Hope

Posted on July 23, 2010 by Casey

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I mentioned in my previous post that my Macbook Pro died on me. It wouldn’t stay on long enough for the people at the Apple store to even run a diagnostics. This left me with the choice of spending $1,250 to fix everything, or doing nothing with it and buying a new one. I figured the best thing to do would be option B, but with more options.

Hopefully by the end of next week I’ll have ordered an iMac. Looking at the pricing and specs for the Macbook Pro and the iMac I realize it’d be a good long-term investment if I didn’t get a system that I had potential to drop again. Alongside that, the iMac is cheaper with specs that are two to three times better.

I move out and into a house downtown. While I am excited, it is only for a month and I have to figure out what the next step in my life is. I am still looking for a job out in LA, but won’t pass by a job anywhere else in the USA. Perhaps questions will be answered and I’ll start to get an idea of what the plan is. Until then, I do what I can.

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Death of the Mac

Posted on July 19, 2010 by Casey

I don’t know where the mind process begins. I am a pessimist at nature, unfortunately, so I always expect the worst. I suppose it helps when the worst doesn’t actually happen so the end result is me filled with joy.  My Macbook Pro died on me yesterday and I am not sure what the next step is. It was working perfectly normal yesterday morning. I went to the grocery store, came back, and came to find it not booting up. Thankful for the iPhone my father recently handed down to me, I quickly did some research and found some support pages for similar problems.

I tried all the steps possible several times and still no luck. For those of you that are curious, there are at least 12 steps that you can go through to try and reset your computer and make sure it works. While having that many steps is nice, it didn’t solve the problem. The last step was to call Apple and schedule an appointment, which I did rather quickly. I showed up the same day and had them take a look. Since I dropped my laptop a year and a half ago and got a decently sized side dent as a result, Apple technicians say that it’s going to be a bad case to say that something malfunctioned as a result of hardware failure. What it comes down to is the dent will be to blame for everything, even if the hardware failed on it’s own. The problem with my computer is that it won’t even stay on long enough for them to run a diagnostic. The price for a general fix on everything is $1,250. The guy I spoke with said it’d be a better investment to purchase a new one since my laptop is two years old.

Being out my Macbook Pro inhibits me from having a consistent source that allows me to edit video and photography. I am currently on my Windows PC that my father and I built in 2008 and I am grateful to have it, but I don’t have the software installed on this computer for a Windows-based platform.

I don’t know where this, my life, is going. Surely, things are happening for a reason and I need to understand and think straight as to what it may be. Perhaps this is God’s way of speaking to me or allowing change to happen. Or, it could just be that it died and I’m out a few thousand dollars. All being said, my fund for a new Canon 5D mk ii is now out of the picture and that fund turns into one for a new computer.

I’ve let apathy and distance allow me not to be completely affected by the situation, but at the same time as I look at it and know the cost of it, I only wonder why it won’t work and why it’s so expensive to replace.

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Proclamation

Posted on July 10, 2010 by Casey

I forgot what it felt like to stand for 5 hours with minimum relaxation through sitting. Working at Discovery Cove here in Orlando has been great and I enjoy it a lot more than I anticipated when I started thinking about getting into the work force after graduating. I think the idea of helping people while they are on their vacation that has sometimes been waited on for “decades” is quite great. It’s this feeling of accomplishment and self-humbleness of helping others, no matter how crazy they may be. Accents are everywhere. Ireland, Brazil, Germany, Finland, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Missouri, and Massachusetts are only a few of the places that guests come from. Such a small world we live in.

My roommate Boyd has been talking to me and instilled in my mind a small thought and desire to move to California with him at the end of the year. It’s too far away to be sure of anything right now, but I am looking for opportunity out there. For now I’ll sit on it and have the big man upstairs help me out. Until then, I move at the beginning of August to a house near downtown which is great. That lease ends in October and I don’t have anything set in stone after that. There is potential and only time will tell.

I’m sitting here at my place at the dining room table on a Saturday night and I am quite alright with it. My roommates are both back in Georgia for the reason of being on Summer Break at school. With them gone, and Rachel down in South Florida, I realize the fact of the matter that I have few great friends. Quality over quantity, right? Work has been draining, physically, and I enjoy being able to lay down on a couch, turn on the television, and tune out of this world. I only have so much of that time before I tell myself that I need to be learning and doing research with photography, freelance work, job searching, location scouting, budget making and much more. Self-discipline has increased exponentially since I’ve moved here, especially these past few months. Here’s to another few great months of freedom before the nets of loan repayment are cast on me and I am held underwater as my life goes by and I one day reach the white surface of freedom that is the ending of life.

I think this song so rightly carries the right mood and mindset of what we as humans should all contain. The whole album, I established, is such a proclamation.

Muse – Invincible

Follow through
Make your dreams come true
Don’t give up the fight
You will be all right
Cause there’s no one like you
In the universe

Don’t be afraid
What your mind conceals
You should make a stand
Stand up for what you believe
And tonight we can truly say
Together we’re invincible

And during the struggle
They will pull us down
But please, please let’s use this chance to
Turn things around
And tonight we can truly say
Together we’re invincible

Do it on your own
Makes no difference to me
What you leave behind
What you choose to be
and whatever they say
Your soul’s unbreakable

And during the struggle
They will pull us down
But please, please let’s use this chance to
Turn things around
And tonight we can truly say
Together we’re invincible
Together we’re invincible

And during the struggle
They will pull us down
Please, please let’s use this chance to
Turn things around
And tonight we can truly say
Together we’re invincible

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Fun Job

Posted on July 6, 2010 by Casey

I am currently listening to the song Resistance from Muse’s new album and it’s wonderful. I think of my favored parts of the song is what I want to say an acoustic guitar in the background playing the same notes as the piano. If you haven’t heard the guitar part, the song, or even the band, then definitely give it a chance. Their new album is great; very different from their other albums, but so good. The back story behind the song of Winston and Julia from the book 1984 is also great. I read the book a few months ago and it made me appreciate the song on a much greater scale.

Just got back from a Tuesday Night Dinner, something our group of friends established over a year ago in which we all come together with ingredients for a meal and have community together. The talk of the night was Twilight and Prison Break. We had lasagna as the main meal followed by a quick drive to Jeremiah’s for some frozen yogurt. That being said now I am here at home by myself.

I don’t mean to elaborate on too much of the simplicity of my life because I know it can be quite boring reading about the monotony, but I’ll try to spice it up. That being said, I went to work today and got to experience GOP, which is the General Operating Procedures. We explored all the back roads of the park and see what it takes to run the place. That in itself was interesting. I can’t elaborate too much for safety reasons that I agreed to when I signed my life away. [sarcasm on the signing the life away] One of the greatest things that I’ve experience in my life was to interact with a dolphin.

I had never been near one until today and had only seen them from afar and thought the looked like the robot dinosaurs at Universal Studios. Being able to simply pet the dolphin was astounding. Naturally I am around dogs and cats which isn’t too big of a deal. But to be around a several hundred pound mammal that lived underwater was quite extraordinary. The whole day was an eye opener for me in the world of underwater creatures. With the interaction of the dolphins, swimming in the coral reef, and being in a pool area with sting rays was both intimidating and great. It definitely took some layers of my pessimistic outlook on the deep sea and made me interested to see what else is out there. I’m still terrified of sharks though, but who isn’t?

Life goes well with a job and steady pay coming in. Work is fun for now. I don’t say this just to try and look good as an employee, but I do recommend to anyone the experience that is Discovery Cove. The resort itself is beautiful and so far from anything that you could think would be in America. Definitely a great experience to take part in.

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