Potential for Promotion

Well for those who know me I work rotating between two of the computer labs at the Univ. of Memphis (the only two 24-hour labs on campus), both operated by the Client Services Department. The entire summer, there's been talk among all of my coworkers of an upcoming vacant position, a student position, thats above the regular Lab Attendants (although at this position you still work in the labs doing the same job, you just have more to do and more responsibility placed on your hands). This is the position of Team Leader, and due to some recent graduations, they decided to hire one or two new Team Leaders before the beginning of the upcoming semester.

So there are four of us applying: Sam, Daniel, KT, and I. We all had interviews scheduled for this past Thursday with our boss and the current Team Leaders. I personally, prior to the interview, hold confidence that I am at least in the top two in the running for this position, with my closest competition being Daniel, but really its anybody's game so nothing is secure. Daniel probably held the best job knowledge, while Sam was the hardest worker. KT had assisted my boss with schedules earlier in the summer, so that got his name in well, and I was the most punctual. I also held the most veteranship among the four of us. All I needed to do was get through this interview without making any mistakes. I was indeed very very nervous, but afterwards felt fairly confident that I had done well. Thursday night was a very long night for me, as I got about 4 hours of sleep before coming in this morning for my 8am-1pm shift. So then comes the big day, Friday, where there is a scheduled training session for all the Lab Attendants in the afternoon and that is when the new Team Leaders will be annouced. Its really anybody's game at this point, all four candidates have a legitmate shot. I, being nervous about it all morning at work, could barely even sit down. So then comes the training, we have to sit through two hours of it (with free pizza and drinks), without knowing, and anxiously waiting this annoucement. After about 6-7 slices of thin crust pepperoni pizza and half a pepsi, and of course a quiz for all the lab attendants testing what we know about the job so far, finally comes the big moment. "For this fall we decided to hire two new Team Leaders, and they are Joe Thompson and Sam Cu......" Then came a round of applause as Sam and I stood up. O what a relief that thats over, now comes the hard part. With my new promotion comes a lot more responsibility and I will be very busy this upcoming fall semester, and probably through the rest of my college career. I guess we'll see how it goes.

God bless.

Gossip, a sin of frequent practice for some PBs

Theres one thing in particular I've noticed about Primitive Baptists, that is that they seem to take the issues of physical romantic involvement and language very heavily, but then take issues of gossip, talking bad about someone behind their back, and pridefulness very lightly. The reason I'm finally opening up about this (which has bothered me for quite some time now) is because PB's so commonly love to share negative (and sometimes) untruthful stories among each other for the purpose of discouraging that person (who maybe a friend of the person being trashed on) from engaging in fellowship with them anymore, which is just downright cruel, and sadly I've seen it most prevelant in the PB's than anywhere else. Sharing gossip is one thing, but when someone actually has to question their reputation because of the people they talk to and hang out with, its just downright pathetic. I'm not saying every PB is like this, but just a few can ruin it for everybody. I'm not saying I'm 100% perfect about this issue too, I do sin plenty and beg of the Lord's forgiveness. But I'm not anything like some PBs who can just literally destroy the reputation and opportunity to fellowship of a newly converted PB, through gossip, just because they've found something they don't like about him/her.

By the way, yes I'm ticked off about this, and believe I have every right to be. I'd say its been about time I vent on that. (Note: this post is not aimed particularly at any of my frequent blog readers, but I think some of yall will know the particular people who I am talking about, though I ask that no names be revealed in any of my comments).

Liberals for Corker

There is an upcoming election here in Tennessee for the seat of U.S. Senate that I have been expressly interested in and closely following over the past few months, so I would like to provide a little research I've done on it, from a non-biased standpoint. The candidates are former Mayor Bob Corker vs. Congressman Harold Ford Jr.

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Insert from an email I received:

"The Congressman who is running to replace retiring Bill Frist as Senator from Tennessee has voted to outlaw gay marriage and to repeal the estate tax, and wants to amend the Constitution to ban flag burning. He supports getting rid of the handgun ban in the nation's capital and says the Ten Commandments should be posted in courtrooms around his state. He favors school prayer, argues that more troops should have been sent to Iraq and wants to seal the border with Mexico. He likes to tell a story about the time he campaigned at a bar called the Little Rebel, which had a Confederate flag and a parking lot full of pickup trucks adorned with National Rifle Association bumper stickers. When he went inside, as he tells it, a woman at the bar greeted him with a hug and exclaimed,

'Baby, we've been waiting to see you!'

