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A couple days ago I went in to Best Buy to try to find a eyecup for my camera (mine seems to have been broken somehow).  On the way in, I get the same old greeting as always at best buy.  After I’m about 10 feet into the store, the greeter says “Hi.”  So I do my usual and turn my head back and give a nod.  They didn’t have what I was looking for, so I left after about 3 min in the store.  On the way out, I get a “Have a nice day.” from behind after I’m 10 feet out the door.  At that point, I just keep walking; screw responding.  Then I realized what gets on my nerves about the greeters at best buy:  they always talk to you from behind, never giving you a chance to respond without awkwardly turning around.

Most of the time I’m out and about, I try to be at least somewhat friendly with strangers.  If I make eye-contact, I generally smile or say hello.  At best buy however, I’ve noticed that even when I walk in and purposefully make eyecontact with the greeters, they dont do or say anything until I’m at least 10 feet into the store.  At that point I feel the obligation to respond but am unable to without turning around to say something.  Anyone else get this there?

Apologies for being lame with this.  Too many things came up in a row and I fell out of habit.  Fortunately, I have actual content this time.

So, throughout my endeavour to become more social and grow beyond the shyness that defined me through much of growing up I have only been able to measure my success through my own point of view.  I had to rely on comparing memories to tell if I was actually being more social or if it was just something i’d convinced myself of.  Over the last month though, I’ve found two different instances where my perception of progress was reinforced by other people.

First, a couple weeks ago I was at a concert with a friend.  We got there about an hour before the bands went on, so we had time to waste talking.  After a while, she mentioned reading my blog before and asked about my endeavours of self improvement.  Of course this led to a discussion of how I got on the road I am currently travelling, and she was really surprised as I told her how shy I really was growing up.  She always thought I was a really social person from the day I met her.  Granted, I met her after I was a few months into this experiment and she’s a cute girl, so that may have factored into why I came off as so social.  Either way, I’ve managed to keep up the ‘new me’ and supress the typical shyness I have with people.

Second, in late July I was up visiting family and having breakfast with my aunt and grandma.  After talking for a bit, my aunt made a comment to my grandma which hit me pretty hard.  “He never used to talk.”  It was so true.  Growing up, I always shied away from talking with anyone but my close friends unless pressed.  I never worked to keep conversations going and often just found it to hard to.  But now, I had been having a conversation with family that I’ve never talked to for more than 10 minutes at a time for more than an hour.  Talk about signs of progress.

Now that students are back around campus, it seems like a great time to ramp up the social skydiving.  Practice has been my greatest tool so far.  Might as well push a bit harder than usual while it’s easy to do.

Since I started this blog, I’ve tried to aim to only make posts of some substance.  This requirement seems to bring me down to one past every two weeks when I actually get busy with things (moving, etc.)   So, the question is: more shorter posts, or few long posts?   I cant decide, maybe you guys can help.

So, the wedding went off pretty well without a hitch.   The time up north on the beach was quite relaxing as well.   Lollapalooza was amazing though really tiring.  Both Flogging Molly and NIN were just as awesome as I was expecting, and NIN even seemed to exceed my expectations a bit.

Unfortunately I’m still slightly MIA; It’s moving time.  Over the next week I’ll be moving from my current apartment in Okemos to a house in East Lansing on the corner of Lake Lansing and Abbot.    To hold you over till I have time again, here are my pictures from Lollapalooza:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/waltflanagan/sets/72157606560819962/

Videos will be up soon also.

Be back once we have internet at the new house.

It seems things in my life like to clump together.  Last weekend I went to the wedding of an old friend from High School.  This weekend I’m going to Madison for a cousin’s wedding.  Next week, I’m going up to the Alpena area for the post-wedding family vacation type thing.  Then that weekend is Lollapalooza.  So, unfortunately I doubt I’ll be able to get anything written through all that.

All that wedding talk definitely makes me wonder if I’m starting to hit “that time.”  That time when all of one’s friends start getting married, etc.  To look at the numbers, I now have three friends my age from high school who have gotten married in the last 3-4 years.  Other friends I know now are measuring their relationships on the years scale rather than months.  At what point do I become the odd one out that doesn’t have a significant other?

