November 29, 2012

Since this is the second to last blog post due for class, I would like to get a bit philosophical about a few things.

First of, for those who still read this blog in class, you are most likely under the age of 20 and still young, naive, and full of hopes and dreams. Never let that feeling die.

I am not much older, at 24, and have already seen so much pass me by. I graduated high school, went to Western Carolina, which was picked out on my own as a bit of a last minute resort, mostly because everyone kept saying that I needed to go to college. I went, did poorly, and decided that school wasn't right for me. Turns out that waiting tables is much worse than reading some books and taking tests. I moved to Florida with some friends for a year and promptly moved back to go to school. Florida was my time to myself to reflect on what I wanted, cut ties, be fully independent, and get a taste of the real world. I came back and got a job at the Grove Park Inn thinking I was hot shit and school would eventually come if needed.

I dabbled in and out of school to see what I would like and found out that graphic design was pretty cool, I had always drawn things since I was small, but this puts a new tool in my hand to make beautiful art.

Plus it makes other things, such as sharpies
and highlighters look like child's play

There was one night in particular that I remember more than any at work. A table of 4 came in, 2 older couples, and had ordered food. Our kitchen was not the most prompt, or efficient (yes, one of the restaurants at the great gpi, one would be surprised if they knew more). I had placed the order, as I have many many times before, and one of the gentlemen's plates came out wrong, I do not recall if it was a steak prepared wrong, or wrong sides, but that is besides the point. The gentlemen was livid. He told me later, as he was paying his bill, that he did not want to, but is still going to leave a tip and that "you can do better."

I knew that it was not directed at me, and nothing that guests say ever offend me, its something about the clientele of grove park that gives people a sense of entitlement and can talk down to people. You can typically spot these people out rather quickly. I am the calm cool center of the universe whenever someone yells/talks down/ridicules me. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, I never crack. But for some reason this comment stuck with me.

I digested it, let it settle, and still could not get it out of my mind. 

"You can do better."

This random stranger, who I could not point out to you today if I had to, had more effect on me with four words than most people do after whole conversations.

A week or so passed with these five syllables playing over and over in my head.

I took it as, "I can do better at life." at that point I decided to pull myself together, do everything better. After work one night I went home and spent hours online looking at classes and researching what I would be getting myself into. And even today, in all aspects of life, I tell myself the same words that this random had told me.

Something inside of me changed and always pushed for more, better, never accepting anything as the best, because even if I were the best at something, I can do better.

So I will say that life is an adventure. Do better than you did yesterday until you are the one that is the best and continue to raise the bar. Settling is for the weak and mentally poor. If you are not on an adventure, then destroy anything that is in your way and live your adventure.

Do right to those who help you, and do right to those who dont, eventually they will understand and envy you.

I will end this with a few tips to hopefully help you in the long run.

You do not want to end up paying $600+ in rent money that you will never get back. It is wasted money. Buy a house, but in order to do so, get a high paying job. Get a high paying job, but in order to do so, graduate from college. Graduate from college, but in order to do that, you must do your homework and dedicate yourself to what you want, and what makes you happy.

If there is no happiness that comes from what you are doing, either directly, or indirectly, then stop doing it.

Do not buy materialistic things, invest in memories.

Find your happiness, find your bubble, your happy place, use this as your resting time, then be restless at all other times. Nobody became wealthy by waiting. Fulfill your dreams, set your hopes high with expectations, that way if you make it halfway there, you will still have made it, and still trying to better yourself. 

Friday Nov 16, 2012

So it has been sometime since I have wrote a blog. My apologies for the delay, I hope this will catch everyone up on situations and of course, the cat at the end.

The past month or two have been up and down, over and over. My mother has been in and out of the hospital, my longtime girlfriend, who I lived with and own furniture and animals with, have split, my step-fathers father has passed, and I am trying to get my sister in a situation to be able to pass her senior year in high school. On top of the family issues, my job is going south fairly quickly with a new company that has bought it and I couldn't care less about it. And then, what should be most important, in a sense, school. I am a bit behind, this is the first semester that I have done that.

I am not looking for hand outs, not would I accept them, but a shoulder to lean on at this point is crucial. My friends have stepped in and helped more than I could ask for.

I used to draw, or write, or design, as a way to get aggression and sorrow out. Now I have been drinking, not to the extent of where it messes with my job or school, but alcohol has been the answer. To clarify, I have a two drink limit when I go out somewhere. I always drive myself because of this as well. I do not like being drunk, nor do I get drunk, but I do drink.

