Three children sitting on a log...

There are three children sitting on a log near a stream. One of them looks up at the sky and says, with a squinted red face, "here comes a winner!"and lets one rip. His brother turns and looks him square in the eyes in a happy shock and says, "jeez, guess we need to get a spot farther away from the house, I'm pretty sure mom heard that one." 

Relationships

If two people are critiqued by a jury of peers, and are uniformly deemed "dumber than rock", they should not be allowed to reproduce. Stupidity is an incurable disease and knowingly infecting a new generation is a crime against humanity comparable to those of militant islam.

Book Title

If there were a book called, "Women are better than men, and heres why...", it better have soft pages, cuz its coming into the bathroom with me, and I wont be reading it. Its a matter of academic integrity... please don't hate me for this.

splitting the rent

Splitting the rent can be a pain in the ass, and sometimes it can put a heavy load on a friendship. If you are sharing and apartment with a friend and one of the rooms is bigger,  does that person pay more? What if the other one has more windows? Here is how i believe these attributes should be compensated for, each is assigned a numeric value and they should be added up. The difference should be percent difference in rent.
Bedroom Size- 2 per square foot
Closet size- 1 per square foot
Bathroom size- 1 per square foot
Own bathroom- 4
each window-1
cable- 2
away from common area-1

The boulder to the iphone

I have had an indestructible, "rock" for a phone for the last two years and I thought I knew what love was. I could jump in the pool with it, drop it at work and even throw it at my friends. About a week ago, I finally gave in when I saw at&t was offering the iphone 3 for fifty dollars. It has changed my life! I am finally not restricted to checking my email when I am at my desk. Texting is faster, and it seems like I find a new favorite app every other day. If you are thinking about making this switch, it is totally worth it.

Smart not hard

Work smart, not hard.
Last summer, I worked as a lawn care technician. One day it was raining and my boss and I decided to do maintenance of the tractors. The most time consuming and hardest part of the process was changing out the blades on the bottom of the tractor. To do this, a massive amount of torque must be applied to the screw holding the blades in place. I attempted to use only my hand strength, and while I got it done, it took much longer and was much more tiring than was necessary. My boss came over while i was working on the second tractor and showed me a much more effective method. He took a long hollow metal rod and slid it over the end of my wrench. This allowed me to have much more leverage and get the job done in half the time with half the effort. I will never forget that lesson.

STUMP THUMPER

I learned a new game today. It is called stump. Each player gets a nail that is put part way the stump. On there turn, players attempt to hammer in the nails of other players. Once your nail is gone you are out. What makes the game exciting is that before attempting to nail, they must throw the hammer into the air and catch it. However many times the hammer flips is how many swings they get and however they catch it they must swing. Its an unbelievable party game.

a heart trick

Every man knows ties are uncomfortable. This is because stretch receptors in the carotid bodies in the upper neck sense changes in blood pressure and give false indications when they are pressured by neck ties. 

If you have ever actually experienced high blood pressure, you know its not something you want to deal with for long. Many times high blood pressure can occur after strenuous activity, as the veins are constricted to allow blood to more readily perfuse the active tissues and cardiac output increases as a result of increased heart rate. One way to cope with this is to blow slowly blow on your thumb. The vagus nerve which innervated the heart pacemaker cells is inhibited by slow rhythmic breathing and by thumb sensory. 

Ma BED

I don’t understand how people used to be able to sleep without a bed. I love my bed. I have probably spent more of my life in it than anywhere else. We have a special relationship, my bed and I, and I don’t think I could sleep, no matter how tired, without it. When you think about it though, man has come a long way in all sorts of technology, but the place that he spends most of his time has gone relatively unchanged. Of course there are the motorized beds, and the tempor pedic beds, but the only real advancement in functionality has been in making it more comfortable. I propose a hybridization of bed, lazy boy and vehicle. I know someone can make this work. 

Tooting to Survive

The human body is a machine and just like any other machine, the conservation of energy, even in the form of heat, must be conserved for the machine to function efficiently. The body has many mechanisms to regulate this heat energy loss.

-Hair on the top of the head acts to insulate rising body heat.

