July 29, 2011 - Google+

So, I've had access to my Google+ for a little over a week now and I have to say for the most part I like it. For an assortment of reasons; suck as, not nearly as many adds compared to Facebook and the circles add a personal level of control that I like. The only thing that I would like to get better are making it easier to share things through my Google reader; just to name something. The only downside that I can see right now is the lack of friends, because social websites are just like MMO's; no matter how awesome they are designed, they're are no fun if no one is on there with you.

July 23, 2011 - Final Blog

The best way I can sum up my experience was a mess-up. I would have loved to actually put a post up everyday, but I usually got caught up in stuff and didn't have time, fell asleep, or just forgot about it. I did enjoy writing post when I got around to doing them. I feel that it was good way of reveling stress and unwinding at the end of a long day and as a writer I feel a little more confident in my writing ability. Thanks to the extra writing.

July 14 - “Now taking the field, from Denver, Colorado the Blue Knightssssssss”

This is my free write for “What is a Place” essay.
I’ll be spending 5 minutes roughly on each of the following questions.
My place is Stanford Stadium during my DCI show I preformed there last summer.

1. What do you smell in this place?
I can smell anything you can imagine here. There are 150 sweaty kids from 15-21 who have been stuck on buses for 2 ½ hours with broken air conditioning just to get off the bus and start warming up immediately in nice warm wool uniforms then do a complete run through in that uniform. So we are drenched in sweat from head to toe. Haven’t had a shower since last night. If you can’t imagine the smell by now you’re luck. Well I guess we were the lucky one; we were use to the smell by this time. Then there was the smell of the other corps and the food in the stand. All the burgers and hot dogs a heart could desire. I almost forgot about the smell of 5 different corps’ 5 diesel running vehicles
2. What can you hear in this place?
This one is really easy. Well kinda. You obivously here all the brass players warming up, practicing for their, or actually running through their show in the performance; then there are the drummers doing all of the same things that the brass players are doing, but much louder and not a “musical” by my terms. Then there are the guard members listening to their pop songs stretching and warming up, or you can here them counting to a warm up as well, but they’re more visual and not so much on the sound thing. Then you could here the roar of the stadium announcer and the crowd as the corps were finishing or playing a big point in their show. That is just all the big stuff you could. Then there was the sounds of feet going in time to the doctor beat. warming up our visual part of the show. The people talking between shows. Talking about what they liked or didn’t like about the last show.
3. What do you see in this place?
I see a lot of hard work and dedication to something most of America couldn’t give a rats ass about. I see rivals and friends. I see terrible marching technique and amazing at the same time, depending which corps I was looking at. I see a giant stadium, the like I hadn’t seen since the Rams dome at my last high school marching band. I see my adopted family for that summer working with me. I see my music tech trying to get from staring at the Blue Devils and Santa Clara Vanguard. That was always a problem I had last summer lol.
4. What do you feel in this place?
I think they better question is what didn’t I feel that night? I felt a wide.... I mean gigantic range of emotion. Ranging from rage to euphoria. I felt nervous and calm all in the same night. It all depends on when we are talking about. It was the first night that I true realized that I, Blayne Cantrell of all people was actually doing this. Until then I thought it was all just a dream or some weird off brand I had never heard about. When the announcer of DCI was really saying “Now taking the field, from Denver, Colorado the Blue Knightssssssss” Then the crowd cheered for us. That! that right there was when I knew I was really doing it. I didn’t feel a high that good again until finals night in Indy.
5. Quick story “mini first draft” 10min
My place needs a little back story to explain were and why I was there, but it starts off with me waking up from a nap on the bus driving to the show site. I got of the bus like I had the 5 or 6 times before. Feeling my usual ants and nervousness. I didn’t think this show was going to be and different from the other ones, boy was I wrong... but that comes later. I lined up, grabbed my plume for my shako, and took off to our visual warm up. There I saw the Blue Devils, who I loath for some many reasons it’s not even funny. We got to warm up in the same tennis courts as they did. Along with out sister corp, the Troopers. I was a little angry, for no real reason, other than I was in the same area as the Blue Devils. but that soon passed, because they left before we did and as they were leaving we played them a few loud cords. Getting a good number of them to turn and look at us. It was awesome. Then after that we get to the tunnel where the anxiety went crazy, because I had never seen a stadium that full and this big in quit some time. That all passed thou. Right after I heard the official announcer for DCI say his famous line “Now taking the field, from Denver, Colorado the Blue Knightssssssss” O! M! G! I can’t explain how I felt it was so over the top! Because that was it! It was the single moments I knew that I had did it! I wouldn’t believe you if you told the high school sophomore me that I would be the one that would be on the field hearing that one day.

