How to

On the recommendation of Andrew I ordered and just finished How to Become CEO: The Rules for Rising to the Top of Any Organization by Jeffrey J. Fox. It's a good book with short, concise chapters with nuggets of information and recommendations. It's not as good as Never Eat Alone but I still recommend it. It only took me about an hour to read it too!





In other news, I'm going to Elon tomorrow because my granddad is having prostate surgery on Tuesday. Please pray for him. Also I'm hoping to get a second interview with CAHEC in Raleigh while I'm up there.

Good food

Emily and I took mom to Aria in Buckhead tonight for her birthday dinner. If you've never been to Aria (and I had't ever been) you should definitely go. I had pan seared wild Nantucket Striped Bass with white corn, lima beans, and celery creamed potatoes. That was definitely one of the best meals I've ever had. Dessert was a seasonal berry cobbler with orange ice cream which was also excellent. As it was mom's birthday when they brought her dessert, a Georgia Peach tart with ginger and brown sugar vanilla ice cream, it had Happy 54th Birthday written in chocolate on the rim of the plate. If you have a special occassion Aria should be a stop during the evening.

Update

So how about this for my daily horoscope. It's from today's Carrollton paper the Times-Georgian.

Virgo (Aug. 23 - Sept. 22): Money deals can be made if you are honest with yourself about what you want in the future. Love may be a big question for you today. An uncertainty is eating away at you. 3 stars.

In other news, I'm not in Ft. Lauderdale today because Tom messed up my flight reservations. Hopefully I'll be flying down tomorrow to figure out if I want to take the job.

Oompa Loompa Doopity Doo

Last night I went to WCF and met some friends (Melissa, Meagan, Lauren, and Adam) to go to dinner at Taqueria del Sol and see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The fried chicken tacos at TdS were excellent as usual and given the great weather (i.e. not raining) the place was packed and the line was into the parking lot.

After dinner we headed to Phipps to see the movie. It's interesting how groups of people have certain theatres they frequent. I've noticed that WCF folks always go to Phipps. When I'm with my other friends in Atlanta we go to the huge Hollywood 24 on I-85. Of course at home we drive to Douglasville to hit up the Regal 18 at Arbor Place. I would have preferred the Hollywood 24 because it is newer and has stadium seating, plus the screens are big enough for the movie. Anyway we went to Phipps which was fine except the 7 something showing we wanted to see was sold out. Instead we got tickets for the 9:30 show and wondered around the mall and hung out at Williams-Sonoma for awhile until the movie started.



Now onto the movie... (Warning: some spoilers)
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I liked it, as the Gene Wilder version is one of my favorite movies, I was skeptical going in. While almost completely different it was good in its own way. The social commentaries, aside from the Oompa Loompa songs, were very interesting. The sterotypical suburbanite family from Atlanta and striving towards competition and parental vicariousness. Mike Teevee's character hails from Denver and is obsessed by violent video games. I'm surprised there hasn't been any talk in the media about how that may have been over the line in regards to Littleton and Columbine, but I think it's cool that they choose that path for the characters. I wonder how that will project into the future 20 or 30 years from now, just at the original movie still connects. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend checking it out.

It's official

My diploma finally came in the mail today.

Fore!!!

I ilke golf. Golf is fun. Ok enough with the simple sentences.

I played 18 this morning at the par 3 Bowdon Golf Course. I shot an 86 (Back 9: 48 Front 9: 38) which isn't that great considering par is 54. However, I did shoot my first birdie and also pared a hole!!! My score today was also better than when I played 9 with my dad on Monday and shot a 50 something on the front 9.

Strumming in between

I picked up my guitar tonight for the first time since probably May. It was nice to do something different and play some music. It's neat how a certain song will take you back to a memory.

I'm starting to get tired of being in between. I sort of have a direction and it will be more clarified next Wednesday when I fly down to Ft. Lauderdale, but right now it's getting old. Back in late Spring as I filled out my calendar for the rest of the year that after Katie and Joel's wedding that I didn't really have any dates to put down. During high school I always had drum camp and band camp on the calandar and they marked the milestone of a new year. After high school, college began with it's first day, holidays, and end of semester finals dates. During the summer I always had a first day and last day of an internship, which was followed by the next first day of school. This year is a new beginning, no dates on the calendar. It's hard to make that transition from structure to no structure. I was thinking about it tonight as I drove home from Home Depot (where I was trying to entertain myself) that assuming I take the job in Florida that it will start around the time that school would be starting the fall semester. That sounds like something that would happen to me, continue to the normal schedule. All in all that won't be too strange to start then. The weird part will be when May 2006 rolls around and I'll keep doing the same thing, then June, July, and August will come and I won't be starting and ending an internship. I'll still have my job (hopefully). The months will pass and I'll keep working.

Growing up is weird; I don't feel 24. I still see myself as a college student, if that, more like a high school student. In some ways I'm behind in the growing up department, this year brought my first kiss, first relationship and unfortunately first breakup (though I guess everyone has to experience that), first alcoholic drink, but even with those firsts I just finished my sixth year of college and earned a masters. It seems like somethings are out of order and sometimes I feel like I need to catch up but sometimes I don't. A lot of the time I'm glad I didn't experience some things earlier in life because I don't know how I would have handled them. I just need to trust myself to grow into an adult.

Watch out...

Better watch out for these guys if you're having a wedding anytime soon.

Josh and Shaun

Mark and Brian

Book Recommendation

I just finished book #2 for the summer, and I highly recommend reading it. It's called Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi. It's about networking and building more indepth relationships unlike what typical networking builds. He talks about mentor/mentee relationships and giving before you receive. Definitely check it out but you don't have to take my word for it.

One thing

1) I like thunderstorms. It's been raining pretty much nonstop for the past few days thanks to Dennis, but there really hasn't been much thunder and lightening. Tonight we're having a thunderstorm and hearing the rumbling is pretty cool.

Da da da

I'm bored.

Get in the car

Check out Emily's new vehicle, a merlot 2003 Mazda Tribute LX-V6 (i.e. Ford Escape).

Disclaimer: I don't know what that pose is.

Boom

Happy independence Day!

Read, Reading, Read

Well I accomplished something I haven't done in probably 4 years, I read a book from cover to cover. Yeah it's the truth, I haven't really read anything other than school stuff during that time and I'm now trying to keep up the promise I made to myself that once I graduated I would start reading for fun. The first step on the way to this goal was A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. It's about his quest to thru hike the AT and the adventures he gets into. It came highly recommended by Susanna and Josh and it did not disappoint. If you have any interest in the outdoors you're sure to enjoy it. I especially enjoyed it because it was neat reading about his experiences in some places I've been on the southern part of the trail. It's broken down into two parts and I actually read the entire second part today which is another feat as that was about 100 or so pages of reading in one day.



In other news, as many of you know, I may be moving to the Ft. Lauderdale area for a job. I'm probably going down there in two weeks to check it out and see how I like the company and south Florida (and it's lack of seasons, which I think are a good thing).

P.S. If you have any ideas to keep myself entertained please let me know.