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I went down to Jackson over the weekend with a friend of mine. This was the first time I’ve been to Jackson since the first week of May. It was nice to get out of Starkville for the weekend. We went to the fair with another friend on Saturday night. I think that was the first time I had been to the fair since I was in junior high. On Sunday, we did a little shopping. Some of my clothes are looking raggedy. I also picked up a copy of the new Wheel of Time book. We went to see a movie at the theater in Clinton later on. My mom cooked a huge meal. I haven’t had any home cooking in a while. I finally got to see my diploma which doesn’t even have my major listed on it. I just got back a little while ago and plan on relaxing the rest of the day.

It was nothing too exciting, but the best part was getting out of Starkville.

Nothing much to see here. I just thought I’d make an update. One of these days I’m actually going to update this site. I’ll add more content and maybe even change the design a little.

I’m working hard for pennies it seems. Shouldn’t I be able to retire at 26? When I do get a little free time, I like to read a book or watch a DVD or play a video game. Does anyone use Netflix and want to be my friend? I actually started back playing games on my PC recently. You can click on the image below to see what I’ve been working on.

I have never been really close to my father. We rarely speak and at this point the thought of him rarely even comes up. I can’t say that I even know of very many people on his side of the family. I never had much exposure to them once I became old enough to actually remember things. The thought of them don’t often cross my mind either.

I am embarrassed to say that in the past 8 days the thought never popped into my head that my father had a sister that lived in New Orleans. Last night I found out that she was a victim of Hurricane Katrina. I don’t have any details at the moment.

I never really knew my Aunt Rose. My mom had told me before that at one point we would drive to New Orleans almost every weekend to visit Rose. Those family trips down there ended when my parents divorced shortly before my third birthday. I’m pretty sure that was the last that Rose and I came in contact with each other.

When I was about to start my co-op in New Orleans, my mom told me that I should get in touch with Rose if I ever needed anything. I never had any major problems and never went to see my aunt. In the 15 months that I lived in New Orleans, I was so close but never took the opportunity to go meet her again. It was one of those things that I kept saying that I would do but never took the time to actually do.

My mom says that Rose was a very nice woman who never did or said anything bad to anybody. Even though I never really knew her, I feel saddened right now and I could tell over the phone that my mom felt the same way. I’m sure I’ll be learning more about her in the coming days.

Katrina didn’t do a whole lot of damage in Starkville. My power went in and out for about a couple of hours, but that was the main effect she had on me. I’ve heard that many parts of the Jackson area don’t have power or water. In Starkville there are trees down and some buildings and vehicles were damaged, but it’s nothing compared to what happened on the coast. I feel bad for the people that were affected by the hurricane.

No, I’m not ignoring anyone. I’ve just been a little busy. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get caught up with everything this weekend.

They’re saying that the weather is going to get really bad in northeast Mississippi. Katrina may still be a category 1 hurricance with it reaches.

I’ve got some preparations to make just in case the electricity gets knocked out. Better to be safe than sorry.

I hope that everybody makes it through ok.

I figured I should give an update on my situation. The job hunt has not gone as well as I would have liked. I got lots of nibbles. For a while the phone was ringing off the hook. However, I wasn’t getting any bites. It seemed like all the companies I spoke to didn’t want someone fresh out of college. Or maybe they just didn’t like me.

I hate to have to settle for something but a man’s got to pay the bills. Going home and living off my mother wasn’t an option. My brother-in-law and a former professor had suggested that I look into teaching. I heard about an opening, so I applied for and was offered a part-time position teaching computer science classes at the local community college. A few days later I was offered a position tutoring at the university. All of this happened less than 2 weeks ago. Both of these positions last until December.

Maybe better opportunities will open up later. I just hope I don’t miss anything because I am locked into these jobs until December. They’re pretty much throwing me to the wolves and expecting me to figure out a lot on my own. It’ll be ok though. I start tomorrow.

Life has been ok other than the frustrating job search. Other than searching for a job I haven’t been doing much other than reading (Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia) and watching DVD’s. I beat X-Men Legends a second time and now I’m trying to figure out what game to work on next. I also plan on redoing the assignments I did for the Advanced Computer Graphics class I took last semester.

If gas doesn’t stop going up, I might be riding my bike everywhere from now on.

My cell phone number and primary email address have changed. I’ll get that out information out later.

I’ve lost about 25 lbs over the past 3-4 months. Here’s the key to success.

First you need to lose your appetite for no apparent reason. You won’t even be able to finish small meals for some reason. You’ll feel hungry about as much as you normally do, but once you start eating your desire to eat will disappear.

While this is going on you need to start exercising. Exercise is important. Even if you can’t go to a gym, you need to exercise.

After about a month you will gradually start back eating at normal levels. Again, there should be no logical explanation for this.

A few weeks later you need to come down with food poisoning and get so sick that you don’t want to eat much. Once again, you’ll be hungry, but the idea of eating will not be appealing. It’s okay to stop exercising while you are recovering from the food poisoning.

While you are sick from food poisoning, you need to go through a stressful event like a master’s defense. Hopefully, you’ll be so busy that you won’t have time to eat well.

After this is over you need to start back exercising. That’s really important. You can go back to eating the things you like, but do so in moderation. Moderation is important.

If your appetite suddenly starts playing tricks on you again, then that can be very helpful to weight loss.

Well, that’s how I did it. Whatever you do, don’t follow my lead. It was mostly random for me. Do it the right way.

I’m just sitting here watching a bad movie waiting for midnight to get here.

Fantastic Four is a pretty good movie. I just wish there was more action. They saved most of it until the end of the movie. I think that Dr. Doom was quite a bit different he is in the comics. Oh well.

Hurricane Dennis was a dud. Everybody got worked up over nothing.

I’m out for now.

Mississippi is #1 in another category. We are the top state in terms of corruption among public officials. Does that mean we have that many more corrupt officials or that we do a better job in prosecuting these officials? When I was growing up in Jackson, I remember hearing about officials being investigated and some were even convicted.

This has been a weekend from hell. Time to move on. Time to get back to work on getting out of here.

One good thing is that the Bulldogs beat Ole Miss for the SEC Baseball Championship yesterday.