July 13, 2011 - New Computer ! =)

Crap! I did it again.... <shoulder shrug>

Anyway, just sitting here waiting for my new computer! It's been over three years since I've bought a new one and it's much over due. I put my last computer through quit a lot of stress; with all the viruses, world of warcraft, and traveling from place to place. It did me well for it's time, but as a geek I feel obligated to always have the biggest and best computer possible. Similar to car guys, who love drive really souped up cars on the streets. Mine is just a lot small, doesn't require a loan to own one, and has a little more practicality to it; but it does however, light up just like a street car and has way more power than I actually need. What can I say thou? I love me power house computers..... it's funny thou, the computer I just bought isn't really a "power house" like I want it to be, but it has more potential than my current one lying on ground right now =/.... that poor computer.

July 8, 2011 - Opps

I kinda fell of the horse the last four days. Thanks to a combination of work, lack of sleep, and fireworks killing all of time and focus, or I might have actually sat down to write four blog post, but anyway.

The last few days have been a little crazy. I spent Monday driving around with one of my best friends trying to figure out what we wanted to for the 4th. Then Tuesday, I went to work; then came home and waited for my homework to pop up so I could get started. Wednesday was the best, however. I started reading a new textbook on PHP, and that's how I know I'm a huge nerd. I'm excited about the fact that I'm reading a text book on a scripting language for the internet.... Plus, I had to stop myself from reading it to finish my homework and talk to my family....

July 4, 2011 Independence Day!

Happy fourth everyone!

I've got to say I'm feeling pretty good today. I had the day off and hung out with one of my best buds. The only sad part about today is knowing that tomorrow I'll have to get up and go to work =/... I'll get over it thou.
This week should be a fun one, because I'm either A, going to Keokuk, IA and helping out branch up there more a part of Jackson Brothers of the South; or B, sitting down and working a few projects. Honestly, I'm hopping for option A. I rather enjoy road trips and think it's fun to work outside of my normal office. Plus the people up in our Keokuk branch are really nice and work harder than most other branches in Jackson Brothers.

July 3, 2011 - Doldrums

Well, I've missed a few blog post and I was going to one last night before I passed out at 8. I must have been tired or something. Anyway, now to think about something to blog about....

Happy Independence day! I feel kinda bad about this, but I'm most happy about the fact that I don't have to work Monday and could care less why that is. Now don't get me wrong I love America and everything that we stand for, but I'm just glad that I get to wake up tomorrow and not worry about anything.

Know Your Audience Blog Post!

So, after reading the the questions and answers from last weeks "Know Your Audience" discussion board; I found out many things about my class mates. Like most of them would give away their million dollars to others; out of the kindness in their hearts. Also, most of them also enjoy living near a beach, or at least somewhere sunny.
Favorite question:
That would be a tie between "What color reflect your personality?" and "If you could change one life experience what would it be?". I liked these personally because I feel like both of these questions get to the root of who you are and give a little insight on what makes you tick.
Least favorite question:
This one goes to "Any car?", because I felt like personally I couldn't come with a decent answer.
So all in all, I think my class mates are a very interesting group of people and I will enjoy the next for weeks working with them!

Wednesday June 29, 2011

There isn't anything special about today; well, other than enjoying my favorite part of online class tonight and getting some late night homework done. It's great that I can go hang out with friends after a long day of meetings at work and then come home to finish off some much needed homework.
I'm currently making a listing of all the questions with their answers to last week's "Know Your Audience" discussion board. Because, they way Black Board has their discussion boards set up is with out a doubt the worst forum set up I have EVER seen, and I mean that. For several reasons.
1. They have it to were you can only see one post at a time. Which is terrible is you're trying to follow a conversation or go over old comments for assignments *wink wink
2. Unless I'm blind, I don't see -a way to leave the current thread and return to the discussion board. Forcing me to click on the the Discussion board button over and over.
3. The navigation buttons between threads and reply are also terrible. They get confusing at times and far inferior to just letting me go back to the board and look at all the threads from scratch. Because, most of the time I'm not wanting to go from thread to thread in a linear way, but jump from thread to thread trying to get my information.
But this is just the discussion board feature.... the rest of Black Board is also pretty much junk as far as I can tell. A lot of my teachers make an effort not to talk down on it, but half the time I catch most of them saying something negative or having technical issues with it. But enough about me complaining about Black Board and back to my homework.

Monday June 27, 2011.... One of my better days at work.

I've worked at Jackson Brother now for a little under three months now and I think I'm finally getting a hold of the different work mentality that comes with it. The "mentality"of having to find work to do. It's not all just handed to me; I also actually have to think when I work now. Unlike, my other jobs working as a cook. Where I could stand there waiting on orders or just clean something, because lets face it there is ALWAYS something to clean in a kitchen. But now, I have to go and find the work; it's there, but I have to find out what it is. I like it, for the most part. Even thou some days the work just seems to pile up on me, but for the most part I have to find the work.

Today thou, was one my better days for grasping this new "mentality". There was very little down time today and I was always able to find something. Other than when I asked dad "Anything you want me working on?", but I'm going to count that one.

Plus, I can't thank my father and his boss enough for this job. It got me out of working in dirty kitchens, which I began to hate with a passion, and is giving me a head start in the IT world that most students get until they're are out of school.

