O'Guinnicus.com

Since the beginning of my internship at Motorola, I've been really tired. I can't tell if it's the waking up early every morning, or if it's the stress of trying to do a good enough job to make some sort of impression, but the whole ordeal is incredibly tiring.

Which is not to say that it's unrewarding. I've learned a lot so far about volatility and instability in a Fortune 500 company. When talking to a host in the newly-opened Innovation Center the other day, I was dumbfounded to learn that his co-worker (who I had talked to a day before) had been the most recent victim of Motorola's workforce reduction. I imagine that there are thousands of stories just like mine all around the company.

In any case, I can't imagine a more productive or educational use of my summer. My experiences so far have been nothing short of fantastic and unbelievable. It's still incredibly humbling to walk out of the elevator into the hallway of the seventh floor and look through the Motorola "batwing" logos that adorn each conference room door and see the faint outline of Chicago in the distance. It is a reminder of how lucky I really am to have such an opportunity, and how it just as easily could have been someone else feeling this way instead of me.

Posted by Jameson at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since this site sometimes pretends to be a personal weblog, I try and keep it updated at least semi-periodically. Unfortunately, I typically fail miserably, and recently it's been for no good reason. I've often felt overwhelmed this semester by an underwhelming amount of schoolwork, stressed by a relatively stress-free time in my life, and concerned about things that aren't really deserving of my time. And in the midst of all the non-chaos, I've been neglecting the important things: assignments, letters to Mike, Foxfire work, LSAT preparation.

But what a difference a day makes.

Continue reading "The Promised Update" »

Posted by Jameson at 5:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Let me first say that I can't even believe how incredibly awesome my website looks on the 15" MacBook Pro glossy screen. Words cannot describe it. Too bad I want to change the CSS.

The apartment that Mark and I have moved into, along with Stuart (a kid from my International Relations class last fall) and Jon (a guy in my fraternity) is pretty nice, save the fact that the Illinois basketball players that lived here all last year did a number on all the desks and floor lamps. It's party central, but more on that later.

Classes are going to be tough this year, that much is certain. In one class we are reading three different texts simultaneously, while reading at least one book per other class, meaning that at any time I could be reading and trying to retain upwards of seven books. I'm not complaining, just observing.

So, as the year starts, I'm already getting tired of the partying. Mark, Jon, and Stuart aren't; not that there's anything wrong with that. Yet as the year starts and I find things out about people that I thought I knew, I'm glad that I'm here in Champaign and not back in Alton comiserating on the past. Special thanks to Sarah for the good conversation today; way to keep me on my toes.

Posted by Jameson at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In case you were wondering what to get me for my 21st birthday (which occurs on August 17th), I have compiled a list available here. Happy hunting.

Posted by Jameson at 1:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tomorrow the fam and I are going to Philadelphia for 8 days. As far as I'm concerned, there's no better place to spend the 4th. I'll have my computer, so I'll be sure to update. Mostly for Sarah. She's the only one that reads this anyway.

Posted by Jameson at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The last couple days have been a little hectic. From buying a pellet gun for Greg's remake of Cells to finishing my first Foxfire Agency project to mixing and dispensing of some fake blood, it's been a little crazy. Last night was the first time that I had ever really been around people who were acting in a movie, and I have to tell you, it was a bit weird. I guess it's odd for me to see people get worked up for something that isn't real.

Cells should drop in a month or so; I'm looking forward to it. Major props to Greg, Sarah, Adam, and James for their skills, and a big thanks to Nikki for use of the apartment.

Posted by Jameson at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I went into work today (FYE at St. Claire Sq, for those of you who don't know) and put in my two weeks. And with that ends my month-long tenure at my first job with a corporately owned company since Target in 2002. Here are some classic things that happened while working there that I probably won't forget for at least another two or three weeks:

• This lady, obviously on a Schedule II drug of some sort, comes in. She asks one of the guys to go grab her a DVD. While he's on the other side of the store, she's asking him to grab more and more DVDs, albeit under her breath. He never heard her. When her thirst for horrible rap DVDs was finally quenched, she paid with money that was procured from her bra, euphorically laughing and nearly falling over. She didn't even use the traditional "through-the-neck-of-the-shirt" approach, opting instead for the "under-the-shirt-from-the-bottom" style. Points were awarded for originality.
• Some kid comes in, buys a Panic! At the Disco CD. About half an hour later, a lady comes in to exchange a Panic! CD. The exchange is put through without my knowledge. Five minutes after she leaves, the kid returns, nearly in tears, to tell me that someone has pilfered his purchase. I tell him tough cookies and send him on my way. The manager on duty asks what he was looking for, I tell him, and he informs me that the old lady that had just left had returned his Panic! CD (he could tell because of the purchase date and the fact that it was from my register). Long story short, that lady snagged his CD and returned it for cash. Sure the kid deserved to have something mildly bad happen to him for buying horrible music, but that's just wrong. The moral? Old ladies, not teenagers, are what make this country suck sometimes.
• I get written up twice. In one day. I've never been written up at a job once, let alone twice in one day.