My mother used to drink... A lot. My 18th birthday, I took care of her. Graduation night, I took care of her. Yet I do not blame her or hold her to that. She was a single mother who raised two children from paycheck to paycheck. She did right by us and always had. Now we still look after her, just under different circumstances. The nervous system in her feet are now raw, as well as her liver not looking so good. She went to the hospital with enough time that everything can be fixed with time and medication to where she can get back to where she needs to be. The path will be long, and we will be beside her through it all.

My girlfriend left to go to Paul Mitchell in Orlando florida 8 months ago. She will be back in two weeks, but at this point every insecurity either one of us has had, was split open and drove us apart. She is no longer the same person, nor I. As I am typing this, she is texting me about how it's bullshit that I am pulling this so close to her coming home. Yet she is the one that formally ended our relationship. So in this case, the one I would love to talk to about her, is her. So I have been avoiding her, which is difficult as I live with her brother. This is just petty drama, but still weighs on me.

My sister, because of my mother, hasn't been doing so hot in school. She needs to get on the ball. She is 18 without a job, car, or permit/license. I understand that it is not her fault, but when I was 16, I was working 30 hours a week and paid for my first car. Motivation to leave the nest was my biggest fire. I want the best for her and wish she could see how big the world is, Asheville is the biggest city she has seen, New York would blow her mind and hopefully motivate her to leave this small rural city.

Im just rambling at this point, so if I think of anything else, I will add it later. But for now, here is a cat!

Analyzing "What Sacagawea Means To Me"

This was a good article that I related to on a cultural level. Sacagawea has been revered as a hero. She has statues, sculptures, memorials, a river, and even the Sacagawea Center in Idaho. Most Native-Americans do not celebrate Columbus Day, this is like celebrating Valentine's day because of the Massacre in 1929.

Sacagawea, to some, was a sell out and helped to doom the Native Americans. But without her, we would not have the amazing country we live in. So how does one decipher how they feel about the genocide of their ancestors? But for me personally, my ancestors are the ones who helped in the process. I am the offspring between both parties.

Sherman Alexie's article deciphering this is one that cause unease and questions. He speaks to everyone involved with America

Paradox

The last post has been weighing in on me still. Paradoxes have a way of prompting me to wonder quite a bit. Schrödinger's cat, Grandfather Paradox, Hitler's Murder Paradox, Omnipotence Paradox are very few of the world of known paradoxes.

The new movie Looper is coming out about a guy who has people sent back from the future for him to kill. The twist is that his future self gets sent back. If his future self kills his younger self, how did he continue to live into the future to get sent back in the first place. This is the Grandfather Paradox.

Hitler's Murder Paradox says that if you go back in time to kill someone famous, before their time of fame, such as Hitler, then they never became famous and you wouldn't have known about them to go back in time to stop them. 

The Omnipotence Paradox says that if there is a deity out there that can create anything, can he/she create something that can'not be moved, even by the deity? And if not, then that mush mean that they are not omnipotent, right?

I could just like driving myself crazy with puzzles with no answer, but I find this fascinating. 

Questions to the Answers

How would you describe ghosts? Déjà vu? Conscience before birth? Self conscience? This post will not have any actual answers, just different ways to perceive and think about the eccentric events in life.  I will begin at the same point that started my thoughts one evening.

Donnie Darko

For those who have not seen the film "Donnie Darko," I would suggest it to anyone who enjoys watching a movie in order to have an issue resolved, but look at life in a different light. I will skip over a lot of the plot in order to move on to what I want, the airplane engine. At the beginning of the film an airplane engine destroys Donnie's room, luckily he was sleepwalking that night. So an investigation occurs and the find the plane that the engine came from, fully intact. Later in the film (28 days in the plot) we see the plane engine fall off and disappear into a vortex. From the ending of the movie (jumping back a month), we find out that Donnie was in his room and the engine hits his room and kills him, but how is it possible that he saw the engine fall off a month later?

Scientist have confirmed that it is possible to tweak the fabric of time when altered with speed. This is proven and fact, but only is the forward direction of time. So how is it possible to have something in the present time return to the past without messing up the present?

One of the solutions that came into view in my initial discussion was parallel universes.

If there is a parallel universe for every decision's outcome then the solution, then this wormhole could have connected two universes. A solution could be that in Universe A and Universe B both had a engine fall off, only at separate times. So while in the film (Universe A) there was a month of having 2 engines, Universe B had an engine missing for a month, only to essentially have the engines switch universes through the wormholes.

Then comes this concept relating to our lives. What if ghosts, or déjà vu, are universes that open up a wormhole and we peer through them for a moment? An easier way to think of it is like FM frequencies. Lets say that 95.5 ROCK is out of Greenville, while 95.5 LIVE is coming from Charlotte. Seeing how we are in Asheville, the Greenville station will be prominent, but every now and then 95.5 LIVE from Charlotte will dip into the frequency and we will hear it. When we see a ghost, this is just another frequency that is traveling along the same time but we pick up the interference of their alternate universe and we see this things happen. Déjà vu is another universe that is at the same point in time, or something that has happened slightly off from us, that we have already seen, and we feel a sense of awareness and often times a knowing of what is going to happen.

