The weekend.

Wednesday night: Boston's, Hamlin Pub 25 mile van dyke, Hamlin Pub 22 mile Hayes, Boston's again.
Thursday: 2 appointments, dropped off folders.
Thursday night: Black Fin, 220 Birmingham, Black Fin, after party Jon's, after after party Tate's.
Friday: Jobi nooner, Geck's Bachelor party, mulitple bar's on shore, Mt. Clemens Carnival beer tent, undisclosed location, Bobby's house.
Saturday: The Bank. Jumped in the fountain.
Sunday: 2 appointments

Adapt or Die...

Yesterday I saw a squirrel crossing a telephone line. It was a very little thing but it reminded me of how species adapt to their environment, if they don't adapt they die, they become extinct. When suburbia started taking over all the forest and woodlands, creatures that we see everday had to adapt, chipmunks, rabbits, squirrels, birds, racoon's, possum's, skunks etc. No matter how much the squirrels may have bitched that we were invading their land, it wouldn't have done them any good. Instead we find them eating out of our trash, chilling out on roofs, and yes even using telephone lines as a way of transportation, many times a shortcut. In short, they adapted. As a nation we went from being an agricultural economy to the industrial revolution. When Eli Whitney created the cotton machine that could do the work of 15-20 men, it put those very men out of work, we had to adjust, and we did. We became a manufacturing nation. All the farmers had to adjust, had to learn new traits, and thus began a new way of life. Recently the computer begot a technology revolution that made us adjust once again. The computer made many things automated think as simple as elevator buttons, before there use to be an elevator attendant, that made that career extinct. The computer did computations in seconds that took days to do, it stored in one inch what a warehouse could barely fit, and it has automated damn near everything. We went from being a manufacturer nation to a leader in technology and service. We are now a service nation, many things if not already are being built 100% abroad. This affects Michigan more than 99% of the nation, since our state relied more on manufacturing than any other state. We have one of the highest unemployment rates, highest foreclosures, highest bankruptcy filings. We are facing very hard times. Yet, it doesn't feel that way. We eat better than the highest kings hundreds years ago, we have food and shelter, nice cars, vacation homes, leisure time, quality relationships, booze money, and lots of toys. Sure, maybe we don't have as many or as nice as we did 10 years ago, but we are definitely getting by. They say it can only go up from here, well it's still not terrible. Us Americans are pretty spoiled, but still if we can't adapt to the changes a global market brings, we will fall from being the leader, and have to learn a few new things, competition makes one better, and for our sake Michigan and the rest of our nation can do much better.

how you can tell when somebody doens't read.

When you ask somebody what their favorite book is, and they answer "The Great Gatsby". You can tell 3 things.
1)They don't read, and they haven't read in a long time
2)They are trying to sound smart or sophisticated.
3)They are a tool.

If they do answer The Great Gatsby, ask why... I would actually like someone to have a valid reason for this.

If Great Gastby is your favorite book, because you were blown away by the plot, the symbolism, the sophisticated writing your style.

1) You're an idiot
2) You need to read more.
3) Take an english course in college.

Knowing your roots.

My friend Mario went to Europe for three weeks and just got back about a week ago. He went to a couple weddings and spent a lot of the time doing family things. He was originally born in Poland and then his family moved here. Seeing pictures of his trip and hearing stories made me realize how different not only Europe was, but the rest of the world, even our very own families. Finding out where we came from really intrigues me. I know my mom's side pretty well, but I really know nothing about dad's side. I know my fathers dad owned a farm, he was a rice farmer. He might've never actually been to the city either. Could you imagine a life where you got married in your teens, 14 or 15, took over the farm raised your family and that was your legacy. I could never imagine a life that simple. Yet, I'm sure those were some of the happiest people on earth. I bet they could never imagine the life we live, a lot of the times I just think our socio-economic culture is so shallow, materialistic. Most of my friends are into designer names, brand names, entertainment magazines, really nothing relevant to our own life, or at least to trying to make the world a better place. And I'm really no different, just trying to keep up with the Jones's. But sometimes when you wonder about life, you wonder is there more out there. Is there something I know nothing about. I'm sure there is. It intrigues me to think how a life can be so different than mine. Whether growing up in the hood and having to sell drugs as the only means of making it, or just living your entire life on the farm. Or maybe finally becoming famous and realizing it never made you happy, and you turn to drugs and alcohol as your crutch to through life. One life to live, that's all we have.

and yet another weekend goes by, start of summer.

