It's amazing how hard it is to break a habit. After being "pampered" by automatic flushing urinals, it has taken me awhile to get used to pulling the handle again. I can't tell you how many times I've walked to the door only to turn around and walk back to flush the urinal. I would consider flushing a natural thing to do, especially when I flush with regular toilets. But, for some reason, my brain has latched onto automatic flushing at a urinal. It's not that I'm afraid of germs. I'm not one of those people that feel the need to put disposable rubber gloves on in order to use a public urinal. It's not that I'm lazy either. How hard is it to reach up and pull a handle?

When you see two people walking together and talking on cell phones, do you ever wonder if they are talking to each other?

Seen on a church marquee:

"Don't let gossips use your ears as garbage cans"

Why would you want anyone to put their trash in your ears? It's bad enough we have to stick Q-tips ™ in there to scrape out ear wax. What if you like people putting trash in your ear? Why should you be told not to participate in a activity you enjoy and isn't endangering anyone else?

Does this give other people permission to put trash in your ear? Let's say a mime finishes a candy bar. Can he just shove the empty wrapper in your ear and walk away while making silly faces? What about deaf people? Do they fall under this rule as well? Perhaps their ears can be used as trash cans, but not their eye sockets.

While you are pondering the above statement, take a peek at my review for The Last Kiss in the Now Playing section.

THEY DID IT!!!! The Mets are NL East Champions for the first time since 1988. At long last the Atlanta Braves have been dethroned as NL East champions. I can't help but sit here and read about it with a goofy grin on my face. Suddenly it doesn't matter that the Mets bought a championship. For every major player the Mets acquired, there were two guys that were no-name players or groomed minor leaguers who worked their way up to the big time. There might be a little trip to New York in the near future for me.

If you haven't read the review for Hollywoodland, take a minute to check it out, especially if you like Superman or history.

Is it unusual for a person to lose common sense? I'm accustomed to working at places that had their own parking lots; parking lots so small that you could easily get from your car to the door in 20 seconds or less. With such parking lots, it is a huge hassle to use an umbrella, especially for a guy. There's no hair to mess up, no make-up to run, just a few drips of water on your shirt and a little wet hair. Even with the knowledge that it was going to rain all day yesterday, I never considered taking an umbrella to work. What an idiot I am, especially when having to go to a meeting across campus. Granted I drove to my meeting, but on campus, there is no such thing as a close spot to your office unless you get here at 7:30 in the morning. By the time I walked a block from my car in the rain, I was one notch under "taking a shower with your clothes on". Honestly, I'd hate to know what I would have looked like if it had been a downpour instead of a steady rain.

Now that I've got a little more time on my hands, I have begun publishing my movie reviews again. Don't expect reviews from anything I saw in July or August as I simply can't remember enough to write a review. Hopefully I can continue to stay current. Enjoy my review of Hollywoodland just posted.

P.S. I've also started a site reconstruction. Look for it by the end of the year.

At long last it comes to an end. My tortured soul has been released from ITT. As of September 10, neither myself nor my free time will be held hostage by ITT Technical Institute. The mother ship has called me home. I am now a member of the faculty in the College of Education at The University of Alabama. The College of Education is using a system that documents every student in the college and monitors their progress in learning the standards for education in the state of Alabama. Because of the enormous amount of work that it will take to be the guru of the system and teach it to others, they created a new position of which I have now been assigned.

I can't adequately express my feelings over this new position. First of all, I am relieved that the search is over. ITT was killing me. This quarter, I had seven classes. Of the seven classes, three of them I had never taught before and one was given to me a week before classes were to begin. The fact that I had over 30 hours of classroom time was a giant burden on me. Combine that with the time necessary to prepare for three new classes, plus grading for all seven classes and my work week was easily over 50 hours. And then there was the 4 days a week commute. There's $35 - $40 a week in gas on top of another 3 hours a week just driving.

To be working for The University of Alabama is just awesome. I'd rather it be for the Computer Science Department, but I certainly won't complain to be working there in some capacity. The benefits are awesome, and the commute is cut to roughly 10 minutes. I found out Tuesday at my first departmental meeting that the average salary for the college is above the 50th percentile and that raises were around 7-8% last year. With all the perks of working for Alabama, even with the small cut to my salary, I end up breaking even if not pulling ahead compared to ITT.

For one of the first times in my life, I am actually anxious to go to work. I'm not big on 8-5 jobs, but there are too many pluses to working at Alabama. The people I have met so far have been overwhelmingly nice and seem actually fun to be around.

As an added bonus, I get my nights and weekends free again. No more grading and planning for class (at least not immanently). Ahhh, to be free again.