BlakeRoberson.net

Heather and I just watched “160 lb. Tumor” on TLC. I have to admit that it was a pretty gross show. Although its fantastic that this lady was able to get her huge tumor removed, I don’t see how she could have let it get that big. I’m the type of guy that’s going to get a tumor removed ASAP. At the very latest, I might wait until its a pound, maybe two.

I just keep seeing this scenario played out in my head.

Day One
Tumor woman’s husband: “Honey, I think you may have a tumor. You want to see about getting it removed?”
Tumor woman: “Nah I’ll get it looked at later.”

Year One
Tumor woman’s husband: “Honey, your tumor is about the size of a basketball, let’s go see about getting it removed.”
Tumor woman: “Nah, I’ve got some more important things to do. I’ll get it taken care of later.”

Year Two
Tumor woman’s husband: “Honey, your tumor weighs more than you. I don’t think that you’re going to be able to get that removed.”
Tumor woman: “Crap!”

I don’t think the Miss USA pageant should have a contestant from the District of Columbia. I’m sure that she may very well live in the city, but the contest should only have one contestant for each of the 50 states. If it becomes an issue of discrimination, then let her be eligible to compete in both Maryland and Virginia.

Yesterday I did something very out of character for me.

I was working on a project in my database class with my group. Unfortunately the project isn’t coming as well as I’d hoped for it to be and I began to feel a little frustrated. After spending 2 hours working on this project and ultimately getting nowhere, I started to get fed up.

Its a hard project and I feel that my group may have bitten off more than we can chew.

Apparently I wasn’t doing well enough expressing my frustration because my group members started questioning each other on how much progress we had made. I explained to them that the part that I was working on was sort of the most important part. If we didn’t have this part then the rest of the project would be a worthless pile of garbage. I then also expressed my concern that we should concentrate our efforts on getting this specific part of the project finished because the rest would be a cakewalk.

One of the other group members apparently did not see it my way. He felt that we needed to spend our time adding more data into our database. Although this is sort of important, its just filler and it has no effect on our grade whatsoever. So to better illustrate my point of what I was feeling, he had spent the last 2 hours that I was beating my head on the desk trying to figure out this difficult part our of project with useless filler data and now he wanted the rest of the group to work on it as well.

It was then that I decided that I didn’t want to work on our project anymore. I had another group project for a different class that I had to work on, and I needed to meet with them sometime that night as well. So I just got up, told my group that I wasn’t dong this anymore tonight and I would fix this stupid database myself. Then I just walked out of class.

Like I said, this is definitely out of character for me.

It wasn’t until that night when I told Heather about what I had done did I realize that I had been a “dick”. Of course I realized this when she pointed it out to me. (I was still mad at the time)

Ultimately, I just let my frustration with this project and the pressure of finishing my other project get to me. I realize now that what I did wasn’t really the best thing to do, but I’m only human. However, I do know when I’m wrong and I’m not ashamed to admit it. I got up this morning and I sent an email to all my group members telling them that I was sorry for what happened. Hopefully we’ll be able to put it behind us and get our project finished.

Replace the word contractor with intern in the comic and it would be about me.

All week long I’ve been feeling a little under the weather. I haven’t felt “bad”, just not quite right. It’s actually been rough enough to prevent me from running all week.Today when I got up and my nose was congested and I felt like crap I realized why. It’s allergy season again.

You would think I would have known by now. This only happens twice a year every year. I think I’ll go get my Allegra prescription refilled sometime this week.

1. My fish tank has become a “muck making machine”.
2. I somehow sliced my tongue today and it stings every other second.
3. People don’t like long posts on blogs.

Sorry if you took the time to read my last entry and you felt that you didn’t get your money’s worth. I just felt like writ ting something other than, “guess what else bad happened to me”.

Also here’s a picture to look at:

Although this story is entirely made up, I imagine that things probably happened this way

In 1756 my Great Great Great Grandfather, Jebadia H. Roberson, migrated to the rolling hills of what would soon become Middle Tennessee. Originally making is fortune in Massachusetts selling horses, he decided to move south and buy up large amounts of land in preparation for a massive horse farm.

While scouting prospective restate he fell ill and collapsed somewhere deep in the uncharted wilderness. Luckily for him, he was found by some members of a tribe of Crow Indians out on a hunting party. They took him in and nursed him back to health.

While in the care of the Crow Indian tribe, Jebadia and the daughter of the chief fell deeply in love. Of course being a man of great importance in his community, the chief would have nothing to do with the idea of his daughter marrying a white man outside of his race.

Of course as all stories of this nature go, Jebadia and the daughter of the Indian chief ran off together and became husband and wife. However, unlike most stories of this nature this one does not have a happy ending.

Apparently the Indian chief was also a powerful medicine man who sometimes dabbled in very dark magic. Hurt by the actions of Jebadia and his daughter, the Indian chief decided that he would use all his power to take his revenge on my Great Great Great Grandfather. The Indian chief conjured a grand scheme to invoke a curse that would cause Jebadia and his descendants to suffer from strands and strands of terrible luck.
However, realizing that lesser men would crumble under the stress of the enormous misfortunes that were about to be bestowed on my Great Great Great Grandfather, the Indian chief feared for the safety of his only daughter. Although angry with her, he worried that Jebadia would become so depressed or enraged that he might cause harm his daughter, for this reason the Indian chief decided that he would also curse the Roberson family to be oddly optimistic even in times of great misfortune. Therefore this ensured that even as the world Jebadia had built crumbled beneath him, he would somehow still remain cheery and pleasant in hopes of better days.

As time passed Jebadia’s horses passed, his well dried up, his fields wilted, and his money eventually faded away. He was eventually left with only what he could afford from the odd jobs he acquired from caring people that offered a helping hand to the cheery man who always looked on the bright side.

As the curse continues down through the generations of Robersons it is slowly weaning itself away. However, to this day as soon as one of us gets a little bit ahead, some misfortune comes along and swipes it away from us. Yet we still continue to believe that it will be ok, no matter how rough it gets.

It’s because of all of this that yesterday when I found out that its going to cost another $800 to fix my car’s break problems and then broke my cell phone when it fell out of my pocket, I remained fairly cool. It’s in my nature to expect these things and not let them get to me when they do occur.

This is my curse.

If you’ve got a free minute check out my mom’s page where she is raising money for charity: http://www.firstgiving.com/deborahgoodman.

Kati and I just went on a 10 mile run down the Natchez Trace. About two miles into the run I started to get a case of “the runner’s squirts”. Apparently all that bouncing up and down really does a number on your insides. However, I kept going.

Run and run and then run some more and I’m just about to the end of the 10 miles. By now I’m in agony and every step is causing my stomach to writhe in pain. I’m running now because I have to go and I have to go because I’m running. Its a terribly vicious cycle that’s bringing me closer and closer to a horribly embarrassing situation.

It was so bad in a few spots that I thought about going off into the woods. However, the leaves still haven’t quite come in yet and I didn’t feel like running without my socks. I had to press on.

Chris, this guy and I work with, and I were talking the other day about the best way to save for our kid’s college fund. Although neither of us have kids, we sometimes talk about things like this. I’ll tell you his great idea about credit cards some other day.

My idea to save for your kids college fund is easy. The day your kid is born, set up your paycheck to automatically have $20 a week deducted and put into a savings account. With no interest applied to this whatsoever, in 18 years you will have saved up $18,720. Although this is probably not enough to send your kid to college for 4 years, it’s a good start.

I realize that there are better way to save for these important things but it is an idea to think about. Not to mention if you get this small college fund saved up and then your kid gets a scholarship, you can buy a boat.