Reflection

As I stated on my first post, this is my first blog, and it has been a unique writing experience. I used to wonder, 'Why do people waste their time writing small articles about themselves or other people, and on a regular basis at that?', but after having one for myself I understand a little better now. While I do not plan on continuing my blog, It was a good way to talk about whats on your mind when you have no one else to tell it to. I also learned that while free writing I can write much faster, and get a better flow of things. I just have to go back over it afterwards and do some editing to make things presentable. I personally do not like writing about myself, and I find it hard to think of something even worth writing about when the topic is my decision. After writing some blog posts I found some ways to get over that, like writing about something that is upcoming in your life that you are thinking about, or a good memory that happened that you remember well. While I may not have liked this blog, it did teach me a few things.
-Josh

Some People

Some people in this world really get on my nerves. Just today someone thought it would be funny to gather all of my garage sale signs, rip them into little pieces and throw them all over my front yard while no one was home. We are continuing the garage sale this weekend so we left the signs up. Someone either didn't like that or they do not like me. I've dealt with my share of crazy people here in the methamphetamine capital of America. I've had my windshield busted in because of a case of mistaken identity, I have had one family member murdered, another shot while someone broke into his home, and I've had to pull a gun on someone under the influence at my home before as well. That was one of the worst nights of my life, but all was resolved. I wish that there were not people like this in my world. . . but there are. And that is the main reason I am a supporter of our right to bear arms, to protect yourself from your crazy meth-head townsfolk.

Garage Sale

I'm having a garage sale this weekend and it has been a little more stressful than I planned it being. With work, schoolwork, and some recent car trouble I have been a very busy bee, and finding time to pull things out of the shed and reorganize the garage has been hard. I will be happy to get rid of some of my stuff though, and with my sons birthday coming up in less than two weeks we need all the extra money we can get. I'll be selling my old Dyno bicycle frame, some car parts, some tools, a bunch of clothes, and all kinds of random things that seem appropriate to put on sale in my front yard. Now its just time to price label everything and hope it does not rain.

Computer Meltdown

I recently experienced a ridiculous computer failure, all starting from a virus. It all started a week ago, on Friday night when I started an installation of a program, and all the files associated with it suddenly disappeared. Not long after, I used AVG anti-virus to scan for viruses, and it found a Trojan.horse. AVG removed it for me and all was fine, but after 10 minutes a virus warning popped up so I started the scan again. This time it told the truth, it was a generic type Trojan infecting my core windows files, and basically that it cannot remove or do anything with the infected file, services.exe. This file name is commonly used as a 'mask name' for malicious software.  it was a generic type Trojan, infecting my core windows files. So I manually found the infected file and tried to delete it with no such luck, and after doing research and trying various non-destructive methods nothing would get rid of the thing. It started getting worse. I opened my browser(Mozilla) and pop-ups go everywhere, and everything was very slow. Not long after several of my programs including my browser wouldn't launch, and I had enough. I used File Assassin, which is associated with http://www.malwarebytes.org to delete this file permanently from my hard drive. After deleting, it said my computer needed to restart to complete changes, so I let and when it turned back on and loaded to the point of signing in I had nothing but a black screen and a cursor. Oops, so I used a boot CD with diagnostic and recovery tools to delete everything off of my hard drive so that I could simply re-install Windows XP and go from there. After 12 installation attempts it finally installed the operating system, and by that point I was worried. Before even the Microsoft updates were complete, I received a system error message,  followed by a blue screen with a failure report and a shutdown. When I turned on the computer again it read 'Please insert bootable media'. That is bad, and my hard drive was toast. And I am still not sure. . . how did a virus physically destroy my hard drive?

Knowing Your Audience Analysis

     It's almost funny how we all come from different places, yet many of us are alike in more ways than one. In the past four weeks we have a done more than one assignment that helps others understand what we are, a room with a window being the first. That assignment helped us see where everyone was learning from, and a good bit of other information about their lives with some observation, but the most informational has surely been the knowing your audience questions and answers.
     After reading all of the answers to the questions, I realized the one way we are all most similar is that we each have a plan of some sort, and in most cases that is the reason we are here. It appears that I have an honest audience, which I believe is very good. If someone were holding back or being fake it might make an assignment similar to this one quite difficult. While reading answers to questions like 'your worst fears', or 'what makes you happy', I could tell that everyone is being genuine and true. Even if it seemed goofy or maybe even a little crazy, at least the person answered the question honestly.
     Many of my classmates including myself have a family or  are planning on having a family in the future, and while reading many of these posts, I could tell there are many caring and good people in my audience as well. It's easy to see we have a wide group of ages in this class, but that is also a good thing, I believe it is important so that we see we are all equal in this world. Some may have certain skills or qualifications, and we are all ultimately different, but ultimately we are also equal. I feel as if I actually know more about my classmates or audience than I would if attending a seated course because of reading all these answers. I feel emotions for some of my audience when I read what they are writing about, sometimes joy, others sorrow, and twice confused.We all have our own plan, and we are all here to work on making that plan happen.

Online Summer Classes

When I signed up for summer classes this year at OTC, I had been told by friends and even the employee in student services that these classes will be very challenging. I understood why they were saying this, but when I started the classes, I was still surprised by the workload. They were not joking, almost every single day before and after work I have to do at least 1 assignment to not fall behind, and my days off from work are spent getting as much knocked out as possible in my free time. If I could go back in time to add one of these classes to a previous semester, I most definitely would. Even though that semester would have been a little more than full-time I have had a couple of semesters like that and the overall load seems about equal to taking just 2 online summer classes, but the online classes seem to involve more actual assignments so they are probably even more difficult. Many night I have been up until 3 am trying to finish up some assignments so that my workload on the next day is a little lighter, and then towards the end of the week, when I'm working the most, I have less things to get done so I'm not so overwhelmed. It is most definitely more difficult than I had thought to juggle work, family, and these online summer classes .I do not doubt my ability to complete these classes, I just wish i would have taken the path of least resistance. Just four weeks left of this crazy busyness and maybe I can take a day off, that sounds nice.

6/29/12

I Believe I Play Guitar

I started playing the guitar back in Middle school, 7th grade to be more exact. At first I borrowed an electric guitar from a friend until later when my parents bought be my first one from eBay. I picked it up pretty quickly, and was able to learn any song (realistically easy song) I wanted to in about a day per song. All I wanted to do then was play guitar, all day long. Some days I did. I played until my fingers hurt so bad I just couldn't play anymore. After about 4 years of heavy practice, in high-school I started a band with a friend. It was what I always wanted to do, and one of the main reasons I started playing guitar. I enjoyed it more than anything at that time, and I continued to enjoy it until my freedom to play music at venues was taken from me. After a long while I joined another band, one that was a bit more serious. More concerts to play, some recording, and a lot more practice. I was in this band longer than the other, and enjoyed it even more. We played several shows before I left the band. My wife had just gotten pregnant and it was time to find a better paying job and work more hours. Ever since then I might pick up a guitar once every 3 months. I still love it, but when life changes you have to change with it.   288 words