“The Official Blog of Daniel J Garcia”

I’ve been making some enhancements to the blog app tonight. Adding a couple of little things, fixing some others. I hope it all works ok.

Anyway, things are pretty much status quo this week. I wasn’t feeling too well this morning and ended up taking a sick day. I did manage to get some sleep too. It was pretty hot outside (90+ degrees, its 86 degrees as I write this) and my AC has been going all day. Its a good thing I’m on the ComEd budget plan for 6 months, although I hate to see my monthly bills when I go off it. I had a doctors appointment at 6pm, so I had to get up and go out into the baking sunlight. On the way back I came up Cass Avenue and waited in traffic a long time since they were doing the classic car show again (I think its every Thursday) and that, with the train tracks, always slows things down. I did see a nice black Ford Fairlane though, which was pretty cool. It wasn’t cherry red, but it was nice nonetheless.

For you observant people, you may have already guessed that I just saw “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou“. I actually watched it last night and liked it pretty well. I don’t think its as good as “The Royal Tenenbaums” or “Rushmore“, but it was still pretty good. I like the movies by Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson and enjoyed it (although Owen didn’t actually co-write this one). I finally even downloaded “Bottle Rocket” today from Movielink.com and watched that this afternoon. Its a little quirky too, but I liked it too and its pretty cool to see how they all started out working together (Wes, Owen, and Luke).

For those of you who haven’t seen “Life Aquatic“, its basically about (note, this is borrowed from IMDB.com):

“A formerly famous oceanographer fallen on hard times, Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) has hit rock bottom. Sensing revenge on a mysterious shark that took the life of his best friend will redeem his soul, Steve and Team Zissou hit the seas (on his ship,”The Belafonte”), with a reporter (Cate Blanchett) tagging along, a rival (Jeff Goldblum) around every corner, and a man named Ned (Owen Wilson) who may or may not be Steve’s long lost son.”

If you liked the other movies I mentioned, you’ll like this one too. Also look for Willem Dafoe to steal most of the scenes he’s in, which isn’t easy when you’re opposite Bill Murray.

Anyway, that’s about it tonight. I’m planning on working on finally unpacking my living room this weekend, but my track record hasn’t been very good so for (its only been 5 weeks). We’ll see how things go.

Later.

Daniel General

Another weekend has come and gone. I wanted to just relax this weekend and catch up on some sleep, but that didn’t quite happen.

I (along with 13 other guys from my chorus) sang the National Anthem Friday night at the White Sox game. It was great and the total ticket attendance was over 28,000 people. There weren’t that many there to hear us sing, of course, but there were still over 15,000 or more. We had some pictures taken while we were there and I’ll post some if there are any good ones of me.

I did get one picture where I am standing in front of Jerry Reinsdorf’s office. Even though the first doors were open, I was too chicken to actually go inside and look around. I still have a little bit of a grudge against Jerry from the 1990’s when the Bulls won all those championships. I don’t exactly remember now why I was annoyed with him then, but rather only that I was.

I ran a bunch of errands during the day Saturday and then ended up helping my buddy transfer a bunch of websites from the old servers to the new ones. We’re just about done which is great. I was really tired when I headed to bed at 1am-ish that night. I turned on the TV to help me sleep and I ended up watching an episode of Murphy Brown (I’ve got that show as a season pass on my Tivo too), then got caught up in watching Boyz In The Hood (reference in title). I haven’t seen that movie in many years and ended up watching the whole thing. It was after 4am before I could close my eyes and try and sleep.

I wasted my Sunday away, took a nap at one point, and finished up some web dev I’ve been working on. I also decided to put off laundry for a couple of days to see if I can get by with a week and a half between washing. Of course its now 12:44am and I am still not tired. Its been like this for the last couple of weeks. I cannot seem to get myself to sleep before 1am or later. It really sucks. I thought about drinking some wine or something before bed, but I read somewhere that you shouldn’t drink as it doesn’t help at all.

My mood has been good and bad lately. I’m really annoyed with some things, indifferent to others. The trick is to start ignoring the annoying things and let the rest of it all work out. I have a feeling my mood will get a lot better over the next month or so, but until then, I’ll just have to take it easy. Keep on trucking. Keep on keeping on. Life rolls on, etc.

BTW, I finally watched 30 Days tonight. That was a pretty good show. I also rented the Life Aquatic, but have not watched it yet. Maybe tomorrow night. I also saw Batman Begins with Mark on Thursday night. It was pretty good, but I think I prefer Michael Keaton and the first Batman movie (not the original with Adam West).

Later…

Daniel General

I’m a bit tired tonight as I’ve been staying up pretty late the last few nights. I’ve got some Dylan playing and I’m feeling fairly mellow (bonus points if you know which song I’m referencing in the title). I’m also nursing a Smirnoff Ice.

