final blog for class

we were asked to write for next semester's class about how to do well in angie's 304 class. This blog is going to be short and sweet because i'm in the middle of moving, and I'm tired and sweaty -- ok, more than you wanted to know. so here's how to do well in this class: have a good attitude, show up to group meetings prepared and on-time, turn things in on-time, and put forth even just a little bit of extra effort. if you do those things you'll be ahead of the curve. it's been apleasure blogging for you this semester. i'd like to think i'll keep it up at least a little bit, but life is crazy, and i'm not sure that i'll take the time. i guess you'll just have to check in and see....shalom!

Relationships make the world go 'round.

There's been talks all over campus about the tragedy at Virginia Tech. In meetings, in classrooms, in the halls, in the offices: everyone is buzzing about it. We need to do this...We should have done that...We can't let _____ happen anymore. I even had an engineering professor admit that math and science weren't the goal of life. Rather, they were just a means of obtaining the goal (happiness and fulfillment, according to him). But his point (which has been the same point I've heard almost everyone else make) was that we should be relational. That no one should be able to go through a day without having a conversation with someone. No one should be able to go through a day without someone smiling at them. We, as people, need this interaction.
I don't know if that's the solution to school shootings or not, but I know that for alot of people it would be the solution to why they feel so neglected, why they feel as if the world is against them. See, I believe that we were created by a holy, righteous, sovereign God who does not make mistakes. God made us in his image, and God is a relational being. His very existence is relational: the idea of the Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each exists with their own identity and own purpose; however, none would exist without the other, and when the word 'God' is used it refers to all three. I know... it's a strange concept. The point is that God needs active relationships, and, since we were made in his image, we need active relationships, too.
The change that I propose is that we stop going through our day in our own 'bubble.' Take your headphones out when you're walking to class so that you can hear when someone says 'hey' to you. When you're waiting in line talk to the person behind you. Make an attempt to learn the names of everyone in your classes. Go by and talk to your professor about his kids.
Clemson is a very friendly place. But it's also very big, and there are a lot of corners to hide in. If we will attempt to seek out those corners there will be no place for darkness. There will be no place for hate to grow and fester. There will be no place for jealousy. There will be no place for loneliness. There will be light. There will be relationships. There will be joy.

time

well, this is my first blog that is on-time in a very long time. However, I'm going to use it to admit not being on-time. We had a portfolio due on Friday. I still don't have it complete. My reason is that I simply didn't have the materials I needed to get it done before leaving Clemson for the weekend. I had, of course, my own resume and presentation. And Reed sent out the minutes and agenda we needed. However, I did not have the proposal or progress report presentation. And when our team member who did have those documents didn't come to the Friday morning meeting I was simply out of luck. We got the materials Friday afternoon. But I had to be in Greenville by 3:30 for a house showing (due to the whole "getting married" thing), and since we need the Novell network to make the web page I couldn't work on it.

Tomorrow will be my first chance to work on the page. I have all my materials now so it should be just a matter of putting it all together. I think it will go quickly, and I don't anticipate Miss Rogers having a problem with my tardiness because she has a lot of proposals to grade, and I don't think she'll necessarilly need to check mine first. So there is my admittance of guilt. I appologize to Miss Rogers for being late.

An additional post

Administrative Note: I posted today on my team's blog (The Sunny Six) which will take the place of last week's personal blog when my blogs are graded. Thanks.

The beginning of the end

This week Mrs. Rogers is out of town so we're meeting on our own in the library. I had to miss wednesday's meeting because I was at my fiance's grandmother's funeral. It's been a very sad, very busy weekend and week. It's a tough reality that life's activities do not stop for everyone when life itself has stopped for one. Because of missing the meeting I haven't really done much to help thusfar; however, we're meeting in the morning, and I plan to work hard then to do my part in finishing up our portion of the final proposal.

I hope everyone's final weeks go by smoothly, especially anyone who may be graduating. And thanks to anyone who may have been following my blog throughout the semester. Cherish what's left of it: this is the beginning of the end...

Blogger Beware!

