El Nova si va

Here is a little trivia for those Spanish buffs out there. Apparently, No Va means no go in Spanish. No the bitter irony of it all, has not escaped me. As my brother so unremittingly reminded me as I sat in the Ga Tech parking lot waiting for the damn tow truck to come pick my ass up Tuesday. Yes, the Nova gave up on me again. I've been riding her harder than a virgin on prom night. And it is her way of saying, "Gentle honey your hurting me." So why do I keep her? She isn't a young lass anymore, though she is still hotter than ladies a fraction of her age. She has aged gracefully. But, for what reason do I stay in this relationship that brings me nothing but hardship and pain. When I know she will fail me soon or later again. It is only a matter of time. But, I guess with any abusive relationship there is some return you get that keeps you hanging on wishing for better times. Thinking, he or she will change. The reason why? The Nova is a symbol of something bigger and better. I look at that old rust bucket (thank god cars can't read she'd be so pissed if she read that.) I see seven years of blood, tears, sweat, good times, bad ones, and bonds built. Funny thing, I'm not even a car guy. I am probably hands down the worst mechanic to God graced this good world with. That consequently is why I work with number all day and not cars. But, that car is more than even what I put into it. You should have been part of the thousands of conversations I've had at gas stations all over the USA. (She has been to Cali and back all in one piece) Side note: literally thousands gas stations cause that’s how often I have to fill er' up. But, so many times someone has come up to me and said nice car. And then began to go into a long diatribe about their 69 or 73 whatever they had in highshool or whenever. Or their Dad's car or their brother or good friends. The stories I've heard about gorgeous chevy's with big blocks being wrapped around telephone poles are a dime a dozen. It dawned on me today that the Nova is bigger than even me. It isn't just my car. It is everyone's who ever had a Dad, brother, or friend with a garage and their dream car. But, the truth it is never just about the car. It is about the memories. The time you and your buddy you spontaneously road tripped it in that car. Or just sunny days with the windows rolled down and radio up Or the fact you found common ground with someone special to you over a dumb little machine. That is what the Nova symbolizes. The important things in life. The time spent with close friends, family, and all your loved ones. The special moments in your life you will always remember and the car you drove while doing so. When I pull up in that car windows down, radio up, shades on, fumes spewing; it takes them back and makes the remember the simple things in life. That’s why I put up with this relationship. To date, it is the longest relationship I've ever had and I intend to keep it that way. She has treated me great putting up with too much neglect and abuse. I am not the only receiving abuse in this relationship after all. And regardless of No Va or Si Va. I will always love that damn car.

The Purpose of Life and a MBA

Ok, new blog time. I've been trying to think about what to blog about next. For some reason I feel the need to somehow write something deep, meaningful, and life changing every time I get on here. I was thinking how I'd write about politics, economics, or something equally drab. And somehow convince everyone of my brilliance. Why I feel the need to impress people with a blog no one reads I can't understand. But, I guess writing is deeply personal for me. Somehow it allows me to express myself where I have very few other outlets to do this so intimately. But, I guess all this to say. I'm not going to write about any of that tonight. I wanted to write about myself and sort through some things that were running through my head; keeping me from being productive at work today.

So it begins with this thought I had that I'm gonna start putting in some ground work into getting my MBA. In other words start studying for the GMAT, start looking into what schools are best, and what all I need to do to make it happen. I work at GA TECH and they will pay for it so money won't be much of an issue. It really come down to time and commitment.

Then last night, I was reading this website. INFJ.com. It’s a personality website. I'm by Meyers-Brigg a INFJ. I won't get into specifics but, I find all this pshycobable stuff interesting so I like reading up on it. Anyways, they had an article about the Purpose of Life on this website. The article suggested an interesting experiment. Write the question What is the purpose of life? down and write down answers till you find the one that strikes you. That is your purpose of life. Me being the sentimental sob I am decided to give it a shot. I say I wrote for a good 30-40 minutes. Nothing.