And yet another Sunday. great weekend like usual. Officially summer has started which means patio drinking, baseball, the beach, watersports, sunglasses, flip flops, up north, fireworks, bonfires, long days, longer nights. Friday night went out with Jaimee and the crazies, went to the usual friday spot montie's, two of the crazies got kicked out immediately, jt dipped early and ended up walking 4 miles home after getting in a fight with the gf, oh it's crazy what girls can do to us guys. woke up in the morning went to the 24 hour coney got a roast beef dinner with mash potatoes at 9am, then Jamison, Dave, and I went to the Birthday Bash in Ionia 45 minutes away which consisted of confederate flag tatoo's, pregnant woman in bikini tops, and lots of missing teeth, i felt like i was at an outdoor walmart. these people come out of the woodworks i swear. Jamison dropped me off at Lyons, Rj, and T-pain's new apartment a couple blocks north of Monties, it is huge first of all, big loft style, probably 20 ft ceilings. boy are these kids going to parlay my college experience. Of course they're state grads. Amanda and her boy came in town for a funeral, so they came and picked me up and I took them to the Bob's 2nd floor patio, which is definitely becoming one of my favorite chill spots. We had dinner and drinks and then went to the ottawa tavern for another cocktail. They dropped me back off at the boys crib and then we went to the woods for the night. Tigers won another game today, that's always good. Tiger Woods is out for the rest of the year after winning the US Open. He definitely transcends golf, he might be bigger and more popular than the rest of the field combined. Which is pretty unbelievable if you think about it. I still don't get Nascar, a bunch of cars going in a loop and seeing who can do it the fastest, yet it is becoming such a popular sport. The Euro cup is goin on and it's always fun keeping tabs on that. The market is not going well right now, what a great great time to invest. I'm all in, and I recommend anybody does the same. I would scale back from 40-50% international to 20-30%. The dollar will rally around election time and that will be the first thing that starts to trigger the economy, if the dollar goes up, gas becomes cheaper, if gas becomes cheaper, corporations will reap bigger profits in the 3rd or 4th quarter, and election years always seem to be good for the market, republicans will do everything in their power to leave people's last thoughts on the economy good, whatever your view left or right, conservative or liberal, it seems like the Democrats are getting this election handed to them on a silver platter. I would like to see how the Dems could possibly mess this up. The Republicans have been amazing at framing people's perceptions to fit their side, we'll see how the Dems combat this, their last leader was Clinton, and whether he's a good person or not, people remember the economy being good. Now they have an inspirational leader and a breath of fresh air. Tomorrow is our golf outing for work, should be a lot of fun, apparently I'm in a grouping with a lady who's basically a pro. Doing lunch with Jamison and Linds tomorrow. Friday is jabi-nooner. Sigh, summer is amazing.

a motivational freestyle.

Hopped in the car and asked Onstar where this life goes. It said anywhere you want as long as you can pay for gas, then you got the pass, but just make sure when you get there, you enjoyed your way, cuz sometimes it’s not just the destination most time it’s the journey, cuz the moment of the truth is a often a little white lie followed by an alibi, love who you with and love what you got, cuz it’s often a lot, more than you’ll ever know, one life to live, and one life to go, but if you do it right, it’s all you’ll ever need. Greed, hate, envy will be the death of me, born to be hated dying to be loved, gotta rise up about this sin like an ivory dove, relax in the bath tub to a back rub, don’t sweat the little things cuz in several years nothing will be the same, and everything is small, just remember that when you feel you about to fall, and if you do, you gotta rise up once more than you fall, I like to call this fallin’ up and never down and you gotta learn to crawl before you walk son. Everyday can’t be sunny, somedays you’re just out the money, some Sundays you won’t be grateful, just remember what you got and what you got to live for.

the damn cat.

so this cat has shown up on my deck basically everyday, i have no idea where it comes from everytime i open the door and chase it, it runs into the woods, the 10 acres i have behind me, i don't have neighbors who are that close so i have no idea who's cat this is. it has crazy fangs that scare the hell outta me and it kind of looks evil. tonight when i got back from the gym i'm in my room on the phone and i hear the meows, like it always does, only it sounded like the loudest meow i've ever heard, all of sudden the cat runs out from under my bed, holllly shit am i freaked out, i chase it downstairs and then it runs back upstairs into my room, after about 15 minutes i think i got it out of my house, but then again i'm not sure, there was no visual evidence it had left, #1 how did it get in my house, #2 is it out of my house, #3 why does it always wait at my backdoor meowing anyway. just a little freaked out right now.