-Projections in the nasal cavity act to condition the air before it reaches the lungs by moistening and warming it, this warmth is then marginally taken up again during exhalation if the air is breathed out the nose.  

-Adipose tissue builds primarily around the bodies center of mass to insulate. 

-Vasoconstriction (a reduction in the diameter of the arteries) reduces blood flow to extremities during extreme cold to prevent heat loss. 

Mother nature might have missed an opportunity however. Farting as a response to decreased body temperature, could potentially be a mechanism to warn the body. Not only would the air that is expelled warm the skin on the butt, but it would also increase the density of the body, allowing body heat to be used more efficiently. 

My Balls and My Word

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOXXYEmv-90&NR=1
 When I first heard this speech I had to stop the movie and replay it. This is a crucial point in the movie because you realize how serious and bad ass Tony Montana is. His words are short and to the point; they are spoken from the heart. He's not afraid to tell it like it is, even though he knows the other guy is much more powerful than himself.

Getting to know strangers

If you wanted to know as much as possible about a person, but could only look at one part of there body, what would you look at?

Lungs- you could tell if they were a smoker, if they were an athlete or if they were a coal miner. 

Elbows- Scars and rough skin indicate an active life or a labor intensive profession.

Liver- Damage to this organ may stem from alcoholism or a deficiency/surplus of iron in there diet, probably from being a vegan or a hunter. 

Eyes- A lot of people believe they can tell a lot about a person by looking them square in the eyes.  

Hands- This would be my choice. The lifestyle, diet and attitude of the person can all be deduced by looking at there hands. Strength in the hands would indicate a hard working lifestyle. This would usually be accompanied by calluses. Lack of hand strength may be a sign of a white collar man or a dead beet. If the hands are weak but the nails are cut and the skin is not oily, it is usually a white collar man. Scars on the back of the hands would indicate clumsiness and scars on the front of the hands would indicate motivation. A wedding ring or class ring would also be dead giveaways. 

hungary. want eat.

"I'll have a double cheeseburger with fries and a frosty." "Our frosty machine is broken." "Ok, well than can I just have a milkshake?"

The grinch probably would have died

Having a big heart might be good in fiction, but in real life it's a real problem. Hypertrophy of the heart is  caused by an inflammation of the ventricle walls. Periods of increased aortic pressure requires pressure in the left ventricle of the heart to increase during cardiac contraction so that blood can be forced into the aorta. Just as skeletal muscle swells during sustained physical activity, the cardiac muscle in the left ventricle will becomes swollen to decrease the amount of contraction needed to create the needed pressure. This lessens the cardiac output overall by lessening the volume capacity of the left ventricle and increasing the overall size of the heart.

Brainiac

Not all stem cell research is research on pre-fetal stem cells. Stem cells exist in many places within your body and research on there mechanism give scientists and physiologists great insight into how our bodies function at a cellular level.
Remember your mom saying, you cant make new brain cells? She wasn't entirely correct. Stem cells in the olfactory bulb in the the nasal cavity are the only stem cells in the post-fetal body known to produce neurons. These neurons stretch from the external environment in the nasal cavity through the cribriform plate and connect directly to the central nervous system in the Thalamus. Producing new neurons in this area is essential to maintaining an acute sense of smell because the neurons exposed to the environment become worn and damaged.
Dr. Costanzo and his research team at VCU medical center are investigating the survival characteristics of these stem cells when transplanted into different regions of the brain.
This sort of research on stem cells can dramatically accelerate applications of modern technology in physiological systems and it would be irresponsible not to give it a chance.