Ok so fast-forward to today. Not only have I come up with anything but, this thought permeates my entire day. Really creating a vacuumous void in where I can get nothing accomplished but, think about this all consuming thought all day. What is the Purpose of Life? So this of course gets me thinking about this MBA. Why do I want an MBA? To what purpose does this suit me. I won't lie the idea of advanced education makes me warm and fuzzy inside. So in that way it all makes sense. But, why an MBA. Other than of course I was a finance major. But, truley what is the point of me getting an MBA. What is I want to do with my life that spending all this time, effort, and money (well your money anyhow great citizens of Georgia). To what purpose. Higher education is a lofty goal for sure. But, shouldn't i have a purpose other than to try have another symbol of my intelligence. After all I think this is the reason I ended up in Applebee's after graduating college. With a 3.72 GPA in Finance from UGA. I waited tables for over a year. Why? No fucking clue what to do with my life. Quite disturbing and not any fun let me assure you. So in a sense I think I am trying to rush this MBA on the grounds it gives me a tangible goal. Something to work for. While my reasoning is sound my intentions are not quite so. I don't know if I see myself in high finance or working in some business for the man all that nonsense. I'm not really sure what all that means. I need to engage something a little more meaningful in my life. Maybe it isn't even a career. Maybe I'm looking for some idea or philosophy on what I consider to be meaningful in life.

Anyways. This is getting quite long and all to say really. I don't know. I've always envied those who knew what there calling in life was even if it was damn near impossible to achieve. Those who put themselves on the line and are willing to fail for some idea of what they believe in is their calling. I know I'm still working on it. And as a brief sidebar I am trying to exclude God and spirituality in this conversation. For reasons that would take a whole other blog to explain. But, just to say. We all have are here for reason. Whether we are here through God or by chance. We are given this time we should do something with the time we have. I fear squandered time. When we are all given such talents; time wasted not putting them to good use is a shame.

Well this all got unintentionally sappy. For that I apologize. I guess it beats paying for therapy though huh? But, if you sat through reading all this I truly appreciate it. I just have to write things out sometimes to get my head all straightened out. And for some reason if I think there is an audience it helps me organize everything a little bit better. Instead of random ramblings you'd find in my journals. So it appears this is the direction this blog site will be taking. Just random thoughts about my life. I actually wanted to stay away from this exact kind of blog. Thus why I was going to write about Hillary, minimum wage ,or why libertarinism is the best. Well. Maybe that will still happen. But, until it does. Thanks for just listening.

Michael

Beer and good friends.

Well I'm sitting here right now thinking how great it would be to be drinking a nice cold beer right now. Unfortunatly I'm sitting at home alone and one of my new years resolutions was to not drink alone anymore. Mainly in order to curb embarassing phone calls and other random act of degradation. None the less it got me thinking. Cause well I don't really feel like going out tonight. Going through the whole rigamorale of getting ready, calling people to find out if anyone is doing anything. God the hassle. And this got me thinking. (Yes i said that earlier but, I'm trying to establish a train of thought here just try and follow along.) But, it got me thinking of Athens and my good ol' friend up there. Mainly cause it is a perfect night for an Athens VPT crew get drunk at good ol' F night. The good times. Where if we were broke or just temporarily disenfranchised by the glories of downtown we would all spend 10 bucks on a good ol' 12 pack of bud light and revel in each others company. I think without doubt those were my favorite memories of UGA and Athens. By nature I'm not much of a social butterfly. But my great paradox is I love people. So sitting at the house with a group of my close friends indulging in our favorite vices and pasttimes life could never ever get any better. Ahh the great conversations that were had, the incrediblly stupid things we did, and the occasional drama that would erupt. Ahh.. I miss it. But, alas we grow up and you can't stay in the same place forever. And I'm sitting here still alone craving the familiarity of a beer cause that is what these kind of night are made for. Some good tunes, maybe an ol nes Jeopardy game, a substantial amount of alchol and all the time in the world to drink it. With nothing to do but, shoot the shit. I miss that. To all my friends out there past and present. I think i'm going to break my resolution. Sad i know. But, no one is perferct. And hell at least I've given up smoking. One step at a time. And tonight if you recieve a call from me know it is because I am thinking of you and I wish you were sitting right next to me throwing one down with me. Well here is to the night. It is looking up already.

fuck proofreading.

So i decided not to worry about spelling, grammar, any proofreading in general. Deal with it.


*edit*

So maybe a little proofreading was in order. I guess I'll try and take care of some of the more glaring mistakes. But, comma splices, fragments, misspellings, and the like will probably a common occurance.