Without getting into quantum mechanics, I will leave off of the subject of alternate universes. How would one describe self-conscience? As a soul? What is a soul? Most people say that animals don't have a soul, so what is the difference? I read an article about how we could possibly be just in a simulation (link has NSFW language). For those who know php, we could essentially be in a WHILE Loop. The loop could say while this body is still breathing, give it mechanics and thought until X. X could be time, accomplishments, whatever. Yes, I am talking about the essence of life as a scripting language that is running variables and functions.

It is a bit farfetched, but then again, having a glowing bulb of light was farfetched at one point as well.

Tesla > Einstein

I will leave the floor open with the question of how would you describe self-conscience before birth? Religious or scientific theories, no matter how crazy are all welcomed!

Longboarding

Originally I was going to write about Digital Media and the things I have done such as websites, logos, and digital art, but wanted to let that be for another day (If you can no longer contain your excitement then just visit http://nickconraddesign.com/ to see some of my work).

Today this will be about longboarding, a recent fascination that I have been picking up on.

Growing up I used to skateboard quite a bit, my last board broke about 2 years ago and I just never went to get another one, until last June. I went to buy a board and throw my old trucks on it and saw something else that caught my attention.

Sector 9's 2012 42" Bamboo Drop Through

I felt like a kid on the day after Halloween with too much candy that will eventually hurt themselves. I had seen videos online of guys hitting speeds in the 40's on a longboard and always wanted to experience it myself.

These guys are from Florida going down our local parkway. Little did I know what all waited to be explored when you start getting more into longboarding. Speed seemed to only be one of the many abilities. Sliding seemed to be the next progressive step.

Sooner or later this will be accomplished, and the speed thing will not be as tough of an adversary because sliding is essentially breaking. Obviously special gloves are needed with thick pads on the palms and fingers to have the ability to not wear your fingers through like early 90's style jeans.

Here is a good video that shows a bit of everything. The first actual skating footage begins around the 4:15 mark, and if all you wanna see are falls skip on through to 12:35.

If anyone is interested, the basics are easy and I would love to teach someone and skate with others. Just let me know.

And as always... Another reason why cats are jerks....

Class Assignment

SPEAKER

Camel Lights Cigarettes.
OCCASION

A placement ad for Camel Lights in the 1980's. Possibly a poster or magazine advertisement.
AUDIENCE 
1980's alpha male, or those who wish to be the alpha male. It is saying that if you want to be a man, this is what a man does. It takes a broad audience, males as a whole, and tries to entice them to be like the advertisement. 
PURPOSE

To make males buy and smoke cigarettes to be like "the man."

SUBJECT

Camel infers that smoking will make you look like a "man."

TONE

Condescending in a sense, direct with a bit of subliminal messaging. Natural colors, for the nature man.

I'm sure that this ad was successful, every young male adult wants to be "the man." The 1980's was a time when manly men dominated the big screens and culture media. This ad went along with the times to capitalize upon the market.

Link To Video*

SPEAKER

Nintendo

OCCASION

The "new generation" of games is out and challenging people.

AUDIENCE

Young adults that want to be challenged by ground breaking video games. 
PURPOSE

To advertise the "new generation" of video games and entice people to buy them.

SUBJECT

Nintendo is presenting a challenge to those who want to take on the endless challenges of the super mario game.

TONE

Epic, upbeat, early 1990's feel with the music. The word "EXTREME" feels like it needs to be shouted throughout.

This ad was successful, I remember seeing this at a young age and wanting a nintendo myself. The kids in the video seem to have so much fun and who doesn't want to have fun?

SPEAKER

Anti-smoking ad.

OCCASION

When smoking hazards became a big deal and there was a movement to help those to quit. Roughly around 2005.

AUDIENCE

Anyone that smokes, even those who do not smoke probably couldn't help by notice.

PURPOSE

To make smokers quit smoking.

SUBJECT

Smoking kills and makes you look gross.

TONE

Informal, a bit of a parent-child feel to it. Shock value was wanted.

There is no way that this ad was not successful in raising awareness.

Cat related Advertisement to relate to the topic and show again why cats suck.
Hair.
Hair everywhere. 

*Every time I try to post the video from youTube it only brings up options for a Pitbull song. The only thing worse than cats are songs with Pitbull. That will not fly on my blog. So I do apologize to the lazy who do not like to click links to open up a new window, hopefully they are few and far between.