Posted by Ryan
March 27, 2008
In my constant struggle to have a balance life, I usually don’t have a balanced life. It usually goes something like this: read the books I want to read, read all the blog feeds I want to read, post on my blog a few times, realize that I haven’t worked in a few weeks days. Work. Repeat. After I’ve repeated that a few times I stop reading just about everything (I can never completely stop) and work a lot. After a few weeks I realize that I’m really far behind on everything I want to read so I catch up and it starts all over. And that’s why I haven’t blogged much recently (and you know I usually blog so much).
I do, for the record (whatever that means… who’s record?), believe I have improved in the whole balanced life thing this year. At least it feels that way (so it’s probably true).
A few other things:
My iPod nano locked up (all I did was push the play button on an audiobook). Wouldn’t respond. Reset procedures did nothing. I took it to the Apple store and they gave me a brand new one. No more little dents in the side!
I went to Sacramento a few weeks ago for the Sacramento lindy exchange. For the past 4 years I’ve said “I’m not driving there again!” and every year I do it again. This time I mean it: I’m not driving there again next year! The dancing was fun though. Also, we went to the Sacramento Temple! That was sweet. The weather was beautiful.
I saw Horton Hears a Who! and liked it (overall).
(I used a lot of parentheses in this post.)
Maybe I’ll post again tomorrow (don’t count on it, but you never really know).
I just had a really weird thought that will probably make everyone’s brains explode. You know how in math (and programming) you’re supposed to calculate the innermost parentheses first? Well, if a sentence were structured that way it’d be really hard to read: (I did, however, buy chips and salsa! (I haven’t bought shoes in a really long time. (except I didn’t really because (and bought some shoes (I went to the store (The other day)))))).
Yeah, I’m going to bed now. Sorry about that.
Posted by Ryan
December 31, 2005
Last year I posted my resolutions for 2005. I said I’d post mid-year about them. Well, I didn’t. So here it is.
I had resolved to… and how I did:
Improve my writing style
Not so much. Lost interest in it early on in the year.
Improve my work ethic
This I was able to improve, although not as much as I’d orginally hoped. I do feel though that when I focus my efforts I can get a lot done. I find it easier than before to apply myself to work. That’s good. I still have a long way to go though.
Wake up early
hahahaha. There was a time when I did pretty good with this. I actually did it for a while. I like it a lot. I went to bed early, got up early, worked hard and I got a lot of work done. I usually got more work done by noon than if I’d slept in until noon and worked until 3 AM. So why don’t I still do that? Well… I’m lazy? haha No really, I was doing good until I went to the Denver Lindy Exchange and stayed up until 5-6 AM every night for the entire weekend. In general, the swing dancing every weekend really messes things up. I don’t stay out that late every weekend of course, but late enough to mess things up.
Okay okay I have no excuses.
Compliment people more
Improved a little bit, but not like I’d planned.
Finish and release huge web project (currently only in planning stages)
ha. Didn’t ever start. New jobs got in the way.
Learn how to write complex Firefox and Thunderbird extensions
Nope.
Move out of my parent’s house (shhh! don’t tell my mom!)
Nope.
To be determined
This goal means that I am to keep an open mind to new opportunities that come my way, even if they could mess up my current goals for ryanware.com and other projects. Each new opportunity must be weighed against my current projects and goals before jumping either way. To not keep an open mind towards new opportunties could prove to hold me back, instead of helping me advance. So I will try to keep an open mind to new opportunities that come my way.
This is really the only goal of mine that I actually applied. New job opportunities presented themselves throughout the year, and I took them. As you can see from reading how I did on the other goals, the things such as my writing style, web projects, and mozilla extensions took back burner. For now.
2005 was a good year. I have no regrets or complaints. For 2006 I’m not going to bother with resolutions that I know will end up like 2005’s. Suffice it to say that I’m going to strive to improve myself in every way and help others out along the way. I’d like to get involved with service organizations and travel to foreign places (or around here) and help out.
I wish you all a happy and prosperous new year!
Posted by Ryan
December 31, 2004
You know those Christmas cards we all receive which tell a little bit about each family member and what has happened to them in the past year? They give me hope. The reason for this being that I realize that my life isn’t the only boring one. ;) Or maybe it’s that my life is boring. Oh well. Whatever the case may be, I thought as this year draws to an end I’d like to reflect a little bit on what has happened to me this year. You’ll be thrilled, I promise.
Luckily for you, you won’t be as thrilled as you could have been. I was going to write something for every month, but it soon got way too long (see the month of March). So I’m just going to give some highlights.
February: One of my good friends made me go to a Valentine’s party at the local community college. I protested loudly at this idea, especially since it cost me $10 and cost him nothing (he had a free pass), but went anyway. It was that night that I started to learn how to swing dance. We then went swing dancing the following night. And then the next week, and the next week, and the week after that and oops! I’m getting into March.