I could write about this forever

Richard Dawkins might be able to put up a great argument against the existence of a higher power but it is wildly irresponsible to verbally attack the people of faith and to question there intelligence. After all, he will never know the truth for sure. That's like if I saying, "Nancy Pelosi has a huge wiener. I know this because I can see its outline when she sits down." I will never know why she has a huge bulge in her pants, but I'm not gonna go tell every libertarian that one of there government official is a cross dresser, that would just be reckless. After all, if he's right, that's great, but just think about what happens if hes wrong.
On the other hand, fire and brimstone Christians are not much better. If you don't accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior and go to your community church every Sunday your not going to burn for eternity. A christian serial rapist is going to hell before a Tibetan man lives a moral life and loves his family without ever being exposed to Christianity.
Most Christians are not this way. I myself have been a devout Maronite Catholic from birth, so it makes me angry to see god and the bible be misinterpreted. The bible is not a literal text. Jonah didn't actually get swallowed by a whale. That's just absurd. It was a story told to guide people people in times of fear.
Just because there is a god, does not mean that science is false. Science and religion can go hand in hand. Science is simply the understanding of gods plan. Evolution, for example, is a fact. It is happening every day and if you have every read stories about three legged people, you can see it at work. Mutations are the driving force behind evolution, not all mutations are beneficial, but some allow species to become dominant and as we all know, survival of the fittest takes over from there.
The point I am trying to make is, religion and science can coexist and it is irresponsible for authorities on either side to discourage believers in the latter.

All I wanted was a hamburger

My roommates and I were gonna cook hamburgers on our grill and the ignitor is broken. None of us smoke and the lighter we had used to light the grill before was out of gas. We were on our way to the gas station to pick up a new lighter when i decided it would be  good time to do Ms. Selmans assignment. We were going to try to light the grill without a lighter. We knew we could use the stove to light some paper and bring it to the grill, but we thought that would be cheating. In stead, my roommate Zach found his flint and magnesium he uses for camping. That stuff is a major pain in the ass. It was a little windy outside and every time we got a flame to light some paper the wind would blow it right out. We tried farting on it. If your thinking about trying that let me be the bearer of bad news, it doesn't work so well. Eventually we got a good flame and got the grill lit. I don't know how we would have done it without the flint though, ill sure never take fire for granted again. It took a little longer, but it was an adventure.

Beauty

May. Winter has come to an end.
The leaves are finally green
and world is beautiful, but you aren't so much.

There is much work to be done, but I
guess spraying your little cousin is important too.

What are ya thinkin bro?
Snap out of it. Capisce?!

Hemoglobin

This is not what our principle thinks happened. We even convinced the teacher of the year to go along with our cover up story.
In my senior year of high school I did more goofing off than anything. My favorite class, which was made up of a particularly rowdy group of friends, was one that I will never forget. One day Mr. Lester aka Moe Lester assigned us a project in which we were to construct catapults out of everyday items such as straws, tooth picks and duct tape. Unluckily for him, we were more up to the challenge than he ever could have known. As a group we spent our time designing a device not to shoot ping pong balls, but feathered darts. It was a beautiful peace of work, a blow dart gun made of PVC, a straw, paper, duct tape and a tack. A sharp tack. Once we had confirmed the effectiveness of the blow gun by puncturing water bottles, I told my buddy Zach I would pay him to let me shoot him in the leg. To which he promptly replied, "what does it pay?" Soon we had almost the entire class chipping in to encourage that poor kid to let me shoot a hole in him.
The dart stuck in his leg and we all just stared at it in disbelief. For the room was in hysterical laughter. That is until Zach decided to pull it out. A solid stream of blood shot out of his calve a good foot and a half. I will never forget the look on Rick's face. Rick doesn't like blood. He turned purple and ran to the trash. Zach plugged the hole in his leg with his finger and I, along with the other twenty people in the class, ran to get paper towels to clean up the river of blood on the classroom floor. Totally worth it though, even for Zach who came out of it 30 buck richer. Our only real casualty was Rick, he took one for the team.
To the public, we've all got pretty much the same story when it comes to this event in history. We had to. If we hadn't, I'm pretty sure we would all be still hangin around that school.
Privately however, I'm sure Rick remembers someone punching him in the stomach and shoving there fingers down his throat. It's very possible.

When I have a clean room

When my room is clean I am a completely different person. When I wake up in the morning and don't have to step over a pile of dirty laundry I changes my whole day. I feel more happy and energetic and I always get more done. I know it would be a real benefit to my health, education and personal life to keep a clean room.

For some reason it never stays clean. There is a good chance that 90% of my productive time is spent in the 2% of my life when my room is clean. So why can't i use that productivity to keep the room clean?