It’s not exactly like I’m looking forward to being tied down.  That would limit the possibilities for more spontaneous trips to other countries.  Either way, I still enjoy the open bar at these things, even if I go without a date.

Earlier this summer when seeing a movie at the theater, I believe when going to see Indy 4, the whole experience was nearly ruined all because of a 2-minute break in the normal routine.  Through my entire movie theater career, the formula always stayed the same: pre-show ads, lights dim, previews, movie.  This time, the lights dimmed, my heart skipped a beat as I expected some great preview to whet my appetite for an awesome movie summer, but what do I get instead: commercials straight from primetime television.  TV commercials do NOT belong in the imaginary space between pre-show ads and the previews.

The amount of advertising in theaters is just getting to be absurd these days.  I’m not talking about the random local ads before the movies.  No, it seems that advertisers have crossed a line that I didn’t know existed that peeves me to no end.

I’ve always been somewhat of a movie junkie all my life, and working at a movie theater for 3 years only managed to help feed the fascination.  While growing up, my parents would infrequently take us out to the movies, so when they did, it was an extra special experience.  We’d get our food, get into the theater, and eventually the previews would start.  Now, I feel that formula of awesome is being harmed by all the advertising that is creeping into the theaters.

The pre-show ads never rubbed me the wrong way.  Having something on the screen helps pass the time when waiting for the show to start.  Plus, the pre-show ads were not something I’ve seen every day.  Even while working at a theater and seeing those ads day in and day out, they were always just there in the background and something easily ignored.  These new ads just ruin the experience.  The rush of anticipation that comes from the dimming of the lights is crushed by the tedium of television commercials we’ve all see hundreds of times.

In spite of this, I’ve started a list.  Any product advertised in this slot goes on that list, and I will do my best to avoid buying any of them.

So, I’ve been doing a very bad job of being a blogger.  Three weeks with no update.  A combination of things came up and resulted in my slacking off.  First I was just lazy and put off posting for a week.  Then July 4th came up and I went out and did things.  Then this week I haven’t been feeling well.  Throughout all of this though, I haven’t exactly felt particularly insightful. I like to try and keep away from fluff posts, so this lack of insight has only compounded with the other things that came up and made this a very lonely blog. I will try to remedy that now though.

Part of the purpose for this blog is to both encourage and log my efforts of self-improvement.  Ever since my return from London, I seem to have lost much of the motivation I had beforehand.  Despite it being an amazing and eye-opening experience, it seems to have been more mentally taxing than expected.  I’m already one that gets rather anxious around strangers, and dealing with that for two weeks was a bit draining and I guess I haven’t fully recovered yet.

I have a history of giving up on things like half-way through, right when they start to get difficult.
It’s a character fault I am painfully aware of and have yet to find a good way of addressing aside from sheer willpower.  Willpower is not my strong-suit though.  Being that I believe in pursuing those things that one enjoy, it’s hard to get out of comfortable ruts in pursuit of a greater long term benefit.

I guess it’s time to suck it up and do my best though.  Moving to a new house in roughly a month, so hopefully I can use that as a marker of yet another renewed start.

I swear I’ll post something soon.  Until then, Zombie Stalin and Russian Babes: http://www.vimeo.com/1223566

(Damnit, lost draft #1 of this)

So this morning I went to the bi-weekly Legislative breakfast at the Capital Area Michigan Works! in Lansing.  This is an event where “businesses, educators, economic developers and community leaders” discuss various topics.  This weeks topic was “Attracting and Retaining Talent.”  From what I understood, there was supposed to be discussion about how the Lansing area can better keep graduates around and draw in talent from elsewhere.

It turned out much much worse than that.  The first thirty minutes consisted of the 5-6 legislators introducing themselves and usually going on about something or other they’re working on that doesn’t really have anything to do with the topic at hand (some lady started talking about water conservation, wtf!?).  Being that they were all basically politicing and trying to show off how they aren’t useless, a good HALF of the whole meeting was wasted with no real value.  The remaining half hour was taking up by three (3!) questions, one of which was asked with 5 min remaining.  One question about promoting local internships, one asking for businesses to come to MSU and help them develop more connections to place people, and the 3rd about developing biotech and green indutries.  These mediocre questions were met with more posturing about what the legislators were working on currently.  Oh boy!

