Froyo so far

Most of you out there won't care about this but for those of you with Android phones I wanted to give my first impression of Froyo (Android 2.2) so far. The main feature that was touted (at least in the news sources I was reading) was the speed improvement. I can say that this is definitely true. I notice things going faster, apps opening faster, scrolling happens faster, etc. It's not mind-blowingly faster but I do notice a pronounced difference. Then there's the Flash 10.1 support (or lack thereof). Android 2.2 does come with Flash support, however you can't actually download it from the market which will probably have a lot of people confused. I know I was at first. Then I remembered a post from a few weeks ago on droid-life.com (probably the best Droid-specific site out there) that there was a developer's release you could download. So I did that and presto-chango, I had Flash on my phone. It is a neat feature but not one I'll probably use all that often. It's just nice that I have the option to use it (Steve Jobs would not approve). Chrome-to-phone is another neat feature. If you have the app installed on your phone and the extension installed on the Google Chrome browser you can send webpages or maps straight to your phone and the corresponding app will open. Good idea if you're looking up directions on your computer right before you need to leave. There are little UI tweaks here and there but for the most part everything looks the same. I did notice that Arabic charcters display properly now. This means that even though I have no idea what they mean, I can see the title's of Olivia's photo albums on Facebook on my phone now. Another feature I haven't really messed with is the app-to-sd where you can install and/or move apps to the SD card rather than having everything installed on the onboard memory, hogging the little space there is to begin with. Those are my thoughts so far. Supposedly there's another update coming in the very near future to possibly fix some bugs already but everything's only a rumor at this point. As I said earlier, droid-life.com is an amazing resource for anyone who has a phone in the Droid family. Over and out.

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My Wake-up Call

Do you ever have one of this epiphanies where something seemingly heavy (not weight-wise) but painfully obvious gets dropped on you? I had one of those moments. I realized it's time for me to grow up. Maybe most people realize this earlier in their lives or maybe this is normal, I don't know. I only have my own experiences to go off of. But I now understand that I need to be better prepared to deal with the future and that means it's time to make more responsible choices and get myself into a better position to do the things I want in life.

Not that I'm a particularly irresponsible person. I just have to better prepare myself for what I can do in the future. I need to believe in myself. I know a lot of people do and that's comforting to a certain extent, but that only goes so far. If I don't believe in myself and my capabilities, I'm not going to get anywhere. For a long time I've been crippled by self-doubt. I think it started when I graduated from college. When you start school in kindergarten you have a clear path. Go grade by grade until your senior year and then you graduate. Then you either find a job, join the armed forces or go to college. Many people end up going to college because anymore that's what is expected of you, even if you have no desire. Now I'm not one of those people, I did very much want to go to college; but I think that there are people who don't want to go and do anyway because of societal norms. These people don't belong in college and that's not because they're not smart enough, but it's because they don't want to be there. It's going to be a waste of time for them because even if they are capable, they won't gain much from it if their heart's not in it. That's mostly a tangent and doesn't have a lot of bearing on what I'm writing about but I thought I would put in my $0.02. I went through college, chose a major, changed things around, added another major and then BAM, I graduated. Had I thought about the practical applications of my major(s)? Only very little. This was my fault entirely, my professors had given me ample opportunities to explore the options for the future but I had never really been sure that archaeology/classical studies was what I wanted to do. I in no way regret the work I did in college. I enjoyed all of my classes and professors very much and I learned a lot. But I had no clear career path.

So here I am after graduation and I have nothing lined up. Up until that point my entire life had been one long string of events all connected together, one stage following the next in a logical progression. I always knew what was going to happen next. Now that progression had been broken. And that's when I lost confidence in myself. What do I do now? I've always known what was next before, but now everything's hazy? What am I supposed to do? I began to second guess what I was capable of, what I could be good at, what I should be doing. When you're not sure what your direction in life is it's a very unnerving depressing thing. In the movie Unbreakable Samuel L. Jackson's character tells Bruce Willis: "Do you know what the scariest thing is? To not know your place in this world, to not know why you're here." My sentiments exactly. Of course, Sammy L. (as my good friend Evan likes to call him) goes on to explain that he basically became a super-villain and committed quite a few terrorist acts to draw out someone who was his opposite so he would know who he was. I don't think I'm really the type to go Lex Luthor so no one reading this needs to worry that I'll come up with a secret lab somewhere in which I come up with dastardly deeds against humanity. Besides, I'm not very good at building giant robots or chemistry so my career in super-villainy is very limited. But in all seriousness, when you don't really know what your purpose is it's a scary thing.

My response has been less than admirable and very counter-productive. I've basically shut down. I doubt myself so much that I don't want to try anything new. I don't want to change anything because the evil (or stagnation, in this case) that you know is better than the evil that you don't know. When I look back over the way I've been it's pathetic, really. But I've never bothered to change. I've let down people that I love and I've just not been myself for a long time. But that's going to change. I'm tired of making excuses. I'm tired of wallowing in self-doubt and self-pity. I'm tired of not feeling like myself. I'm tired of not knowing. I'm not getting any younger so it's now or never. I've got more than myself to think about. This is it, this is when I've got to separate who I've been from who I can be. To the people I care about who've never left, thanks for sticking around. I love you all and thanks for doing the same.