The topic for the week is workplace firings related to the discovery of personal blogs. It's true that people get fired from jobs all the time because their personal (but public) blog is discovered and their superior doesn't like what it contains. Personally, I think this is mostly a valid source for information leading to firing someone. Blogs are just as public as billboards; the goal of most blogs is to be read by someone. Now, where I would diverge from the Find-and-Fire theology is that I don't think someone should be fired if care is taken not to divulge any identifiers of the person or the company. Everyone has the right to complain. If no identifiers are used but the blog refers to illegal activity (theft, false accounting, etc.) then the blog should be available as evidence. But I'm not real big on the idea that someone can't complain a little, with no mal-intent. To take this down a level from the workplace, I've been hearing alot recently about students getting suspended from school because of blogs or facebook or myspace profiles. That's some major BS. If a student isn't on school grounds, isn't on school time, isn't using school property, what does it have to do with school? how is a school gonna punish a student for not making their bed? Or for staying out past curfew? They wouldn't. So how are you gonna punish them for having alcohol at an off-campus saturday night party? I'm not saying it should go unaddressed, but call their parents or call the law. Usually the students who are being suspended are the students who most need to be in class.

The Proposal...

This is gonna be pretty short and to the point. I have a ton of stuff to work on and a very little amount of time to get it done. We started work on our proposal this morning. This should be a beneficial experience because its not something I've done much of, and I'm already struggling to figure out what to include and what angle to approach different sections from. My entire group (except Megan, lucky girl) is swamped with work this week so we're really gonna have to be careful to put time into the parts that really need it, but not waste time where its not going to add much benefit. We want the proposal to clearly explain our Web site design and we want it to look good, but, frankly, I'm worried about the amount of time we have to put into it. I guess this kind of stuff builds character...

Mock Interview Reflection

So, this week's big assignment was a mock interview that was one-on-one with our instructor, Ms. Rogers. As a senior who is about to be in the job market, preparation for this assignment was minimal because I already have my resume complete and proofed, I have cover letters galore, and I've been doing interviews in my sleep lately. The biggest benefit to me of doing this mock interview is having the confidence of another interview under my belt. Ms. Rogers did point out one piece of information I brought up during the questioning that should be on my resume, but otherwise she said I did an excellent job. The only part of the process I have left to complete is the thank you, or follow up, letter, but, again, that's a practiced art for me :)

Post-Presentation report

Well, my presentation went well. I ended up talking about competition fourwheeling. I think I covered all the basics. Of course, there was tons more info that I could have given, but it was only a 5-minute presentation. My classmates seemed to enjoy it -- especially the video of Chris Durham that I opened up with. They asked a bunch of questions when the PowerPoint part of the pres. was over with. It makes you feel good to see that other people find something that you're into to be interesting. Even if they could care less about the minute details and would never actually go to an event, they still asked questions and there were emotional responses to what I had to say. Plus, I think its funny to see people's eyes get big when they see what we can create a vehicle to overcome. The only real problem with my presentation was that I couldn't pay attention in any of my classes the rest of the day; my mind was on 4wheelin'.

progress

"Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success." - Henry Ford.

So, our group is progressing. We haven't had many deadlines yet so there hasn't been a ton of work to get done. But we're now presented with a few days of no class in trade that we will meet with our groups and get some work done on the project. I think this is going to be a good thing because it will not only force us to meet together and do work, but it will also allow me to work on the project without feeling like I'm wasting time that I should be putting into studying for my tests this week and next. Clarification: It's not that this project is not important to me; It's that the deadlines for this project come after my tests on the timeline.

My only problem with the project as of right now is that we haven't gotten to talk to our clients yet. It's entirely possible that we could completely design and mostly build our version of the Web site by the time the client does come to meet us. And then imagine the frustration when we find out that what we've planned and built doesn't at all match up with what they want. Man..... I hope that doesn't happen. I know that their schedules are busy and we don't want to backload the semester, but in an ideal circumstance I would rather not do a single minute of work without first finding out what the client wants, i.e., our objective.

So, we'll just truck along with it this week and get done all that we can. The good news is that I feel like success is inevitable...