Free Write! 390 words in ten min! I think I could do even more next time!

I’m going to free write on how much I day dream. But what is going to kill me the most is not going back to ereas what once made since in my head and know sounds like crap that I have read over it. But whatever! I’ll get through it! I’m really curious on how many words I can pump out in a minuiet... wow I just relized that I’m already day dreaming while writing this paper. I have such a bad tendenzie of getting off topic when I’m writing something. There are very few things that I can just sit there and completly focus on. Like DCI, I can sit there and what that all day every day. That might be because there are twenty million things for me to focus on and try to see if there are doing well on it or not. Like the other day when Carlonia Crown was at Willard Hight School. I sat there for 3 and half hours watching them rep the same for almost half of it. But it didn’t bother me one bit at all. The guard was fantastic. The horns sounded like a giant wall of sound. and The drums where spit clean, well as far as I can tell the drums where spit clean. There drill is little dirty, but then again they only just had their first challene/ I mean show the other day. There in fourth right now and I was SO happy to see some drum corp for the first time since last august. Man I miss drum corp. I would give anything to be back on the feild marching again. I just need to figure out how to pay for it again. Then again If i can get the thing with support space up and running I might be able to pull it off. I think thats enought on drum corp. Even though that’s all I can think about these days since shows started up. Can’t wait to see what the Blue Knights score tonight! Iadfasdf ashbasldkfsdf writinng stuff.... er … yes..... Come on I can do this! This is acutally kind of fun now that I’m doing it. This reminds me I need to get some more studying done for my A+ exam

AHHHH!!!! writing too write !@#!@#
Thank god I’m done.123!@#!@#

I believe

1. I believe that I can be great
2. I believe that copy and pasting I believe was a good idea
3. I believe the Blue Knights are going to have a great show tonight
4. I believe the Blue Devils will finally lose a world championship this summer
5. I believe I talk about DCI way too much
6. I believe Joplin is going to be fine with all this help coming from EVERYWHERE
7. I believe my ten key is terrible
8. I believe the database I'm working on at work is a giant pain
9. I also believe that database is taking up way too much of my time at work
10. I believe my room is a mess
11. I believe I need to turn in my W9
12. I believe my friend Chris is crazy
13. I believe I'm just making stuff up now
14. I believe that I'm also trying at the same time
15. I believe this is a terrible parody of Blue Collar Tour
16. I believe that I watch too much tv
17. I believe I waste too much time doing nothing
18. I believe I day dreamm too much
19. I believe I'm hungry
20. I believe we're out of food
21. I believe I'm doing this wrong for some reason
22. I believe I will be great
23. I believe Godzilla is SOOOO cheesy
24. I believe I will do well in this class
25. I believe this weekend is going to be fun
26. I believe there is a minuet left
27. I believe I couldn't get much more out of this.

Fathers Day!

First things first! I'm would like to wish my father, grandfathers, and all other fathers a happy fathers day.

I woke up around 9 today and gave my father his present. Which was a adapter for his iPad. So he could hook it to his tv and possibly save his neck from watching all his rentals on it. Personally I think it was smashing hit. He has been watching movies and tv shows all day. Well, when family wasn't over for lunch/dinner.

The Jung Typology Test

I'm going to come out and just say that this test blew my mind! Now this isn't my first online test like this, but this one is defiantly better than any others I have taken! With at least as twice as many questions than other tests; it covered a wide verity of question; that honestly half the time I was questioning what they had to do with anything.

But enough about how I liked the test and more on what it actually said about me. First of all it told I have the following stats 44% Introverted, 12% Intuitive, 1% Thinking, and 1% Judging; giving me the personality type of INTJ. Now honestly, when I first read these stats I thought negatively. It was that I was good thinking or Judging? What?! I also didn't know what Introverted means. I was very confused and thought this test was telling to starting looking for a new career choice; other than IT.

So, I did a little more digging and found out that this was actually more of me than I was guessing. According to D. Keirsey I have the personality of the Mastermind. I read that the Mastermind is the one behind the scenes always trying to make things run better and more efficiently. That definition alone is what I do all the time anyways and what makes my career field even exist in business.

Then after reading that article I went on to see what jobs are good for my personality and the FIRST thing on the list was computer programming. Now I'm going to assume that IT people are probably wrapped in with that, because most people probably don't even know the difference. But, I was very glad to see that what I have already decided on as a career plan was FIRST on my list of good jobs for my personality.

Next I read the article by J. Butt and M.M. Heiss. Which I believe nailed me down to a person even better than the first. Especially the part on why we don't normally like talking to new people. Explaining that we like people to make sense, and most the time they don't. Which is very very very true.

After I read all of this and sat down to think about. I have to say I was very impressed with the test and wouldn't mind going further into it sometime.

Hello World

This is pretty much a test post. I'm mainly doing this so I can get a better look of what my Blog will look like when it's all said and done. So, thank you for reading and have a great day!