some cool things about g-rap.

the fish ladder, white caps, the bob, monties, mcfadden's, peppermill grill, 1/2 hour from grand haven, 20 minutes to holland, 2 1/2 hours to chi-town, hung out at holland's yacht club saturday on lake macatau it was really chill, 10 acres of woodland behind me, riverview park, ottawa tavern, van andel arena, grand river, jw marriott, amway hotel, john ball zoo, linkin lawns golf course, the cab system, and the mad love for hot dogs here.

some good cd's

some good cd's i bought about a month ago duffy, kid rock's new one, linkin park's new one, safety suit, rick ross (better than expected), boys like girls, jack johnson, leona lewis, story of the year, starting line. a little sad the format broke up.

Euro 2008.

The other day Jt and I were watching the Netherlands play France. I don't really watch too much soccer, except for the world cup. I'm always amazed how into it each country is, we have many sports people love to follow, but I don't know if anyone is as passionate about their sport as these countries about futbol. It seems like a way of life for them. You always hear about mobs, riots, and even deaths over these tournament games. What is it about soccer that America doesn't get? Do we not broadcast this sport because it isn't marketable enough (not enough time or time outs for commercials), too slow for us (usually low scores 3-1), or not heroic enough (no home runs, dunks, hail mary's, 60 yard run), or because we aren't the best at it.

Wednesday 12:58am

I can't stand that Los Angeles is named the laker's, they moved their team from minnesota land of 10,000 lakes hence lakers and kept the name, just like it makes no sense for utah to be called the jazz, it was the new orleans jazz, what kinda jazz is in utah, what kind of jazz do mormons produce? i was rooting for the lakers tonight, i don't like either team, but you hate to see a team get swept, or lose at home, i'll be rooting for the home team all series, i bet the under, my friend bet the over, i was right by about 50 points, boston's offense isn't great, kobe hasn't played a good game against them all season, and it turned out to be more of piston's kinda game than anything. went to a dive bar by jack's after hooping and got the wet burrito, great burrito bad idea. it's amazing how many young people were even at that whole in the wall. love the bar scene here, they just redid founder's a huge microbrewery by the looks of it, and the owners of monties and ot opened another bar rochelle's or something like that. tomorrow which is actually today i'm going to my first not Rapids, as previously mentioned, but White caps game, the minor league baseball team here, should be fun. works going well caught up on the 300 thank you cards i was behind made some night calls on the 8% bond, which is just a great investment in case anyone was looking for one. the new iphone and new blackberry are set to do battle this summer, i'm more of a blackberry fan, both stocks would be great to own, especially if you bought them in the first week of march, we've seen 50% rise in apple's stock, i don't follow rimm lately but they've been killing it, anyone who owns a blackberry should know their stock should do great, i wouldn't own the iphone because there's no keyboard, and i shoot out about 25 e-mails a day, maybe closer to 50, that would be annoying using the touchscreen, jon, will, and tyler all called me to see if i was going to bring a date or go stag to geck's wedding, it would be fun going stag, but i'd rather bring a date, and so i think they are all going to bring a date, i can't wait to see who everyone brings, i can't wait for the sh*tshow either.

1:13am Tuesday, detect a pattern?

here's my random thoughts of the night, pretty pissed "entourage" doesn't air until September, I guess hanging out with Will will have to suffice until then, i really like that maroon 5 put rihanna on their new single, that jesse mcartney song "leaving" is sweet, never thought i'd say that, kanye and lil wayne are killing the radio circuit, can't wait for nelly to drop his new cd, although his 2 releases have been subpar at best, just weighed in at 207.5, going to my first rapids game on wednesday i guess it's college night, so if you have a id the beer is ridiculously cheap, can't believe it's already june 10th, that's ridiculous, i decided i'm going to traverse city for the fourth of july with the boys c-hop, e, bobby, and company. last time i was there was cherry festival and it was absolutely a blackout fest. jt fell asleep in the driveway. e, bobby, me, and jt, shotgunned beers evertime we chipped a golfball into the bucket in his backyard. we shotgunned about 10 beers, jt and i hung out with pete and his lil brother a lot too, amen for the braden brothers. the bay can be really warm one day and absolutely freezing the next day because of the wind currents of the lake, it's kinda crazy you don't know if the water will be 80 or 50 degrees. stayed at work til midnight tonight organizing my paperwork, damn i miss my personal assistant marilyn. met a vet in the office Dave Smits, he said he heard I was young and hungry. that's definitely a good rep to have in our office. i'm playin with the big boys now and some would say it's like swimming with sharks. I'm a lion in these streets son. holla.