Mistakes

Well folks. Time for my second post. I wanted to talk about something I have had running around in my head since the beginning of the year. Basically, the beginning of the year began for me with very little of a bang. I wasn't in the greatest of moods for reasons I won't fully disclose. The first week of the year was pretty rough. Trying to get back into the swing of things after a week of vacation isn’t easy in the first place but, my mind was going a 100 fucking miles and hour and when my head starts doing that there is no way possible for me to shut it off. And of course none of these thoughts were the lovely I'm so terrific thoughts. But, more of along the lines of why are you so much of a fuck up type. Why don't you do this, why aren't you this, how come you haven’t become this or that. Just your general self-doubt, depreciating, destruction of self-confidence bullshit that I'm so damn good at. So anyways, I spent the start of 07' wondering what was wrong with me. After a week or so of all this useless contemplation. Something hit me. I think I was at work but, it isn't really that important. I realized that I hate being wrong. I beat myself up mercilessly if I ever perform anything resembling a mistake. My own worse critic. I distinctly remember a teacher I think in middle school telling me I would make a great general and that she would follow me into battle because she knew I would have everything planned out and would meticulous with any battle planning. So yeah, in a sense this hatred of fucking shit up is probably a good trait to have. But, I've noticed that it keeps me from doing things. It cripples me this fear of failure holds me back and probably leads directly to more failures through lack of action. I procrastinate because if I can't do something perfectly right I'd rather wait then learn as I go.

Then another epiphany slammed into me as I was driving home from work one day. If you follow this idea of fear of mistakes to its conclusion. You have to ask the question why are you afraid of failure? And ladies and gentlemen the answer to that question sucked. Cause it dawned on me mistakes are only mistakes because you didn't live up to someone else’s idea of what is right. Translation, I care more about what others think of me than I do about trying to improve myself and become a better person. Life is fucked up. The only way to grow is through mistakes, failures, pain, and sacrifice. That’s the only way. And when you allow someone’s opinion of you get in the way of these things that will make you grow. You become a smaller person because of it. And this is what I had done. And it pissed me off. I think I had lied to myself for so long saying I don't care what others think of me. And in reality my perception of what people thought of me was more important than who I really was. Now I'll be honest I'm not really sure we can go through life completely without ever caring what others think of us. In some ways we are always living up to expectation set on us by others. Whether it be your fathers, mothers, wife’s, kids, great aunt, bosses. It doesn't matter it is tough to be distinctly yourself in a world that is so connected. "A man is not an island" after all. But, if we realize that maybe just maybe then the important choices, those big steps in life we can start throwing away misconceptions of what we should do. And instead focus intuitively on what it right for us. Whether everyone else think it is a mistake or not. Even if it is there will be a nice lesson at the end of it for us. Well I wanted to get that out sort of as an affirmation as to the direction I want to take in my life. Through caution to the wind sort of thing. I've started asking myself the question every time I have hesitation about doing something. Is that a mistake? And somehow this helps with my clarity. It helps me see whether I'm doing or not doing something because I think it is wrong. Or because I afraid I'll do something someone else thinks is wrong. Fuck it. Right?

Thus Began the Madness

So it all begins. Now. My giant leap into the arms of blogdom. I'm sure you all are as anxious and nervous about this whole experience as I am. So I will start off slow. This all began as a simple thought a couple weeks ago and has continued to bounce around in my head like a ping pong ball on acid (as most my thoughts do). But as this thought continued to ping back and forth in its ever growing bliss. I began to envision all these marvelous articles my blog would entail. Oh how I would regal you with blogs worthy of only the grandest minds. I would absolutely blow you way with the magnificent size of my intellect, the dexterity of my writing prowess, and you would fawn at how someone of my stature is limited to such an oh so small space in such a large cyber kingdom. I had a lovely name picked (the lounge) and it would be the equivalent of an intellectual nut scratch for me. Incidently, it was supposed to stay clean but all that has been tossed out with limited caution along with the baby and the bathwater. But, alas after weeks of all this damn incessant pinging. It hit me. I didn't really want to write about all that crap. (Not to say I won't). For reasons I promise to divulge later. This blog will be unequivocally and unapologetically about nothing but me. Yes, the Cox. This blog my valued reader is not at all for you. It is only a simple landing strip for all these thoughts that continue to take off inside my scalp to land as carelessly as possible. I also believed that I would make all these great promises which I would then abandon. So yep no promises either. Nothing but my true complete random thoughts. Welcome to my head. Take it or leave.
and Thus Began the Madness.