March: and the next week and the next week… okay I’ll stop. I turned the ripe old age of 489 minus 467. Over spring break I went to San Diego with a group of friends. There were 13 of us I think? We left on the 16th and came back on the 20th. We stayed the first night in a hotel casino called Whiskey Pete’s just outside of Las Vegas. The only thing good about that place was the fact that it was cheap. Of course, the second hand smoke probably took a good 31 years off my life so it might have been better to stay somewhere else. We arrived in San Diego on the 17th and enjoyed a nice evening on the beach. Too bad it was cloudy and windy. Uh oh, this is sounding really negative. First I lose 31 years of my life and then the beach wasn’t sunny! Well, just because it wasn’t sunny doesn’t mean we didn’t have fun. We had a good time swimming and playing volleyball. We then went to Old Town San Diego or whatever it’s called and had dinner at a cool Mexican restaurant. We then stopped in the Mormon Batallion visitor center (read more about the Mormon Battalion). The next day, the 18th, we went to Tijuana Mexico. This was my first time out of the good old USA. Me diverti mucho poder hablar con los mexicanos y aun mas divertido fue cuando ellos hablarian sin saber que yo y dos de mis amigos podian entenderles. Creo que gaste demasiado dinero en Tijuana, pero para que quejarme? Claro, no debia haber tenido presa comprando gafas de sol, pero ya ni modo. La historia de las gafas de sol: al entrar en Tijuana un hombre trato de venderme gafas de sol por $20. Yo le dije que no. $15, no. $10, no. $5, no, pero tal vez regrese luego le dije. Al salir de Tijuana pasamos por el mismo hombre y yo le dije que compraria los lentes por $5. El problema aqui fue que yo tenia prisa y el lo sabia. Yo le di un $20 y el dijo “$6 dolares”. A mi, con mi prisa, no me importaba ya y le dije algo como “whatever”. El me dio los lentes y mi cambio y sali corriendo. No fue hasta luego que conte el dinero para encontrar que habia pagado $12 por mis lentes baratos. Hasta este momento habia estado defendiendo a los Mexicanos puesto que conozco a muchos personalmente y son personas muy honestas. Pues, los que conozco son honestos y millones mas tambien, pero este no hombre no lo fue. :) Unos de mis amiogs se quejaban que todo lo que hacian los Mexicanos en Tijuana era para estafar. Mientras sabia que no todos son asi, ya no me caian bien todos. :) Yo le perdone por haberme estafado, pero la proxima vez no confiare tanto en personas que no conozco. Ya ni modo, a lo mejor el necesitaba el dinero mas que yo. No fue mucho.
Okay, back to English. After leaving Tijuana I don’t recall going anywhere else but back to where we were staying to watch a movie (Pirates of the Carribean). The next day, the 19th, we went to the San Diego LDS Temple and then drove to L.A. (well, near it anyway) where one of our friend’s sister and brother-in-law live. After eating at an In and Out Burger joint we dropped our stuff off and drove up into the mountains to go hiking. We were to hike to a waterfall and go swimming. Our friend’s sister was our guide. We somehow got off the trail though and our short hike turned into a really long hike. But don’t you fear. We didn’t get lost and eaten by bears or anything. We eventually made it to the waterfall and had a good time swimming. I need to scan these pictures in to post on here (I really need a digital camera). As it started to get dark we decided we better head back so we wouldn’t get lost again and freeze to death. We took the real trail back. We ended up being quite happy that we got off the trail on the way to the waterfall. The trail was boring and really quick. :-P
When we got back to the place we were to sleep we had a funny experience. One of my friends had bought a guitar in Tijuana. While we were hiking, the brother-in-law who stayed home decided to fill a plastic bag with powdered sugar and shove it in the guitar. So when my friend picked up the guitar to play it he noticed something inside after a few minutes. What the? Drugs! Or so everyone thought. Well, most everyone. From where I was standing I could see our friend mouthing to his brother-in-law “he fell for it”, laughing, and giving a thumbs up. It caused quite a stir and was really quite funny to watch. How did that much drugs get across the border through the scanning machines? etc. etc. etc. They eventually flushed it all down the toilet. I have no idea if anyone still believes it was really a bag full of drugs, I know the friend with the guitar doesn’t anymore. :) The next day I and two friends drove home while the rest stayed to go to a theme park. We called them half way home and asked how it was going. They’d been on two rides and were in line for another. We’re glad we didn’t stay.
Whew!
July: ULX 2004! ULX stands for Utah Lindy Exchange. A Lindy Exchange is basically a big huge swing dance that crazy swing dancers in big cities organize. People from all over the USA and world attend these things. An entire weekend of swing dancing! The dances usually go from 8 PM – 4 AM. It’s great. ULX 2005 is in January.
Also in July was our annual family reunion in the Uintah Mountains, Utah (Flaming Gorge is in the Uintahs). The actual family meeting part is boring, but we always go up a few days early to go fishing, raft the Green River, cliff jumping and sometimes water skiing on Flaming Gorge. Always a good time.
September: Started this blog! What? This shouldn’t be a highlight? Why are you reading then?!
December: Christmas concerts, skiing (was going to go again today, but other things got in the way), I learned how to tie my shoes the right way (!! you only think I’m kidding), and other fun stuff. The Phantom of the Opera movie was good, but I wouldn’t say it was a highlight and since this is supposed to be highlights I suggest you forget I said that. :)
That’s all for this year! I could have gone on and on, but I’ll be surprised if people read all of this already. :)
I’m looking forward to 2005! I wish you the best! See you next year!