Sunday at 1:13am, so it's actually Monday.

Well the Lakers just lost their second game to Boston. I'm actually rooting for Boston, I hate the Celtics more than any other team in professional sports, not just the NBA. But, I guess since they beat us, I want them to take home the 'chip. It's good to be a Detroit fan though, the Redwings just won the cup, 4th time in 11 years. The tiger's have an amazing roster on paper. And the Pistons made it to the Eastern conference finals for like that 6th straight year, it's pretty unbelievable. Anyways, I can't go to bed even though I'm dead tired. I'm such a night owl. There's so many thoughts that just stick in my head that I can't get rid of, so I feel like this is a good venting process. ie, on Tuesday one of my clients passed away and I had to go to their viewing in between appointments. Her name was Kathy and I just talked to her and her husband a week before that. I was at their dining room table and we were all conversing. Her and her husband just came with me to Merrill from Edward Jones, and they came into some more money, at the meeting she admitted to me that she was talking to another advisor because she didn't want one person handling all their old money and new money, she didn't have to tell me that, but she said it was killing her to not be 100% truthful to me. That's just the way she was she was a kind hearted absolutely wonderful lady, a grandma everybody would want. She was quite restricted in her movements, she was a little heavyset and had an oxygen tube going into her nose. Even in that position she had one of the most energetic personalities I ever met. You could tell in her younger years she was a real go getter, and probably danced the night away whenever she went out. I knew she had been in the hospital for a month, I didn't realize it was so serious. I guess you never really do. And now I'm at her viewing just looking over all the picture montages over her life. And I'm thinking to myself that's it, she's just laying there in the casket, no life left done. Is that really it? Is that life? I just couldn't believe it. You really wonder about life at this point. You wonder what's the point, what's the purpose? As I'm looking at her wedding pictures 20 years ago, about to lose it and start crying, her husband comes up to me and we get to chatting. Her brother actually passed away a week before, but they didn't tell her, because that would've been too hard, and her uncle passed away two months ago. I couldn't believe how well Jim kept it together at the viewing I was on the verge of losing it and there he was joking around. I couldn't imagine losing a loved one, especially your wife. I don't know if I would be that resilient. At 25 you never really think about death. You're still at the point where you feel immortal, after the phase of thinking you know it all, but still going after every weekend like it's your last time partying. You don't really reflect on your life too much. You are always thinking about the future, your next car, your first house, when you get this, you still need to do that, meanwhile fathertime is just walking by, and it feels like he's running by sometimes. I know if someone would have told me 5 years ago I'd own my own house in Grand Rapids, I would've been in disbelief. That's what's funny "Life isn't about knowing. Its about living for the moment. Its about finding the person you can go through anything with and still find something to laugh about together at the end of the day. Its about making your dreams come true. Its about making mistakes. Its about finding what makes you happy. Life has never been about knowing, so stop wasting time wishing you knew." I was playing this card game that makes you answer questions, and one question was "what one thing do you wish you knew the answer to" and this girl said she wanted to know when she was going to die. We talked about that answer, and I definitely don't want to know when I'm going to die, that would just be a bummer, thinking about your life in relation to when you're going to die, that would be an awful perspective. I like the not knowing part, that's what makes life so interesting. If you want to make God laugh, just tell him your plans. I do know one thing though, I would hate to find out when I was dying that I never really truly lived. You have one life, but if you do it right that's all you need. There's nothing in our lives that would take longer than a lifetime to do, anything worth doing anyway. Well, that's my thought of the day. L-I-V-I-N. Do it or don't, there is no try.

It's official, my first post.

I figure someone somewhere in this world must have some of the thoughts I do. So if you agree, disagree, or just intrigued by a post, please comment on it. I crave intellectual conversation and I figure this is another way to initiate just that. I love people who have something to say, "The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved. The ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”