Our society and culture as we know it is very very young. The internet? 10 years old give or take.. Television? 50 years old give or take. Cell phones? 10 or 15 give or take? Cars as we know them (expressways, 70 mph speed limits)? 50 years old give or take. The point is, the world as we know it is extremely young. So much is changing in so little time that its actually a challenge to even keep up. How different were things just 100 years ago? completely. 100 years sounds like a long time; but put that in the perspective of how long the world has been around – it is a fraction of an instant. Over time, every great civilization has fallen. The roman empire would be just one example.

Our human intelligence, probably our greatest gift; seems fundamentally flawed. Build bigger sky scrapers. Drive bigger diesel trucks. Make faster internet. Make smaller cell phones. Make everything as fast as possible, as big as possible. Churn the fires of electronic industry and shovel more and more coal into them.

I feel like we are on the very apex of an astounding bell curve. The curve grows taller and taller, our confidence soars. Advances here, advances there; grow, expand, consume, transform. Soaring gas prices. Expensive heating bills. 5 hour commutes in 5 lanes of slow moving traffic. Fax machines. Fast food. Drive through everythings. Get everywhere as fast as you can and stomp on anyone in your way. Honk your horn. Flip the bird. Everyone is more important than everyone else. – It feels more and more like our priorities are not straight by any means.

We’re a roman empire. We need to keep in mind that bell curves have a downward slope as well.

Many things to voice… A summarizing, friendly bulleted list ensues

• Confirmed hatred of Chicago
• Driving School (apparently)
• 365 Days
• Prison Break
• Christmas
• Vanbergs

Confirmed hatred of Chicago:
As I drove back to michigan from Chicago, i encountered the worst traffic ever. like 6 lanes of ‘gridlock’ traffic. it took me almost 2.5 hours to get out of chicago’s city limits. Construction? nope… Accident? Nope. just fucking assholes driving like fucking assholes and having all of them on the same road. “yelling face”

Driving School:
I contest my traffic citation from my previous automotive collision. I plead a good case, talking about the other persons speed being too high, her running red light, etc. The cop was all nervous and stuttering, i figured i had it won. Well, i kind of did. The ticket didnt get ‘voided’ completely – rather reduced to a “zero point nothing on my driving record” fine. So, i was ok with that. No points means no increased insurance. APPARENTLY though, one stipulation of that is to take a “Driving Defensively” course at the police station. Of course the judge didnt say that, i just got a letter in the mail. This class was 4 hours long and cost me 47 dollars. can you say “yelling face”

365 Days:
Tomorrow, i have my annual review at work. Tonight im filling out my forms, rating myself so to speak. Judging yourself is pretty difficult. you dont want to sound cocky, but you dont want to sell yourself short either. My bosses are both pretty cool, so im expecing a 5% raise. Its crazy to think that ive been working there a whole year. Seems like yesterday i was walking out of progressive distribution wanting to urinate on the ashes of the world destoyed… 1 year has totally changed my entire perspective on the entire world.

Prison Break:
In what was one of the best shows ever, i became completely captivated. Well, basically it just stopped and cliffhangered mid season, not to show again for like 6 months. Sheer infuriosity. It really almost makes me want to stop watching the whole show even thought he first ‘half’ of the season was awesome.

Christmas:
Christmas is about 2 weeks away… I havent even bought 1 gift. However, im looking very forward to christmas because im taking my last week of vacation off the week before… Vacations are the best things ever, and it seems that they’re even better if you take them without anything planned at all. I’ll do some christmas shopping, play come counter strike, play some xbox, play some of everything, and just overall be a van. Merry christmas. 😛

Vanbergs:
Vanbergs graduated from college.
www.vanbergs.wordpress.com

For me, this is a very abnormal week. First and foremost – Disturbed is playing. However, I had to relinquish my ticket because i am currently on a business trip for this entire work week.

Although i feel absolute sadness and sheer despair over missing disturbed for the second year in a row; this week is really pretty exciting for me. I’ve never been on a business trip before now. I’m in chicago about 5 miles from the Ohare airport, spending 5 days at EMC receiving training on how to administer and manage their SAN hardware. That said – it is effing wierd to be in a huge city all by yourself. I don’t feel ‘scared’- but something like anxiety almost all the time. Well… i guess i’m kind of lying… Something about huge cities just absolutely terrifies me. Walking around looking up at 15 story buildings, watching airplanes fly almost directly over my head, driving on 47 lane highways; its just a feeling that i’m not used to and so far cannot get over.