I have no idea. I tell myself I'm going to do that every time but as soon as i hit a bump in the road like a big test to study for or having friends over, I get completely thrown off track. The congestion in my mind is directly translated to a dirty room. Its insane.

I'm no philosophy major, but i can definitely see a correlation here. I wonder if anyone else had had this same feeling?

My education

Ken Steele, an education marketing consultant, organizes student motivation for entering college into four categories:  

1.   The scholars: " interested in education for its own sake…m otivated by altruism…l ikely to go on to graduate school"

2.   The careerists:   "attend college as a means to an end: getting a job"

3.   The conflicted:   "like the careerists but are not sure where they are going… pushed into college by society or their parents"

 4.   The drifters:   "interested in the creature comforts of a campus and would rather go to college than get a job"

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 I believe I am a bit of a hybrid. My reasons for attending VCU are at there very core, rooted in a careerist view of education. I would like to be successful and this education provides me a compass to guide me toward that success. However, wanting to be an engineer, I posses a strong desire to know how and why things work. For this reason I believe I may also  be classified as a scholar. 

There is no other way to understand the enormous amount of material necessary to be a successful engineer other than to attend a university. Not to take away from the merit in having experience in the field, but I believe that a thorough knowledge of how a system works will be much more beneficial when attempting to solve a complex problem. Both are essential however.

There is one last thing I would like to talk about. I have thought this since the day I entered the university and my experiance has only strengthened my opinion. As far as I can see, the major flaw in the education system is in the classification of majors. Students learn in individual classes. If given the choice, even students in the same major and discipline might have different goals in there education and desire to take different course loads to have different strengths within the field. These strengths are what should be presented to employers.

With this type of education I believe students would go to college with a different attitude. They would not only go for one of Ken Steele's reasons, but they might also go to strengthen the exact skills they desire.

Things I love

1. America
2. God
3. My family
4. The summer
5. The Godfather
6. The steelers
7. My dog
8. Halo
9. Having heat in my apartment in the winter
10. Hamburger Helper
11. Troy Polamalu
12. Will Ferrell
13. Late night trips to Donalds'
14. Talking to hobos
15. Driving my American, gas guzzling, SUV
16. Hunting down innocent animals that cant fight back and destroying them
17. Being on the beach
18. Taking one for the team
19. Playing like a champion
20. Hiding important things in high places where short people can't reach
21. Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue by Toby Keith
22. Putting clothes on right when they come out of the dryer
23. Going camping
24. Windows down in the car
25. Washing my car
26. Going fishing
27. Walking down the street being American
28. Eating a hamburger, drinking a beer, being American
29. Watching television just because i can, being an American
30. "Sure, I've been called a xenophobe, but the truth is, I'm not. I honestly just feel that America is the best country and the other countries aren't as good. That used to be called patriotism."-Kenny Powers

My Bucket List

1. Get all A's in a semester
2. Get into medical school
3. Donate money to charity
4. Go to Vegas!
5. Think of something no one else has
6. Save someones life
7. Live on a sail boat
8. Make my kids believe in Santa Clause
9. Make fun of my kids when I tell them hes not real when they're 30
10. Fly an airplane
11. Get drunk with my dad and my son
12. Finish a marathon
13. Get married... get divorced, get married, get divorced, realize women are ridiculous and unreasonable (Kidding!)
14. White water rafting
15. Bowl a turkey
16. Have a suit made entirely of American flags
17. Go to france, take a big poop under the Eiffel tower and bail.
18. Live long enough to see the Pittsburgh Pirates win a game
19. Learn another language
20. Drive to Mexico
21. Get sung to by a Mariachi band
22. Eat 10 Big Macs in one sitting
23. Hold down 10 Big Macs
24. Meet Nancy Pelosi
25. Punch Nancy Pelosi in the nose
26. Be bad at halo(will never happen)
27. Drink a $100 glass of whiskey
28. Drive a Ferrarri
29. Go watch the Jerry Springer show and see a fight
30. Go skydiving without a parachute(This one is last for obvious reasons)