Fire academy is now finished and I am slowly getting back into my normal routine of work and working out. Classes start up again on January 12th but now that academy is done I will have a lot less time spent in class and the stress level will be a lot less. I am only taking three classes and one of those classes is online so I can pretty much do that one whenever I wish. I was also accepted for an internship with a local fire department so I will be doing that as well. Slowly I will be gaining valuable experience and I hope that in the next year or so I will be able to land a job.

It has also been very nice being able to get to the gym again. While in academy I missed about 2 months of working out because I was just too stressed and tired to make it to the gym. Tess recently joined my gym as well and the two of us have been trying to get in there at least 4 days a week. The days we don’t get in the gym we are walking around our neighbor hood or hiking through a local state park. Unfortunately, Tess has Plantar Fasciitis so I have been having to give her little foot rubs after our gym sessions…poor girl :). I also got a new car :). I got a 2003 Subaru WRX hatchback. I love the car and it is so much fun to drive. The car handles like a champ and is very zippy. Other then that I haven’t been up to to much, just living life.

I have been wanting a new car for a long time now….but I finally got the one I wanted. I just bought a new Subaru Impreza WRX. It is the hatchback version (not the wagon) and it is red. I am having soo much fun driving it and the seats are sooo comfortable. My butt literally sinks into the seats. The car is a 2003 and it was definitely taken care of. It is a great car. :). It is my first stick and it is sooo much more fun to drive then an automatic. I tried to put up a pic but unfortunately I have ot fix something on my program ( I just transfered servers) before I can post one.

what is it with girls and rings…I mean seriously. It is almost as if the female species craves them. You give a girl a ring and she fiends over it, similarly in fashion to  I dont know…lets say Gallum, the evil cave dwelling creature from Lord Of The Rings. ” MY precious, I needs it”. I am not trying to say all girls become fiends when presented with engagement rings.  Of course the ring has to be attractive, and not super cheap and all that jazz, but In all reality it is kind of nice to see how happy you can make a girl with something so simple. Of course it is the words and meaning behind the ring which make the girls melt. Most girls love stability and commitment and men are notoriously different in that way, so for a man to pledge there undying devotion to a girl is a huge dedication. I think it is probably one of the single most important times in a girls life, besides the birth of their children. It is the point in their life that they can say I have found someone who will love me unconditionally for who I am. There is no better compliment out there in the world than that.

I volunteered to try out a product recently. It was a magnetic Bracelet. I have been wearing it for about 4 days now and I hate to say it but this thing might be working. The reason I say might is because my leg no longer hurts. Now I am not sure if my leg no longer hurts because I took a month and a half off from the gym or because the magnetic jewelery cured me. Its just really hard to tell. I guess I should have been a little more scientific about it. If I wanted accurate results it might have helped for me to make my life seem really bad and purposely hurt myself in a number of ways so that I could definitely tell if I was improving…however that is way too much work, and I am not really in the mood for hurting myself. The truth is my lower right calf, which I broke few years ago and never really healed, now is painless. I have gone on two runs in the past few days with one trip to the gym and after each time I worked on my leg I felt no pain. For anyone out there feeling pain I guess I would definitely say it is worth a shot. On a second note the magnetic bracelets aren’t that ugly either ;).

I really badly want to get a Subaru Impreza WRX. I think it would be a great fit for me. I like that it is fun, good looking and four wheel drive. It is also easy to maintain, reliable and upgrades aren’t to expensive. There are a lot of people out there who say their dream car would be either a Ferrari or Lamborghini but i think that is a little excessive. do you have any idea how expensive Ferrari parts are? I mean they are great cars and I suppose if you can afford the car you can afford to maintain it but I have never been a super flashy guy, I am super practical. So I think that a Subaru would fit all my needs. I am hoping to find a nice one for no more then $13 G’s that is somewhere between a 2002-and 2005. I am not decided yet on whether I want the sedan or wagon but I think I am leaning more towards the sedan. I will probably have to get a new car within the next few years I think my Volvo is on its last legs. It has 251,000 miles and the car tends to shake when I am stuck at lights and it is cold outside. I love my volvo though and I am goign to drive it until it fails me…If i get a car before it dies then I will most likely turn it into a project car and try to set it up for rally racing.

The Buell motorcycles are so bad ass. The best part is they take Harley parts so that it is always easy to fix them or upgrade. I know right now I cannot afford one but sooner or later it would be nice to own a bike and be able to have a nice little hobby on the weekends such as going for a coastal ride. Tess isn’t so sure about motorcycles especially since she has a friend that just got in an accident and broke a number of bones. It isn’t that she is afraid of me doing something dumb…she knows I would be safe and responsible but she doesn’t trust the vast majority of drivers out there to pay attention enough to not hit me. wow isnt it just sooo pretty

Now that I am basically done with academy except for my tests I have started applying for both internships and jobs all over the bay area. In fact today I just took my application down to SF and turned it in for an entry level FF position. I heard that if you really want to get into the fire service you have to apply everywhere and I mean everywhere. Even if that means getting experience out of the state first. I wonder if there are any Las Vegas jobs in the fire service ;). The competition is very fierce in california especially so I am just going to have to stay persistent and on top of my game which mean more education and experience. I just can’t wait to start my career.

I know its a weird title but what I am getting at his how important is a good name to the success of either a person, a business or a product? Are companies with catchy powerful sounding names more successful then those with names that are a mouthful or those with names that sound slightly scammish? For example names like Lipovox which have techy names at then end of them kind of scare me when it comes to herbal diet products. I know Lipovox is a good product because i have had friends who used it and loved it but at the same time if I were to base the product on the name compared to a product with a more natural sounding name I probably would choose the other product instead. I feel like a name is a first impression when it comes to products and companies. It is a way of weeding out the competition in a world where we have a number of choices for every product niche out there. If the name isn’t attractive we don’t buy the product. We just don’t have the time and energy to try every product to find out which one is really the best.

I just have a few people to buy for still before christams comes but for the mst part I am finished. I still have to get dog supplies for our youngest and some toy for the bird. Then as far as people go I only have to buy one for my parents and then two more for two different family gatherings I have to go to…other then that I am in the homestretch, I can see the finish lines, and smell the champagne. Its about time…I have been getting really sick lately of shopping it seems like even the grocery stores are more packed then usual. All I have to say is thank god we have stores like amazon.com which is actually where I go most of my gifts this year. I wouldn’t dare step foot in a mall before Dec 25th.