Overall, its exciting to be on a business trip, sure.. but I didnt have to be here long to realize that I absolutely hate this town. People drive like assholes, alot of people are assholes, theres more of everything i hate and less of everything i like. I feel like chicago is nothing more than an ant hill that somebody just needs to shake up and pour water down. Maynard James Keenan might be the smartest most intellectual human being on this earth.

just let me get out first.

Ive been driving for 9 years. I’ve never had a ticket. Never had a fender bender. Perfectly clean driving record.

Stopped at a blinkin red light, awaiting a left turn… I see an opening, start to hit the gas… Oh, wait, im in neutral still. Woops. Put it in first, start going… dang it.. missed my chance. Now I’m sitting in the middle of the intersection, waiting to go left. Through traffics green light turns yellow… i see people stopping… I start making my left. Out of the corner of my eye, i see that a GMC jimmy has decided to speed up and attempt to make the yellow light.

bang

my car spins a 180 completely. Im ok… yep. get out, she’s ok… yep. Call 911… whats my car like? holy shit… I’m ok?? yep.

tell the cop what happened… she ran a red light… tow trucks come… chris gets there… im late for work now… wow my car is jacked…

Wow. To elaborate a bit more, both drivers ticketed… her with “Failure to yield a traffic control device” and me with FAILURE TO YIELD THE RIGHT OF WAY. Clearly i was not in the mood to argue with the officer, but that is a bullshit ticket. I did yield the right of way… I had a blinking red… the lady admitted to runnning a red light. how did i fail to ‘yield the right of way’ when she did not have the right of way?? officer dipshit. Insurance guy says “you were both ticketed???” in a surprised tone… Body shop guys says “you were both ticketed???” in a surprised tone. I am completely challenging this BS ticket.

7,300 dollars worth of damage to my car… on a road that has a posted speed limit of 35. Clearly this woman floored her GMC to plow through a ‘yellow’. But given all this… one would think that i should be irate. unbridled with fury. I am not. I have genuinely not felt any anger since this happened thursday morning. I was absolutely frightened. That was the most violent thing i have ever felt. You realize instantly that you have zero control of what is happening. She hit my rear quarter panel. What if she hit the passenger door? What if my car rolled over? What if it just jumped up on top of mine? It literally scares the shit out of me. And really there isn’t alot in life that scares me.

the car will get fixed… i will pay 500 bucks… my new exhaust is ok… i’m ok. I feel grateful in some wierd sort of way.

I feel that i am typically very good at looking at myself from a different perspective… That meaning, i dont have problems critisizing myself when i see something that needs it. Well, i am in desperate need of some criticism. A couple months ago, all i wanted in life was a nice new professional level digital camera. I knew i was going to buy one, i knew it was going to happen… it was just a matter of time. A couple months before that, i knew i was going to buy an Imac (20 inch, of course), i was sure of it… get a PC loan through work, spend 1800…

Here i sit, a few months later… absolutely not giving a shit about either of those things. I could care less if i have a nice digital camera (although i do still enjoy taking pictures, editing them, gallerying them, etc). But my longing for a pro/semi-pro camera has just fallen into oblivion…

Regarding a new computer, i just really dont even care. I use it to read web pages, chat on line, and dabble in the occasional graphical application of counter strike or ‘teh gimp’.

I’ve learned to tell myself… “This is probably just a ‘phase’.. you wont care about it in a couple weeks”. That really is holding to be true. I mean seriously, that is messed up. That’s something little kids do. “I want this toy, i want that toy… OH, NOPE… THIS TOY!”. Hm… hopefully it begins to subside.

The one thing i do keep coming back to though is my car. I consitently look at mods for it… and i really have an incling to mess around with it.. Adding things, taking things off, ‘tuning it’. I started this with the K&N cold air intake, and now have followed that up by ordering a Greddy SP2 performance exhaust. This exhaust adds 5.5 horsepower to the wheels, so thats about 7-8 hp at the crank. Combined with the K&N’s 6 to the wheels, thats about a 10% horsepower increase. It shipped today… should be on this weekend 🙂

I spend so much time reading about parts for my car, what they do, how they work, etc, etc… 100% guaranteed this is inspired purely by my father, but i guess there are alot worse things i could be spending my time and money on. This is a lame ass boring update.

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