My favorite song for a while now has been Baba O'Riley by the greatest band to ever play music, The Who. After listening to it time and time again I realized the third verse is very pertinent to what I'm trying to get across. I take it to mean the narrator is leaving behind the things he's comfortable with in order to move on to better things before it's too late. I don't know if that's what Pete Townshend intended when he wrote those lyrics but that's what I'm taking from them. I'll print those lyrics below but the entire song is amazing and I get chills every time I hear the intro. Check out the song here.

Sally, take my hand
We'll travel south 'cross land
Put out the fire
And don't look past my shoulder.

The exodus is here
The happy ones are near
Let's get together

Before we get much older.

Confessions of a former telemarketer, Education, and Marriage

It's been quite a long time since I've written one of these. It's not easy to keep up with one of these as I can attest to from experience. Originally I had started this blog to write about my experiences travelling abroad during the fall semester of 2006. That's been almost 4 years ago and I haven't written too much since then. I can't say that this is me turning over a new leaf because I just happened to have the drive to write something today. I don't know if this is going to be a regular occurrence but I suppose I'll make an effort.

One of the main reasons I'm writing this is because there have been a lot of changes in my life as of late, mostly good ones. I've switched jobs a few times and now live in Oxford, Ohio for the time being. I'm going back to school to get into the information technology field as it's something I've always been interested in for as long as I can remember. Also I now have a lovely wife as of June 19th, Olivia Mote. More on all of these tonight at 6!

No but really, things have been up and down for a while. Ever since I graduated I was doing jobs that I didn't really care for. Most recently I basically worked as a telemarketer. Talk about walking in someone else's shoes. That was quite the experience. I was talking to people who already had Discover cards about adding Discover's identity theft protection coverage. Having done that I can say that it's a very good idea for people to have identity theft protection. The facts we were given to talk to people about identity theft were of course mostly used as scare tactics but they were facts nonetheless. Millions of people are affected by identity theft every day and it takes a lot to get yourself out of a mess like that. Not all companies are fair and forthcoming about what their coverage actually entails so you really have to do your research in order to get the best product. With that being said I think identity theft protection is something you have to make a decision about yourself. I can understand people not wanting to get it. They think that it won't happen to them and thus they don't need to pay the money for the service. That's probably true for most people, but the way I look at it car insurance is the same way. You never know if something is going to happen to your vehicle so most people get it covered just in case. It can't hurt. Anyway, like I said I think people should be able to make an informed decision about what kind of coverage they do or don't want and over the phone is not a good medium for that. As a reformed (haha) telemarketer, I can tell you that probably 75% of the people who call you don't want to be calling you. They have to. Likewise the people who are pushy on the phone probably aren't really pushy people; most companies have sales quotas you have to meet and when you're not meeting those numbers you are forced to try other measures. It's not a good business to be in if you are empathetic whatsoever. I'm glad that chapter in my life was as short as it was.

As I said earlier I'm now going back to school for some sort of degree(s) in the IT field. As my family and friends can attest, from a very early age I've been fascinated by technology. We got our first computer when i was in fourth grade, I believe, and I've been on one ever since. I'm always reading about new technology in my free time and I'm always eager to use the newest gizmos and gadgets when I have the finances for them. The degree I'm going for right now is a certificate in PC Support and Administration at Ivy Tech in Richmond, Indiana. Olivia (more on her later) is getting a master's degree in comparative religions focusing on Islam a Miami University here in Oxford. She's already got one year behind her so she'll be done next summer. I just started my degree this summer and so unfortunately I won't have time to complete an associate's degree. So right now I'm doing this certificate, maybe adding another since I'll probably have time for that. Then when we go to wherever Olivia will get further schooling (possibly a Ph.D in Islam, more likely a Ph.D in political science or a law degree), I will enroll either at the same school or somewhere close and get a bachelor's degree in computer science, with my Ivy Tech credits hopefully transferring. When I'm done I hope to work in an IT department either for a business or for a school.

The last (not in importance, though) big thing has been getting married to my best friend of 7 years. Olivia and I got married on June 19th at the Horizon Convention Center in Muncie, Indiana. It really was amazing, having many of my closest family and friends all together to witness the special occasion. I'm so lucky to have Olivia and I'm really looking forward to going through life with her. I think she feels the same way but I can't be sure because a week after we got married she fled the country to go to Beirut, Lebanon to take an intensive 6-week course in Arabic for the rest of the summer. At least that's what she told me she was doing. She most likely is doing some solo globe-trotting with the educational cover-story. She gets to do that while I'm here at home being slowly eaten to death by Ruby, the now 7-month old Yorkshire Terrier/Shih-Tzu mix Olivia got in January. I feel as though I've been tricked.........

So that's the update for now. Like I said, lots of new and exciting things. Stay-tuned for more possible updates, possibly even in the near future! It's possible! (This message brought to you by the abstract idea possible).