Random Musings of a Ramblin' Fool XLII

This blog continues to grow in relevancy as both Reddit members and Google Search add more visitors as well as regular readers. We are now up to around 8500 page visits a month give or take depending on the content quality and frequency. Not only is traffic increasing but so is positive feedback both online and from folks encountered at shows. Early on in this project I was warned against casting too wide a net topically-speaking. I was admonished to stick to a more narrow focus and court readers interested in that particular narrow field of interest. I have gone in the opposite direction with this project and it seems to be working well. In many instances the eclectic and esoteric, arcane and mundane, geekish and wonkish shotgun fired from the hip approach to matters here seems to appeal to a broad base. Not only that, but in touching on numerous obscure subjects this blog in many cases is one of the few sources or one of the better sources of information to be found on the internet regarding those specific subjects. I thank you all for following me along in this journey which we are embarked upon together and hope you continue with me resting content in the knowledge I have absolutely no clue where we are headed.

Looking Forward On School

I am now in my fourth semester going back to college which is the sixth semester of college overall in my life. I had an epiphany quite recently that my time here at Cuesta College is about to end as I will soon be done there.  This could happen as soon as after one more semester after the current one. I am currently enrolled in 14 units in which I am doing quite well. This is the most units I have ever taken in college, even going back to the year at Cuesta College I did back in Fall 1989-Spring 1990 fresh out of high school. Those two semesters I had 13 and 11.5 units respectively. For the period Fall 2010-Spring 2011-Fall 2011 my unit count was 6, 8, and 10 units respectively with all A's except for one B (Spanish last semester).

I plan to visit a counselor soon and discuss my graduation requirements and find out how I must go about applying for the colleges to which I am interested in transferring. Part and parcel with that is my need to find out what sort of financial aid packages they offer.

There are five universities I am primarily interested in applying for at this time. Three of them are secular public universities (Cal Poly, UCSB, and USC) and two of them are well-regarded private Christian universities (Westmont and John Brown University). At present JBU appears to be the direction in which God is leading me. If that turns out to be the case this will mean some major changes in my life such as I have never experienced heretofore. It is worth noting that I applied for and was accepted to JBU back in 1990 but backed out at the last minute due to my downward spiral into mental illness.

As to what major I am pursuing all I can say is "hell if I know". My officially declared major is emergency management. However, given I am starting so late in life and with no military and/or public safety experience which seem par for the course to be in emergency management I am therefore uncertain this shall remain my major. Furthermore, the genesis for the idea of getting into emergency management came about in mid-2009 at a time I was still away from God and thus was not discerning His will for me. Thus this idea and all ideas engendered during that period and before are suspect.

A Step backward In School

I placed into the second-to-lowest math class offered by Cuesta College (Math 07) as a result of a miserable math placement exam result late last year.I have a ways to go at this pace before I start getting into math courses with units that are transferable to the University of California system and elsewhere. I don't care to get hung up at Cuesta College over one single subject and languish there for a couple more years getting through this remedial stuff and then accumulating all the necessary math units to then transfer. Something I am contemplating is getting my easy A out of this current class all the while studying in the math lab on the computer in preparation for retaking the placement exam and getting into the classes I actually need, hopefully starting with college-level algebra in the Fall 2012 semester or perhaps even this Summer as loath as I am to take Summer courses and ace myself out of a possible trip to the Coleman Mines in Arkansas to dig quartz crystals. I took and passed the Advanced Placement English test my senior year of high school earning a score of "3" on it which means I have the option of cashing that in for 3 units of English with Cuesta College, something I must still do but have been too busy to bother with up to this point. Achieving this fete would be a minor consolation for what is happening for me in regards to math.

Looking Further Forward On School

 I see a pattern in my life developing, a theme if you will that is best described in Jeremiah 6:16 which states "...Stand in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and you will find rest to your souls..." Thus far, after years of being haunted all my adult life by the fact I never finished what I started in college straight out of high school I note also that back at that time I was a declared journalism major. This in no way suggests that was God's will for me then nor that it is now. However, I am chronically inquisitive and a capable writer who is a diamond in the rough waiting to be faceted. Is journalism what God put me here to do from a vocational standpoint? Another possibility is teaching: I've been hearing a growing clamor for me to become a teacher. Is this a message being conveyed to me by God via other people? Another tangent of the past intersecting with my present is that my late father James Gordon Noyes (1946-1985) earned a Bachelor of Arts in History but never used it. To my surprise I am finding the one subject I am enjoying even more than geology is history for which I am finding even more meaning derived from it as it pertains to my life. Thus, I wonder if I am to take up my father's mantel and get a history degree and actually use it unlike my father. Am I to teach history? I have all sorts of questions but no answers on any of this yet.

Well Enough About Me... What Do You Think About Me?

