It's all about the YOU baby!

No Ernest not "The U", but "The YOU".

Today I stumbled across a very interesting article that caught my attention and possible will change the face of this blog. Here's the link if any of YOU are interested after reading this of course ;)

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/28/8-tips-for-building-community-on-your-blog/

So what did I get from this article YOU may ask, well I'll tell you. As some of YOU still continue to read this and some even tell me they enjoy reading (imagine that), I feel it is getting dry and boring. So I've been thinking for months for ways to making this a website that YOU like, YOU enjoy, YOU can't wait to read in the afternoon when YOU get off work. I want this to be a place that a close net group of friends and family and a few stragglers that wound up clicking their way here, can come to get information that is pertinent to their lives. Just hearing me talk and feed YOU my opinions my be entertaining and have some relation to YOUr current situations. But how do I get YOU to take ownership in this site? Well... Give YOU ownership. Yeah YOU'd think a guy that was in school for 20 years would have come up with that on his own - but no - it took a "tiny url" on twitter (what is this world coming to?).

So here is what will change on this site:

I would guess a large majority of YOU have Facebook accounts (follow this blog, you can do it by going to the upper right of this page and clicking follow, hard right?). I'm not going to stop sending out the email to the several readers that are informed of a new post by that method, but rather send out a monthly email reminder (eventually eliminating it). I sometimes feel like I'm spamming YOU when I send the email so I want to phase that out. Eventually I'd like this to be a site YOU just check on a daily or weekly basis.

I'm going to start posting interactive surveys, polls, quizzes on here as well. Yeah that's right YOU scrolled right over one just a second ago (go back and look at the top of this page). So every now and again there will be a new something at the top of the page for YOU to participate in.

As most of YOU know I'm in the process of accomplishing 100 goals in 1000 days. I've figured out a way to keep YOU involved with that as well. I've only been able to come up with 80 things anyway. So why not open the other 20 spots to YOU the viewers/readers? That's right I want to know what YOU have set for a goal for YOUrself in the next 1000 days. Or if YOU want to finish YOUr goal list with me my 1000 days is up on June 16th 2011. But either way please get me a goal that YOU have set for YOUrself and the community of this blog will cheer YOU on and help motivate YOU to YOUr goal. What YOU think? Get me those goals ASAP!

The most important and I think vital change to ensure that YOU feel like this is a site YOU want to visit on a regular basis is, guest bloggers! That's right I want YOU to write on here. There are several people I'm going to reach out to and see if they are willing to put something together. I want the topics to continue to be along the same lines of the stuff I talk about here but from other points of view and in a different tone. If you want to be a guest blogger please let me know (if YOU don't have my contact information, I probably don't want YOU to be a guest blogger anyway).

Other changes will come shortly but that is what WE will start off with. YOU might say, this is kinda weird or why is he trying to build a "community blog"? Yeah YOU're right this idea might not work. But think of it this way, this may just be a smaller more relevant to YOU, version of Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, LinkedIn, tiddlywinks, basket-weaving or where ever else YOU are currently getting your information.

So frequent the site and enjoy the changes... It's now YOUrs!

Wow... what happened to me?

Apparently I haven't made a post in like 9 weeks!  I think that's the longest I've gone since I started this site over three years ago.  I was inspired to write something but I'll save that for later, I'm sure I have some things to mention since I've been out for such a long time.  

I'm also making some updates to the 100 in 1000 list so check it out!

*Uh oh Greg, this may be a long one so I know you're my boy and all but go ahead and flip back to your spanish lessons on tape*

So I'm 27 now... wow late 20's.  I don't feel old at all.  Sometimes I feel like I'm 19 still but when I think back even 4 or 5 years ago and remember what I thought 27 was gonna be like, boy was I wrong!

I went home for my birthday too.  It was great to go home and be able to go out and see everyone.  When I was home for xmas, I got sick and then did the family thing so I never had the chance to hang out with my peoples (Congrats Kevin and Amy!  Congrats Cassandra and Scott!).  It's interesting to see the different paths that we are all taking now.  Knowing what I know about some of these people it's amazing they're able to dress themselves in the mornings, let alone be productive members of society.