Not too much has been going on the last couple of days. There is a chance that I (along with 10-11 other guys from my chorus) may be singing the National Anthem at the Chicago White Sox game this Friday night, but we’re still waiting to hear back from our contact. The people that were supposed to do it canceled this week and they need someone to fill in quick. Even though we are tentatively scheduled to take the chorus out there to sing in August, we can hardly say no when the Club comes calling.

We’re supposed to be moving desks around at the office too, but thats not exactly exciting. We’ll hopefully move tomorrow, but its dependent on the people that are currently in there moving out first. I think it will actually be kind of a nice change as we’ll be moving closer to some of the other people in our department making for a more social environment. The downside is that I think I’m going to get stuck with the desk right in front of the board room which means all the higher ups will be trapsing by me on a regular basis.

Must…look…attentive…when…CEO…walks…by….aaaarrrggghhhh!!!

If I get enough motivation, I may actually try and clean the apartment this weekend. If I had a magic eight ball it would probably say outlook hazy, but you never know. I’ve also Tivo’d a few movies over the last week or so, so maybe I’ll just veg out and watch some of them too.

Well, its 10:42pm and I think I’ll start mosying towards the bedroom. Maybe I can fall asleep before 1am tonight.

Later…

Daniel General

Just a quick entry right now as I need to get ready for work. Last night I was talking to my good friend and fellow author/collaborator Dr. David Chin Evans about one of our joint publications (In the privacy of their own homes: Using the Internet to assess racial bias; EVANS DC, GARCIA DJ, GARCIA DM, et al.; PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN; 29: 273-284 2003) and decided to do a citation search to see who referenced our article.

It turns out we were cited 5 times so far in the last two years! Thats very exciting for me as it shows my work (well, the collective work with David) is actually providing scientific value to the research community.

For all you non-geek types, lets just say its a pretty cool thing and a pretty cool feeling to have.

BTW, here is the list of the other articles that cite mine:

Powell AA, Branscombe NR, Schmitt MT
Inequality as ingroup privilege or outgroup disadvantage:
The impact of group focus on collective guilt and interracial attitudes PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN 31 (4):
508-521 APR 2005

Wohl MJA, Branscombe NR
Forgiveness and collective guilt assignment to historical perpetrator groups depend on level of social category inclusiveness JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 88
(2): 288-303 FEB 2005

Tynes B, Reynolds L, Greenfield PM
Adolescence, race, and ethnicity on the Internet: A comparison of discourse in monitored vs. unmonitored chat rooms JOURNAL OF APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 25
(6): 667-684 NOV-DEC 2004

Borgida E, Stark EN
New media and politics – Some insights from social and political psychology AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST 48 (4): 467-478 DEC
2004

Evans DC
A comparison of the other-directed stigmatization produced by legal and illegal forms of affirmative action JOURNAL OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 88 (1): 121-130 FEB
2003

Anyway, I found this pretty exciting and wanted to share.

Later…

Daniel General

I just got back from my weekend camping trip and am a little tired out. I went down after work on Friday and just got back a couple of hours ago. I had my own tent site and camped near Steve, Amanda, Larry, and Jennifer. Since I was able to get down to Utica (place we were camping) while it was still light out, I was able to get my tent up pretty quickly.

Well, ok, Mike managed to get my tent up pretty quickly, but I did help him. I apparently also needed help getting the air mattress pumped up as I forgot to make sure the plug was closed and was wondering why after a few minutes the bed wasn’t inflated. I actually did get help as a fellow camper wised me up and I was able to quickly figure things out.

I have found over the years that when it comes to things like this, I function best in a purely supervisory capacity. If you want things delegated, I can do it. A job needs to get done, let me help coordinate it and it will get done. Some people might call that being inept, I call it being crafty.

Anyway, aside from the couple of rain showers things went pretty well. We stayed up really late on Saturday night and Steve and I were really having a laugh-fest (which we do a lot when we get together). He just got married a couple of weeks ago and I can say that I give Amanda two thumbs up. Way to go Steve for not screwing this one up!

heh heh

As mentioned, I’m back home now and am doing the laundry from last week and the trip. I had to take a shower right away though as I was not able to take one earlier. I felt sweaty and a little gross, but I’m much better now.

I grew up in the rural parts of Lyndon (near Sterling, IL), but I think I’ve really changed a bit since living downtown and in the suburbs (Chicagoland). They say that you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy.

Well thats total BS. Somewhere along the way I’ve abandoned the old me and become a city slicker. Although it was pretty fun camping with my friends and fellow barbershoppers, I think I’ll stick with my mantra of my idea of roughing it is a cheap motel (no, not an hourly one Steve).

Later…

Daniel General

Its been a couple of days since my last posting, but thats mostly because I’ve installed a new blog application and have been working with it to figure it out. I’ve made some minor tweaks here and there, but still want to add some new features starting next week. Since the code came unencrypted and is in Cold Fusion, I can do whatever I want to it.