Posted by Jameson at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

If you can't already tell, I'm having trouble deciding if I want the titles on entries to be properly capitalized or lowercase. I guess that it really doesn't matter. Anyway.

I officially started my search for a summer job today. I filled out an application for Dierberg's online, then headed to Slacker's and FYE to turn in paper applications. I got the feeling that I wouldn't really have as easy a time fitting in either place as I did at Music Biz, but I guess that's not a big issue. At Slacker's, they were playing some really bad punk music, which was a contrast to my purchase of a Fire Theft vinyl single and the new Maritime. The guy looked at me like I was nuts, and I couldn't help but wonder if that was the same look I had on my face when people were buying Bright Eyes.

And while we're at it, let's talk about Bright Eyes.

Continue reading "A job search and a quick talk" »

Posted by Jameson at 10:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's been what could be classified as a terrible week. However, I am not one to let adversity keep me down. After a run in with the long arm of the law, a huge disappointment by way of missing my favorite band in their only reasonably priced midwestern date, three consecutive days of stealing internet from the Jewish center across the street because Insight is "migrating their servers," and a relatively unsavory sub-leasing deal, I soundly rebounded today with a B+ on a research paper for which I did no research, an appointment to the Illinois Student Senate Appropriations Committiee, a complete overhaul of the home page (including some bold ColdFusion code, if I do say so myself), and the construction of this extremely long sentence.

Continue reading "The Hiatus of the Year" »

Posted by Jameson at 1:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My first entire year at the University of Illinois is nearly complete. At the end of it, I will have improved my GPA (albeit slightly), gotten and broken up with a girlfriend, shut down my old xanga site, built a professional site for myself, started a political blog, and completely renovated my old website. In retrospect, it hasn't been a bad year at all.

The summer is already shaping up to be an interesting one. Mom, Eric, Nick and I are taking a trip out to Philadelphia at some point over the summer. This could facilitate a brief romp through Philly proper with Scott, even though he lives in Boston. On July 25, Mike, Dan Reid, and I will all be heading up to the University of Michigan for NOAC 2006. I'll see Carl for a few days, I'll see Greg for a few more, and I'm sure I'll catch Allison for a bit while she's home.

As for the rest of the year, I have a 3,000-5,000 word paper due tomorrow. This marks the first time in college, outside of a foreign language class, that I've been given a target number of words instead of a page count. Anyway, it's tentaviely titled Diamonds Are a Rebel's Best Friend: Security Concerns in Sub-Saharan Africa. I also have a five page paper for Political Theory due sometime next week, and two finals to study for. It's all coming to a close, and I can't say that I'm disappointed.

Posted by Jameson at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So what? Scott at The Document hardly ever updates, yet I hear nary a complaint. Don't fret, dear reader(s); as soon as I'm back in O'Fallon, I have vowed to redo the stylesheets and layout so that it doesn't look quite as cookie-cutter. Once that's complete, it's regular updates.

In other news, Carl came to the U of I this past weekend. A good time was had by all. Congratulations to Carl for being able to utilize his ID and for his first visit to a true college bar. Also, Mike Halbrook and I were assigned to be the Communications Tsars (thanks to Scott for the over-inflated title suggestion) for National Order of the Arrow Shows, a task which I'm a little too excited to start on, and Halbrook is probably (and understandably so) less than enthusiastic to realize.

Posted by Jameson at 3:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I woke up today and realized that I didn't have a presentation due in National Security Policy, I took the opportunity to sleep in. What started out as a little nap soon turned into an all day affair. By the time I woke up at 2:30, I was well aware of the fact that I had pretty much just wasted an entire day,

I did a lot to try and salvage it, though. I called Chris Sullivan to find out what had been done and what needed to be done about the Vigil selection committee, I printed off scholarship applications and the readings for class, and I headed over to KDR to get my picture taken for the composite.

At Bar Louie Mark, Adam, and I sat down for some $1 burgers. The bouncer either incorrectly ID'd me or was in a super-good mood, because he gave me an over 21 wristband, Afterward we watched The Chronicles of Narnia for the movie part of our Tuesday night tradition. I haven't read the books in years, and upon later discussion with Eric Stolze, hadn't quite realized when I was younger how obvious the symbolism was. I mean, it's bad enough that there's a messianic tiger, but the eventual head of state's name is Peter. Anyway, it's just so odd how it all seems so obvious now, but when I read the books, I really didn't care about the Jesus factor, I just thought it was badass that four kids and some mythical animals beat them some ass.

Posted by Jameson at 1:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)