Or rather what do you think about hiring me for a job? I need a regular paycheck given that I'm chronically underemployed and just barely getting by. I'm doing better now than I was one year ago or two years ago or even three years ago so it's nice to see progress... gradual as it is. However, I need to make more progress and my talents are being wasted not being hired weekly to do more than the current sporadic general labor interspersed with a periodic rock show engagement. I could be a monster of a customer service representative or server in the service industry or salesman provided I believed in what I was being hired to sale which means I'm not willing to sell just anything. I would be most potent selling wine, however, so any wineries out there needing new talent in the tasting room they can train and mold me into the shape they desire so please contact me via this blog if you are interested. Know this: somebody at some point is going to snatch me up so will it be you or your competition?

Don't Look At the Calendar Now But Spring Has Sprung Already

As one who suffers from mild Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.) I am noting with delight that the days are getting noticeably longer and twilight is lasting longer and the Sun is getting noticeably higher in the sky and it's heat on my skin is getting noticeably more intense. Yes, I'm quite light-sensitive... like a houseplant except I'm starved for it and not vulnerable to it. As is typical most years on the Central Coast Spring effectively starts sometime in February. However, I have noticed it seems to come consistently earlier than it used to appear. Add to the mix this year rainfall being way below normal and what rain has come this rainy season (7/1/11-present) did so mostly in the Autumn and thus we have early to middle Spring-like fire conditions. The almond blossoms having been blossoming for weeks and are not waning as are many other types of blossoming trees. Leaves are also busting out all over which is exciting to see. Many folks around here are concerned that we will get at least one more hard frost which will kill what is now growing on the trees. I'm already late getting my garden planted despite having re-landscaped my backyard earlier this Winter.

I Experienced a First This Week

A few days ago while working on my computer in my house I heard a loud explosion in my neighborhood and immediately the power went off at my house and throughout the neighborhood. That was the first time in my life that I can recall losing power and simultaneously hearing the cause of it nearby. The other memorable power outages I have experienced were caused by the 1994 Highway 41 Fire when I awoke the morning of August 15, 1994, to no power anywhere in Atascadero. Strangely enough, a mere week before that there was the time my schoolmate Derrick Todd (AHS Class of 1990) died with some of his family and friends (4 people in all) in a small plane crash out of San Luis Obispo Airport.  Their plane lost power on take-off which caused them to slice through power lines along US101 adjacent to the Sunset Drive-In Theatre in SLO. The moment they all died the power went out where I was living in Atascadero. Of course, at the time I didn't know it but learned of it later that night or the next day. Another memorable power outage was the powerful storm that hit Atascadero the night of February 3-4, 1998, bringing hurricane-force winds to the area and knocking out power dramatically throughout the area. I still remember getting up on the roof over the garage and hearing the wind roaring through the neighborhood and the sound of things banging and breaking and seeing power flashes of various colors in various directions at various distances.

 I Gotses A New Used Computer... And Smart Phone, Too!

My dear friend and benefactress Penguiness has been kind and generous enough to give me her old computer which really isn't that old but is too slow for her needs and just perfect for mine. Nobody on Earth will ever know the pure unadulterated aggravation I have endured over the past few years with my current computer which I acquired as a refurbished computer near the start of my current poverty in late 2008. Over time it has gotten slower and slower no matter what was done to ameliorate the problem. I have the thing sitting next to me here on the floor as of yet not taken out of the box so I don't lose anything out of it until I get around to switching over to it sometime this weekend. This comes on the heels of Penguiness last year prequeling that by way of giving me her fresh-out-of-the box 3G smart phone as she apparently upgraded shortly after purchasing it to something faster and instead of doing what most sane people would do (take it back for a refund) elected to simply give it to this chronic, life-long underachiever (but on the verge of becoming a late bloomer). I was both surprised and humbled and grateful for that gift as I now am of this latest one. I see a Honda Point Disaster artifact (or something off the U.S.S. Harvard wreck) in her very near future. For the record: Penguiness designed and executed the entire look of this blog page including my cool cartouche.

Guess Who Is the New Rockhound Round-Up Chairman?

I was recently honored by new Santa Lucia Rockhound's President Barbara Bilyeu with the task of being chairman of the 21st Annual Rockhound Round-Up Rock, Gem, And Mineral Show in Paso Robles, CA. I take this responsibility very seriously and have thus far fully-engaged myself therewith. We are already very actively working on this in regards to planning and recruiting and delegating various tasks to various members whom generously volunteer their time. I look forward to the show the way a child anticipates Christmas many months in advance. It is my intention to NOT complacently observe tradition and maintain the status quo but rather push this show towards its future starting this year. I hope to achieve this with a very realistic ambition to improve the show with the ultimate goal of moving it to a much better and more viable location and as a result expand the show and make it even more user-friendly than it currently is as limited by the confines of its current venue.