From the introductions and responses to questions, I gathered that most of the legislators thought that the answer lies in education.  If we can only improve our education system we’ll have more talent to attract more businesses.  WRONG.  That just means we’re generating more talent to ship elsewhere in the country.  I went to school with quite a lot of talented kids, most of which headed out of state because there really aren’t any tech jobs here.

Two of the legislators seemed to be especially off target on the education thing.  They were working to make it so that Algebra II was no longer a requirement to graduate high school.  Yes, Algebra II.  Stuff like:

Solve 3x2 + x - 2 = 0 for x.

Not even integrals and derivatives.  Stuff that is at least a bit practical and provides more of a base for skills in the future.

In lieu of Algebra II, they wanted other paths that would appeal to other types of students, ie trade skill training.  Way to think outside the box guys and try to progress Michigan’s economy past the manufacturing infrastructure that is collapsing.  Trade skills are something that most people can learn in their free time as a hobby.  They don’t grant a person skills that might actually be applicable to other areas as well.  Shift towards teaching trade skills will only doom Michigan to remain in the manufacturing rut that has led to to trailing the economic pack of all the other states.

On top of all that, breakfast was only bagels and fruit.  Not even real food.  At least now I get to leave work a bit early though.

Day 5

1:50 pm GMT

Today when I met courtney I found out that her wallet had disappeared at some point between yesterday afternoon and today.  She doesn’t recall using it since 2 and her bag has been pretty secure the whole time.  Luckily she had mostly traveller’s checks, so it’s not a complete disaster.

After dealing with contacting amex about replacement checks, we headed over to the London Aquarium.  It was nice, though much smaller than expected.  The exhibits they had were pretty cool though. They had two gigantic tanks representing life in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.  Those were pretty badass.  Easily over a million gallons, though I’m terrible at estimating volume

Currently we are finishing up lunch at a place called Pizza Express by the waterloo bridge.  Its a nice place with really good pizza and they seem to havea  large selection of wine.  I think i’ve seen these elsewhere, so it looks like a decent chain restaurant.  After this we’re off to the imperial war museum.  I’ve heard good things.

5:15pm GMT

The sky looks like rain, but I don’t think it’s going to.  This is the first sign of weather we’ve had so far during the trip.  I just felt a single drop of rain and I think that’s basically all we’ll get out of these menacing clouds;  A drop here and there just to keep up wondering.

The Imperial War Museum was pretty awesome.  It mostly consisted of WWI and II exhibits and a large exhibit about D-Day.  (There was also a holocaust exhibit, but we skipped it)  There were tons of old uniforms from both sides of the war, as well as equipment and weapons.  It was all set up in time periods, so it was neat to progress through the years as things developed and see what changed.  There were also two large cannons from a battleship mounted in the front lawn.  neat.

Not sure what the plan is now, probably dinner soon, then some sort of beer.  Maybe more wandering around London tnight in a different area of town than last night.  Being that neither of us knows the city, planning is hard.

6:35 pm GMT

Another meal of store-bought sandwiches.  These seem to actually be the best option after a day of walking all over the city.  Filling, cheap, and easy on the stomach.  A nap would be nice before hitting the town and drinking.

I think the feelings of homesickness have really been feelings of being lost and alone without control.  The things that have happened so far to make the trip less awesome (stolen ipod/wallet etc.) have been glaring examples of how not in control we are here.  Back home I basically have everything in my life under control.  My car lets me go where-ever, I know where things are.  Here though, I have control over what i’m carrying and that is it. This has had a bit of negative impact on attempting a little social sky-diving here.  I’ve tended much more to remain introverted because my brain has been a bit frazzled.

9:00pm GMT

Drinking at Vic Naylor’s now, the pub that played a large roll in Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.  For the future, I need to do more research about cult stuff like that that might have happened where ever I’m going.  A movie tour would be awesome with friends.