Just in from SC DNR: Topic Hunting Season opens Feb. 11

for this week we're supposed to discuss what topics we may choose for an upcoming presentation for the class which must include a PowerPoint presentation. so my first thought was to do my presentation on how to do a PowerPoint presentation, but then I had visions of sitting in my childhood barber's chair staring at the mirror in front of me which reflected the mirror behind me which reflected the reflection of the mirror in front of me which reflected the reflection of the reflection of the reflection of the mirror behind me which... which made me have to sit down.
So after I recovered from the haziness of the eternal loop I began to consider other topics. We're supposed to choose something we're knowledgeable about because the point is the presentation, not research. I'd say the things I'm most knowledgeable about are fly fishing, jeeps, the bible, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and deer hunting. A requirement of the assignment is that we must be able to talk about the topic for at least 5 minutes. So that doesn't help me narrow down my topics.
After some thought I decided that the Bible wasn't the best topic because its much too easy for someone to misunderstand an informative speech on a religious topic as preaching. And then flyfishing was out because its really boring to talk about unless I can actually do some flycasting and a 9 foot rod in a room with 12 foot ceilings doesn't really work. Everyone knows how to make a PBJ so my speech on that would simply be 5 minutes of me drooling -- and its a long time from 11am to lunch time.
Some people find deer hunting offensive so I think I'll focus down on Jeeps. I may talk through the workings of the internal combustion engine. I think it'd be a good topic because its systematic (it has a precise flow of operations), there should be plenty of good visual diagrams available online for the PowerPoint slides, and I can easily take 5 minutes to explain it. I'm sure most of the guys will be interested and most of the girls will just go to sleep -- including the professor, who will hopefully wakeup just in time to give me an 'A.'

Day late and a dollar short...

So, this may officially be the busiest week of my life. At least until next week gets here. Between tests, homeworks, resume, lectures, travel plans, career fair, and the much-anticipated return of LOST I have no time. zero.

Class seems to be going pretty well. My group gets along well, and I think we have good ideas. At this point I think its simply time for us to sit down together outside of class and get some solid work done. Just not during the next three days (see above paragraph). My plan of action is to get my more pressing work done during the first of the week and I'll try to do some research on the Sunshine House and local homeless organizations at the end of the week or this weekend. For now I'm going to go study project management process groups... shalom

10 years? i don't know about 10 days...

Ten years is a long road. I can't even begin to pretend to know what it'll hold. I can make some assumptions and a few wishes, but never could I set anything in stone.
In ten years I'll be married with children; hopefully, with a few children. I'd like to think that we're pretty well settled into a house with plans to stay their for at least a few more years before trying to find or build our dream house that we'll live in until we're senile. Job-wise I would like to be deep into my second job if not starting my third (and hopefully final) job. I have no idea what that job description might be, but I know it'll be something that makes me smile and gives me a daily sense of accomplishment.
I think my oldest child will probably be about 7 years old. Honestly, I'm hoping that my oldest will be a boy so that he can protect his younger siblings, but God is sovereign and His plans are a lot better than mine. If I do have a boy I suppose he and I will be spending a lot of time in the woods and around water. Its importantly to me that my kids have a healthy respect for the wilderness and learn to enjoy time outdoors. It also will give me an excuse to spend more time hunting and fishing. If I have any girls I supposed I'll be spending a lot of time playing dress-up...

GA 101: Intro to Gareth

Hey ya'll. My name's Gareth and I'm assuming that you're in my english class. If not then you must be one of those blog-addicts, and you need to step away from the computer and go do something outside - nevermind the hypothermia; it builds character.
Alright, the basics: I'm from Greenville, SC and went to Wade Hampton High School. I played football and soccer and was a co-editor of the newspaper. I came to Clemson as a mechanical engineer. I stayed in ME for 3 years including summers and 3 semesters of Co-op at TimkenUS Corporation. I enjoyed ME but knew I didn't want to actually be an engineer so I switched to a major in Business Management and a minor in engineering. Because of all this I'm in my 5th year and won't finish until next December ('07).
Along the way I've been involved in multiple intramural teams including the 06 Co-ed flag-football champions The Real Deal. I've also been involved in campus FCA (fellowship of christian athletes) as well as on staff with the athletics side of FCA. This past fall I played on the founding Clemson Club Football (read: full contact football vs. other schools, eg. UNC, Duke) team and earned all-conference honors as a linebacker. I've also been dating the same girl since high school and this past October I told her that I wanted her to be the only girl I ever dated. We're getting married in May, and I'm really excited.
The other things I love all involve the outdoors. I have a 1972 Jeepster Commando that I work on and take offroad. I love to hunt; deer are my favorite challenge. Fishing is a big release for me. I love to spend time flyfishing the Chattooga and Nantahala Rivers.
I assume that's enough info to qualify for my first blog. I hope to get to know a few of ya'll, and I hope we all get A's. I'll see you in class...