Categories
Adventure

Today I was a Tour Guide at Work

tour guideOn my way to lunch break, a mother and 2 students asked me if I knew where D building was. Of course I did, I worked there for 5 years or so. So I told them to follow me and I’ll get them there.

We walked across J lobby and I figured I’d give a tour style guide just to amuse them. Pointing our such great landmarks as the massive monkey stuffed animal in front of the day care center (he’s so awesome), the bookstore, student life center, etc.

Once we got outside They were on their way to D building. Thanking me extensively.

As I was heading back in (still hungry after all), I faintly heard an excuse me sir. I believe it was intended for a co-worker of mine who continued to walk past (not cool if you heard them), so I approached them. They needed to find the Admissions area, that’s where they had parked their car and were now lost.

Again I gave another guide in the direction I’d just come from. The woman with a pace maker needed help carrying books, so I offered and was carrying a big heavy bag as we searched for their car. They were so appreciative for the help, it really did feel good to help them out.

However, they weren’t exactly sure where their car was. So that was a bit of an adventure too. I then gave them directions on how to leave and get back on the Black Horse Pike eastbound.

Today I was a tour guide and it was a pleasant break from web development.

Categories
Books

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry

The Psychopath TestSince the original book I was interested in wasn’t available at the library I decided I’d give the recent arrivals section another look. I noticed The Psychopath Test, and figured it might be something different than what I’ve been reading as of late.

I really am glad I gave this one a shot, it was a very interesting book. The author interviews some extremely interesting people on the topic of psychopaths. Including doctors, patients, Scientologists and conspiracy theorists. His writing keeps an open mind, and isn’t too slanted to any one side.

The use of a checklist in determining a psychiatric disorder is covered a great deal, both the pros and cons of such a system. As well as touching on the possibility of psychopaths rising to CEO type positions.

The correlation between the publishing of the DSM-IV and the early 80’s really does make sense why so many more people are being diagnosed with a condition. Whether they’re accurately identified or not is another topic that I’ll leave up to the individuals to decide.

A very interesting read.

Categories
Sports

Kickball: Week 6

kickballWe had our second double header of the season last night. I felt sluggish all day, and several teammates expressed the same feeling as well before the game (long work days, illness, lack of sleep, etc.). Well we certainly didn’t play like a tired team last night.

It was crazy, just how many runs we scored. 27 in the first game and I lost count in the second game. Both teams we faced brought in some altered lineups. I really think our consistant roster is really starting to pay off. We all know each other very well, and that results in a better fielding team.

I still have to work on catching the ball. Playing shallow shortstop I had way too many drops, yet I consistently can throw runners out at second. So yeah, I can make the tougher play but cannot make what should be the automatic catch. I’m weird, I know.

Geoff and Sean both had home runs, which was really great to see. Geoff even kicked for the cycle in the first game! We also got numerous big kicks with two outs to score many runs.

The last two or three innings of the later game against Jake’s was getting pretty dark. I felt bad for our outfielders trying to navigate out there in all the darkness. They never complained and got our outs when necessary.

Everybody got a chance to contribute on offense in a major way at some point last night, it was great for all.

I’m so proud of my team and how we’ve played all season. It felt great that we could win both our games last night.

Categories
Books

The Big Over Easy

The Big Over EasyMy latest read was a NGM suggestion. He told me that it was pretty funny and a creative take on nursery rhymes. So I gave it a shot.

A mystery featuring Jack Spratt and numerous other well known nursery rhyme characters. jack must solve the mystery of the murder of Humpty Dumpty.It’s funny to read about these characters outside of their normal stories and interacting with one another.

The author does a great job of poking in subtle jokes, that almost slip by at times. While I’m not one to chuckle out loud, there were some pretty funny moments in the story.

The old man who calls everyone either Ronald or Nancy and how Jack interacts with him was great. Also, when Mary Mary tells Jack at the end that he’s now on a first name basis and he responds with Mary is great as well. Funny and well done stuff.

NGM tells me that there’s more in this series, so perhaps I might give them a shot down the road too.

Categories
Sports

Kickball: Week 5

SpongeBob SquarepantsLast night’s game was just what we needed after last week’s tough loss. Not only because we were on the winning end, but Jake’s Water Ice is just a really fun team to play. We all seem to enjoy joking with them and it’s just really fun.

Our fielding was pretty solid overall (I did drop more than I should’ve), and very few if any forced errors occurred. Smart, heads-up play prevailed.

Kicking wise we did great. As a team we really had some intelligent kicking, aiming for our spots and in many cases hitting them. There were a lot of hits between us all, and Lauren had a career day. 5 for 5 with 4 runs kicked in and 4 runs scored. It really didn’t dawn upon me just how impressive those stats were for one game until I looked over them today.

It was great to have some new heroes last night as well as continued solid play by the usuals too.

Afterwards we walked over to Jake’s Water Ice to celebrate our fine victory. It’s a great little place to go after a game. Geoff got to see the amazing bubbles come from the pirate SpongeBob (or SpongeRob as we speculated).

All in all a great team, and look forward to a couple more weeks.

Categories
Books

Game Over: How Nintendo Zapped an American Industry, Captured Your Dollars, and Enslaved Your Children

Game OverSince I was obsessed with Nintendo growing up, I had to read Game Over. The book details the early years of Nintendo (starting way back around 1890) as well as the growth of the video game industry overall. Growing up I just played Mario and Zelda, but reading about all the crazy industry stuff that went on behind the scenes was pretty entertaining.

From the early start when Nintendo brought the NES (known as Famicom in Japan) to the US after the early 80’s video game crash, it was all very interesting to learn about. Also the explanation of Atari and how the industry crashed in the US was great too.

Since the book was written in 1993 it’s really interesting to see just how much the industry has continued to change since then. While Nintendo is still a major player at this time, this is all before the Sony Playstation and XBox came on the scene. Also, it’s interesting to yet again find out just how rapidly the Interent burst on the scene and changed our daily life. Not once in this book was it even mentioned.

Even though it’s a bit dated, all the info leading up to 1993 was amazing to learn more about. I had no idea just how much battling went into getting Tetris out of the Soviet Union and on my Gameboy. Very good stuff.