None of that would be so remarkable were it not for the fact that this particular Senate candidate is a Democrat, an African American and someone whose last name is synonymous in Tennessee with urban-machine politics. But that's not the reason that both parties are suddenly paying a lot more attention to this state and to 36-year-old Harold Ford Jr."

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On Abortion:

"Ford, a familiar face on television news interviews and often called on as a spokesman for the party, has not hesitated to vote with conservatives on key issues such as banning partial-birth abortion or for prayer in school. He voted to give President Bush authorization to invade Iraq and for cuts in the capital gains tax."
Click here for Source

"Corker says he opposes abortion except to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape and incest, a change from 1994 when he said he personally opposed abortion but government shouldn’t be involved in the issue."
Click here for Source

"Both Bryant, 57, of Jackson, and Hilleary, 47, of Murfreesboro, attacked Corker throughout their long race over a tax hike that Corker won as Chattanooga mayor and his shift in position on abortion. They called him a moderate, a "liberal" even, clothed as a conservative."
Click here for Source

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Other links of interest to this election:

Congressman Ford's voting record

Mayor Corker's record

Blogging for Corker

Congressman Ford's review on Foreign Policy

One last weekend of freedom

So I finished my Analytical Tools class Thursday, and learned that I had an unplanned weekend ahead of me, so I decided to take a trip down to Florence, AL to visit my cousin Andrew. Now my grandmother was out of town, so we crashed at her house. I drove down Friday after work, and Friday evening we ate dinner at Barnhills buffet, then went bowling, and then to the mall, then to Blockbuster and rented Wedding Crashers to watch back at my grandmother's house (we were going to see a movie at the theater but decided otherwise). And did I mention I we cruised town in Andrew's '98 Chrysler Sebring Convertable. Of course being the person I am I forgot to bring my camera with me on Friday night, so there are no pictures here from that.

Anyway the next day, Andrew had soccer practice in the morning. Then in the early afternoon we went swimming at the house next door. Below are some pictures from that. After swimming, we just got something to eat and then sat around playing Scrabble. At about 4:30pm, I headed back to Memphis. Well it was a better weekend than sitting around at home. Well here's the pictures I got when we were swimming:

Andrew jumping off the diving board. They had some blown up animals around the pool when we came over, so being a couple of mature young men, we decided to have a little fun with that.





I am grossly oversized for the shark.









Mr. Crocodile seemed to have a good time swimming on his back. :)








Floating in the middle of the deepend. I think the water was about 8ft. deep below me.








Andrew and the Crocrodile.









Riding on the seal, it wouldnt let me stay on it for long.









Can you guess why the Seal is smiling?









And that is what you get when two mature young gentlemen go swimming in a pool on a lovely Saturday afternoon.

Fried foods....

So much have I been criticized for drinking the ever tasteful Full Throttle Energy Drink, but there is such a food that is by far more unhealthy than any sugar-filled product out there, and no one has seemed to say much about it. That food is "cooking oil" which is used in a majority of all fried foods, like chicken, fish, and worst of all french fries. They contain the dreadful trans-fats which if eaten in excess could cause one to have an instant heart attack (see the movie Super-Size Me). The worst place about this insane level of unhealthiness in food is McDonalds, and for the purpose of sanity I won't go into details about them on my blog, but would like to refer yall to a website about their history with obesity, which is right here (please scroll down to view a history of all their lawsuits).

I personally have not eaten a fried french fry in 4 months now (I have eaten baked ones, I bake them at home now in our oven pretty regularly). I have also limited myself to only 2 meals per week that include a fried food of any kind, and have not eaten at McDonalds in 2 months (and don't plan to ever again in my lifetime).

Well thats enough of my blabbing, so I'll just let the website do the talking.


"In Detroit, 11-year-old Vincent Ingram bites into a McDonald's cheeseburger and notices that it infested with live maggots. He later files a $1 million lawsuit against the restaurant."

Coach Calipari is a Democrat

Well I'm not 100% sure about this, but I did see a "Cohen for Congress" sign in Coach Cal's front yard as I drove past a few times a few weeks ago. And of course Steve Cohen is a Democrat running for Congress in the Democratic primary election yesterday (not sure yet if he won, I haven't been able to find out the election results yet).

For those who are not from Memphis, this just interesting because Coach Calipari has been the Univ. of Memphis basketball coach for 6 years now and he would never admit what political party he was affiliated with.

"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit." ~Harry S. Truman