As for stuff around here, I'm doing lots of yard work trying to get the house the way I want it to be, and I'm slowly getting there, but for some reason the list doesn't get any smaller.  And Beau is basically the best dog ever, we are able to run a mile around the neighborhood now and he is completely off the leash and stays by my side (well except for today when he came from nowhere to tackle a cat in a puddle in the street... wow) 

Now on to the topic that motivated me to start writing again.  A couple nights ago I watched Michael Clayton a very interesting movie that came out awhile back but being that I'm not too big of a movie buff I just now got around to watching it.  To me, it was a movie about deceit, greed, delusions and illusions brought on by humans.  So I got to thinking, we are a pretty pathetic species aren't we?  I mean we do things in our everyday lives just to ruin someone else's day or to make sure that we have everything and they (whoever that may be at the time) has nothing.  As an economist -like to throw that in there every now and again- I was taught that "more is always better".  Mathematically and graphically... yes more is definitely better.  But is it better in everyday life?  Can't we just be happy with what we have?  What is it about how we are wired that makes us try to have more of everything.  For example, you can argue that athletes get paid too much, well stop going to the games then.  Because you want to watch more football, they get more money... and they should.  If you're willing to pay the price to watch them play then they deserve a piece of that... I digress.  I just seems like it is so hard for people to be genuinely happy in life.  And that's a shame.  

For the first time in my life I have been able to take my foot off the accelerator of life and, damn it feels good.  I just go to work and go to the gym (I'm doing Ab Ripper X, youtube it and do part 1 and 2... it's dirty!) then come home walk my dog and eat dinner and then relax.  And I'm the happiest I've been in a long time, if not ever.  I don't have a project or test to get done, I don't have another semester of school to worry about, I don't have the pressure of buying a home to worry about, I'm not searching for a job (even in this economy).  So I can just relax.  Now this doesn't mean that I don't push myself to be the best recruiter at work or that I don't push myself to have huge bulging muscles in the gym, one can hope right?  But in the overall scheme of life, I'm kind've content.  I hope that this doesn't lead to me limiting my progress or my future by this level of contentment, but for now I think it is quite refreshing.  I have some big events coming up in the near future and maybe that will spark some fire under me but until then, I'm chillin!

I leave you with these lyrics that popped into my head without hearing the song in years... must be a sign.  I'm just adding the chorus because that's the only part I knew anyway haha.

We were meant to live for so much more

Have we lost ourselves?

Somewhere we live inside

Somewhere we live inside

We were meant to live for so much more

Have we lost ourselves?

Somewhere we live inside

Lyrically challenged

I've updated some of the '100 in 1000' so take a look.

For today's post I think I'm just gonna throw in some of my favorite lyrics. I've been thinking about writing that song lately so I've had a lot of lyrics on my mind.

Enjoy...

"Empty parking lot half a cigarette, I got it off the ground so it's a little wet, I'm on the south side walking sideways, and I still miss someone, this is the last last time I beg the sun to shine"

"And if I am truly crazy, don't you know I like my life that way, and if I am goin' on out of my mind, won't you hop on board and make your get away"

"Don't you think life would be awfully boring, if the good times were all that we had"

"It's sitting by the overcoat, the second shelf, the note she wrote, that I can't bring myself to throw away, reach she said for no one else but you, cuz you won't turn away, when someone else is gone"

"I had a bag of shit I threw it in the sky when it came down it spelled out sigma chi!"

"There's a squeak down on the back gate, lets' us know if he comes around, I don't sleep that good anyway, If you've never heard the silence it's a god awful sound"

"Have you ever walked through a room, but it was more like a room passed around you, like there was a leash around your neck that pulled you through"

"Lord forgive he got those dark forces in him, but he also got a righteous cause for sinning"

"I've been riding all day long, through the wall of rain, in the shadow of the mountains, on the barren plains, to my angel in the village, where a lamplight glows, if the dogs there don't betray me, no one will know"

"God show me the way cause the devil's tryin' to break me down, the only thing that I pray is my feet don't fail me now, and I don't think there is nothing I can do now to right my wrongs, I want to talk to god but I'm afraid cause we ain't spoke in so long"

"There's no combination of words I could put on the back of a postcard no song that I could sing but I could try for your heart"

"flatter than a table top, makes you wonder why they stopped here, wagon must have lost a wheel or lacked ambition one, on the great migration west, separated from the rest though they might have tried their best, they never caught the sun"

"I've got the streets memorized, I see the faces embedded in my mind, I can't keep fighting the urge to go, I've got nothing in common with this town I've come to know...I've got that truck all loaded down, I should have known how hard it'd be to leave this town"

"I can't sleep, I'm dreaming way too loud"


And of course...

"The road goes on forever, and the party never ends"


I didn't add the artists names to their particular lyric because I wanted you to try and guess. But since I'm not one to partake in the hobby of copyright infringement here they are in no particular order; Kayne West, Robert Earl Keen Jr., Eli Young Band, Jack Johnson, Matchbox Twenty, Pat Green, Bleu Edmondson, Kyle Park, Jay-Z, The Offspring, and one good ole SAE song.

I'm sure I left some quality lyrics out. I'd love so see what your favorite lyrics are, leave me a comment with your favorites!