunday night, and woke up miserable. I went and bombed the exam (no bueno), and got home, called in sick for work, and passed out on my bed and here I am today. I feel better, weak, a bit of a headache, but better. I think my cold was more exhaustion then anything, overworked, deprived of sleep, and stressed out to the max. Finals are in two weeks, my grades are bleh, I am 14 weeks away from Graduation, and its looking 50/50 if I am going to need to take a summer course to actually officially graduate. All I know is that I am back at school today, and I wish I was sleeping. I have some real big posts to post about, but I am just not feeling up to doing these posts justice, so I will put that off until I feel better.

So if I don’t post, its not because I don’t love all my readers (Jenn and Jake), but just because my cold needs to go away in a hurry. Way to much to do in the coming weeks, and very little time to do it.

Many of you who have talked with me recently know that I am really getting the fever to graduate from college. I am finally getting the sense that I am actually going to graduate. I have an outside chance of graduating here in June of 08. One of the first things I had to do was change majors. The only way I could get into UC Irvine was under a Studio Art major, and how I got into that major to begin with I never have understood, but the Economics major I wanted when I transfered wasn’t even offered during Winter of 2007. So I got into the major thinking I would change right when I got into UC Irvine. However I got to the school and they said I had to take a few classes and I would be able to change, and then it was a few more classes and all of a sudden it was Summer of this year and I was still in Studio Art. Over the summer I changed my focus from Economics to Sociology in hope not only to graduate earlier (which I now will) and took four Sociology courses over the summer. Two were Social Psychology classes, one was a theory and the final was a political sociology class. However I wasn’t able to change majors until I took one more Sociology class which I completed during Fall of 2007, and now January 8th, 2008 I am finally no longer a Studio Art major. I am now a Sociology major, I am so much more interested in Sociology then I was with Economics. So now I am a Sociology major, I have to get a few more things to pan out and I could be graduating in six months. How great would that be? I apply for graduation next week, and we will see how that goes. More to come!

Howdy everybody, its once again been about a week since my last post, but for those keeping up you would know that I went to the mountains for a few days to finish out the year. So now I am just starting to get back in the swing of things and getting ready for a huge Winter Quarter starting next Monday (The 7th of January). Can you believe it is already a year ago I started UCI? I can’t. I got to tell you this has been one of the craziest years of college, so much has changed since I started UCI that its hard to figure out what is to come next. I am getting very close to getting my Bachelors degree, I talked with my adviser today at UCI and it seems as though I have a “shot” at a Spring 2008 (that’s right six months from now) graduation. Now I have to get a few things from my last college to make that happen, but here is to hoping!

I am still working on a look back at 2007, my hope is to actually finish it, last year I started and stopped. This is one of those years that I might put behind me as well. I also have some pictures from the mountains that I am hoping to get around to as well. Gosh its tough getting back in the swing of things, I still feel like I need another week or two of vacation. But alas, that won’t be happening anytime soon. Not much else to post up on right now, although I have a lot to tell, that will have to wait for further blog posts. Welcome to 2008 everyone. Did anyone watch Letterman last night? What’s up with the beard? Conan’s wasn’t much better.

This is the first year in a while I haven’t had the chance to do a “year in review” post. Although I love doing them, mostly because there great to read a few years down the road, I hope to get to it at the start of 2008. What a year it has been though, it has had its fair share of ups and downs that for sure, one of the more rocky years in a while. However all in all it was another great year, plenty of great memories, great moments, and all together just great experiences. I am heading up to the mountains for a few days with Jenn and her folks, and then coming back to a grueling Winter quarter. It has been a pleasure folks, I look forward to continue writing to you all in the new year. Happy New Year Everyone.