I was up really late last night and didn’t get to bed until after 1:30am, but at least I’m all packed for the weekend. I don’t understand how it is that I overpack for relatively small outings. I’m going to be there for about 40 hours total (not quite 2 days), yet I packed my rolling suitcase, a backpack, a laundry basket full of stuff (sleeping bag, pillows, etc), an air mattress, chair, and tent. Somewhere along the way my packing prowess experienced arrested development.

I made shake and bake for the second night in a row and it turned out pretty well again. There may be hope yet. I spent the rest of the time organizing my bills and trying to get things lined up so that I know what I need to pay when, etc. So far I am managing ok, but time will tell if I end up destitute, staying in a van, down by the river.

As for the entry title, I was working with another web app today and somehow that song got stuck in my head. For your benefit, here are some lyrics so that it can stuck in your head too.

Hello, Dolly
Well, hello, Dolly
It’s so nice to have you back where you belong
You’re lookin’ swell, Dolly
I can tell, Dolly
You’re still glowin’, you’re still crowin’
You’re still goin’ strong
We feel the room swayin’
While the band’s playin’
One of your old favourite songs from way back when
So, take her wrap, fellas
Find her an empty lap, fellas
Dolly’ll never go away again

Later…

Daniel General

I stopped at home before chorus last night and got my scooter. I figured that it was a nice enough night, pretty warm, and it would be a good drive down, which it was until, the RAIN!

I have never ridden in the rain before and actually enjoyed most of it. It downpoured pretty good for about 7 minutes during one stretch of road. After it let up, it was dry driving the rest of the way. I didn’t mind getting wet so much as the feeling of not being as comfortable riding when wet. I think I did pretty well overall, but there were times when my helmet was blurred a bit and I was apprehensive about what the bike might do. Also, the painted lines on the road are even more slippery when wet.

I was able to air dry after the rain stopped and was pretty much dry by the time I got to chorus. I did have towel in the trunk area (always know where your towel is), but I didn’t need to use it. The rain also washed away a lot of the dust/dirt that had been accumulating, so that was good too. I just need to remember to bring my hat as I get helmet head pretty good (I don’t know how those other guys can wear helmets and still have ok hair).

Even though our regular director was out sick, chorus went very well and I think everyone had a pretty good time. We ended up doing a lot of tag singing and were able to get everyone up in front of the chorus at one time or another in either quartets, octets, 12-tets, or ensembles. I was very happy with the participation and am looking forward to seeing how we can keep this rolling.

I had a late snack with Neil and Dave after chorus (service took a loooong time at Steak & Shake), and the ride home was pretty pleasant. The only part I dread is the several mile stretch of road that goes through the forest preserve. I usually see deer on the side of the road and I am even more paranoid on the bike. If I hit one of those going 40, 50 it wouldn’t be fun.

I was still in a good mood this morning and had lunch with my buddy DJ. He’s heading to India for a month so it was nice to catch up before he ships out. My sense of humor is returning, which was a little unfortunate for DJ. He’ll just need to keep walking and I’m sure it will all work out in the end.

Daniel General

I just finished eating and will be coming off my lunch break soon. A can of hearty chicken noodle soup and bread makes a surprisingly ok-ish lunch. I couldn’t eat that every day, but its ok from time to time.

I weighed myself yesterday and find that I am once again losing my battle with gravity. I thought I was starting to make inroads ounce by ounce, but gravity can be a cruel mistress. Makes you happy one day, not so much the next. I have not given up yet. I will continue to do all that I can (except for actual physical exercise) to keep fighting off its effects on me. Once I make some more progress, then I may actually walk by an exercise place. I don’t want to rush into anything or get ahead of myself.

BTW, talking with my friend today, Thursday is the day we begin fasting. We plan on fasting on Mondays and Thursdays, but I’ll have to see how this first day goes. Apparently you are not allowed to even drink water while fasting, so that will be interesting. I decided to fast with him as I am bored and this sounds like a new way to understand different cultures and save a couple of bucks. Plus there is always the chance that I could lose half a pound somewhere.

Here’s hoping…

Daniel General

I stopped by the depressing grocery store again. I call it that because it was really dreary and depressing the first time I went there. This is now the second time I went and it was a little better, but still left me a little low. I should just stop going there altogether but there are times when misery loves company and I need a quick pick me up.

I was thinking about the various failures in my life (too many to list here :p ), and I remembered something I saw a few years ago that I really took to heart. It was a tv commercial with Michael Jordan who said:

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life…and that is why I succeed.”

I guess there’s hope yet, although I much rather prefer the motivational ramblings at Despair.com.

heh heh

Anyway, my apartment is still a mess and I don’t feel like working on it tonight. Dinner was ok (pork steaks and ramen noodles, my old college fair) and I need to start doing some web work. Until next time, take care of yourselves, and each other. Good night.

Daniel General

I am in the process of getting my blog back online. I’ve been away for a long, long time, but now I’m back. No worries.

-Daniel

Daniel General