Matt McDougall DOT COM

So, here I am up early making another post after so long. I bought myself a new car. Well, in all honesty, its not mine yet, since its my co-worker’s wife’s car and they’re just loaning it to me to see how I like it, and its not new. But hell, a 92 Accord EX for $1300 in such decent condition? I’m all for it. The reason I’m up early is because I’m taking the car in to have it looked at… full diagnostics, possibly a tune-up. I might buy new tires and brakes and whatever else comes up. Hopefully it will turn out well. I’ll post some pictures once I feel up to it…. oh, and when I get this flickr plugin working (it requires a certain PHP library that I’ll have to get my webhost to install).

In other news, today is Bond Friday. I’m gonna try to see it on matinée if I can, so I avoid all the children. It might work out well if the shop needs the car for a few hours… and Josh might be persuaded to pick me up and go see it since he lives just down the highway.

Oh, and this is also Battlestar Galactica Friday. The last few episodes were good, but they weren’t as exciting as others… I hope something big happens soon. At any rate, something big seems to be brewing.

And, speaking of big things brewing on TV… has anyone seen Heroes? Wow, what a good show so far. The rumor is that this coming Monday’s episode is the episode that all Heroes fans have been waiting all season long to see. The one when everyone is supposed to meet, maybe even “save the cheerleader.” Oh, I hope so. Most series don’t start out this good, so I’m impressed. It has hit the ground running in the first season, which is rare in a show of this sort. Hell, it wasnt until some point in the second season of Farscape that I really started to get glued to it… and now I’m in the third season, and there’s no stopping me now.

Everyone needs to get a Wii on Sunday! I’ll be trying for a Wii at the Alcoa Wal-mart at Midnight. Rumor is that the Wal-marts have at least twice the stock of Wiis as they do PS3s, and none of them are taking pre-orders. Supposedly, they will, however, be handing out tickets at 10PM as proof of place in line to be turned in at Midnight. Here’s to hoping I can score a Wii and Zelda!

There’s a bunch of random shit I could post up on here right now, but I won’t. I could ramble on for too frelling long.

powered by performancing firefox

Well, I decided to make a new MySpace account and make it spiffy… i.e., none of that flashy dancing unicorn rainbow crap. Just simple and clean, but not default… and must work with Firefox. So far I think I’ve done a good job at that. I don’t plan to blog over there, that’s why I use this. MySpace is there just to exist as another online presence, I guess. I dunno, all the cool kids are doing it! I had to! PEER PRESSURE IS A BITCH, BUT THERE WAS NO PEER PRESSURE IN THIS CASE, SO WHAT NOW?!

Anyway, check me out at: http://www.myspace.com/mattmcdougall

I need friends! Its the MySpace mantra!

Make with the turkey eating! Make with the being thankful! Get fat on stuffing!

Man, I wish I didn’t have such a mental block at my job. There’s always so much going on that I don’t know about. When I look at a the blueprints for a house, there are so many things that I don’t recognize, and don’t have the faintest clue where to begin working. Of course, if I were to think about it, I’m sure there are quite a few things that I do know about. It just leaves me in wonder sometimes when I look at the scale of an entire project and all the work that is involved from start to finish. It leaves me in awe how someone like my dad and uncle could make sense of the chaos and pull it all off, and pull it off well.

Its been over a year since I’ve been working with my dad doing construction. I think I started part-time a little before Josh was deployed to the Middle East. And, to be perfectly honest, Josh was a bit of an inspiration in keeping me going in this. I wanted to work outdoors, something that would provide a bit of a challenge, and something that I think is a very worthwhile job. Its certainly not the easiest job, physically or mentally. You have to be comfortable working with heavy objects, or working from scaffolding with skinny walkboards or rooftops sometimes 40ft or higher above the ground, among others. I started this job wanting to prove to myself that I could do it, and ended up enjoying it… somewhat like the end of Office Space.

Do I know if I want to stay doing this job? No, I have no idea. Right now I’m content, but its my nature to keep my options open. Patrick and I are talking about doing a t-shirt business, but I figure I’ll only do that part-time at the beginning. If it turns out that it’ll work out better for me than construction with my dad, then I’ll go full-time… but until then, I’m glad for what I have.

In the end, I have a strong feeling that I will never go back to a corporate job. Never a job that would rather exploit their workers and epitomize the idea of “job insecurity.” I believe I will either stick with private businesses, or start them myself. I may not have all the benefits that a corporate entity might provide, but I feel I’d be working in a better atmosphere and have far less worry about being expendible if sales didn’t meet quota by a penny. No more ClientLogic, no more Pizza Hut. Besides, if I did go back to Pizza Hut, I’d end up owing $100 on a bet. Fuck that.

Thanks Patrick… =P

Joe Normal
43 % Nerd, 39% Geek, 13% Dork
For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored less than half in all three, earning you the title of: Joe Normal.

This is not to say that you don’t have some Nerd, Geek or Dork inside of you–we all do, and you can see the percentages you have right above. This is just to say that none of those qualities stand out so much as to define you. Sure, you enjoy an episode of Star Trek now and again, and yeah, you kinda enjoyed a few classes back in the day. And, once in a while, you stumble while walking down the street even though there was nothing there to cause you to trip. But, for the most part, you look and act fairly typically, and aren’t much of an outcast.

I’d say there’s a fair chance someone asked you to take this test. In any event, fairly normal.

Congratulations!

THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST

Today was boring as hell. I hate these kinds of days. The job was simple, but for most of the day all we did was sit around.

Basically, we were shooting grade with a transit to get the basement level and give the excavator in the highlift some reference. A transit looks like a small telescope on a tripod, but it is set perfectly level, so that when you sight through it you’re always looking at the same plane. You couple that with a pole that is marked with measurements going upward. The person sighting can see if the dirt needs to be dug out or filled in to get to grade. My job was walking around with the pole. I would walk around and try to find a spot that was at grade while my dad would sight and tell me which direction to go. When we found a spot at grade, I would mark it with bright orange paint. Simple enough, eh? Well yeah. But consider that for most of the day we were just waiting for the lot to be dug out. Next time we dig a lot out like this, I’m bringing my PSP.

At any rate, I’m obviously home. I got my “Grunge is Dead” shirt in today, which is cool. I’ve also got a few DVDs in from Netflix and BBOnline that I will watch and only do legal things with! So right now I’m going to do some legal things and sit back and relax for a few.