Fishin on the Fourth

Got up early to avoid traffic/crowds and for a good minus tide to get out to some different rocks to fish. Landed 5-6 perch and a smelt and had a few more that got off. I had a bigger rod further out hoping for a shark or something that would fight better but no bites, but thats why they call it fishing not catching.

While fishing I started thinking about how people meet, I tend to think I look pretty unapproachable, I kind of have a constant look of disgust while out in public, and for no real reason other than habit I wear all black. When I look at others I always worry that talking to them will somehow inconvenience them, if they are in a hurry, and I ask them for directions or something, they might not want to be rude and help, so I generally don't bother people unless it is obvious they have nothing to do.  Then I started thinking about various people I either met online or talk to online but haven't seen them in many years, or something I don't have experience with but I think about when other people mention it, online dating. So much of what we think about people is based on out first impression of them, and generally that is their appearance. Where as online you might get to know someones personality before you even know what they look like, and at least for me, personality is far more important than appearance. I have talked to some people about this and they seem to think it is an unnatural thing to be friends with people you have never met face to face, almost as if they are imaginary people. What do you guys think? I think with the amount of time people spend online it is only natural and will only increase.

Holiday Traffic.

So with the holiday weekend and the nice weather here, everyone is outside going to the beaches and I guess anywhere other then their houses. I wanted to go fishing but the traffic was pretty bad, tried to get to a new spot but after 15 minutes in traffic that hardly moved and about an hour to go I turned around and went to the normal spot, but there was no parking so I came home and decided to sit in the yard and work on my reels and tie up some leaders for the next trip. I guess it was an okay day.

I forgot about making a twitter before the break so I figure I will update that, at least with new blog posts. http://twitter.com/#!/RemoteRumbles

Hobbies

I've been thinking a lot about a hobby I would like to get into. There were some conditions:
1. Not too expensive, I really don't have any spare money so the cheaper the better.
2. Some element of danger, other then a paper cut or inhaling too much glue.
3. Something that most people have seen or heard of so I can use it in conversations.
4. Putting me in contact with people, something where I need to go outside.

So with that in mind I looked at things I have done before, or have some interest in.
1. Rock climbing - Have enough gear to go to gyms and climb but nothing suitable for outdoor climbing.
2. Auto racing - Could get a car pretty cheap to work on, but there are no tracks nearby other than a drag strip
3. Surfing - I have a knee board I can use, and a wetsuit.
4. Fishing - I guess this could already be one of my hobbies but I kind of stopped doing it.
5. Offroad motorcycling - Have a motorcycle and gear.

There were some other but I can't seem to remeber them now. I think I am going to get back into fishing. There are a lot of sharks and such near where I live so I think I will target them rather than the smaller stuff. I figure I will make me go to the beach, and there are people there, so maybe I could talk to them. Also Sharks fight pretty good so that should be fun, and pulling a shark out of the water is sure to get peoples attention, and fisherman(hopefully women) always want to talk about fishing so well see how that goes.

I have gone fishing the last 3 days, and plan to go the next 2, so far the fishing has all been on secluded rocks that most normal people wouldn't climb so I hardly saw anyone, and the fishing was pretty slow, but it is much better then sitting around at home.

That took longer than I thought it would.

Well that was a long but I think necessary break from not only blogging but "Life" in general. After writing so many papers for school that looking back at were a waste of time except for getting a grade (they did nothing to make me further understand the topics they were about) I was pretty tired of sitting down and writing. The concrete guy I was working for turned out to be not entirely truthful about the hiring process, turns out he over hires, sees which people show up the most, then fires everyone else. So going to school meant I hardly ever was able to work and didn't make the cut. Then I started to realize that many of the people I had gone to school with were graduating, getting jobs, married, having kids; I got pretty demotivated for a few weeks, I have pretty much wasted 4 years going to school, constantly changing majors trying to find something that I could live with. I think the final thing was a realization about The World of Warcraft; I have devoted almost all of my free time to WoW, so when I moved to a new city leaving the few friends I had hundreds of miles away, rather than going out a meeting new people, I sat inside with the guild. Well when the guild feel apart, some of the friends I had made simply quit the game, and others moved on to other guilds I am not really comfortable with. On top of that some relationships greater than friendships developed between some of these people, leaving me feeling like a 3rd wheel of sorts. So all of that left me pretty discouraged and I don't want to say depressed but I guess that is the word that fits. After a few weeks, a couple weeks of vacation and camping and mostly thinking, I think I can use it all as something positive. WoW has become incredibly boring to me, I still log on to see whats going on, but it seems without hardcore play I really have nothing to talk to my friends about. I am trying to find ways to meet some new people which is somewhat difficult because I don't drink or do drugs and can't stand being around people who are inebriated, and living in a college towns means that is how most people relax. Also sitting inside leaves me with nothing to do now, So I am trying to find some outdoor hobbies that might put me in contact with possible friends. I want to continue this blog but not having any clear topic is also more problematic then I thought it would be. I was thinking I could write my philosophy on life and how people should act, but that would probably be boring and get me in trouble. So maybe one of my potential hobbies with lead to a good topic.

Prescription drugs.

So kind of a continuation of last weeks post. Why do you need a prescription for prescription drugs. When I have talked to people about this it seems the 2 main concerns were people using the wrong medication for their ailment, or people abusing the drugs. As far as I can tell any drug worth abusing is already readily available on the street, if people want experiment with this stuff they will find a way to do it. The concern about people self medicating I can kind of understand, it seems there is a lot of concern about people not taking a full course of antibiotics which can make some drug resistant infections. However I think most of us will take a pill for a headache without consulting a doctor, and if we have left over pills for a previous prescription we will take those if similar symptoms occur. Growing up I had a re-occurring illness, seemed every 2 months I was going to the doctor, hardly did any examination wrote the prescription and sent me on my way. My parents knew what was wrong with me, the doctor knew what was wrong with me, but I still had to go in to get the prescription, seems like a waste of time and money. On the other hand I can see people go to the drug store and buying the wrong thing and causing themselves some problems. I guess I see it as just another way for people to meddle in our lives. I like to imagine people that didn't know what was wrong with them would go to the doctor and find out, and those of us that already knew could skip that step and just get what we need. So what do you think, am I crazy for thinking people would be responsible enough for this? 

Harder than I thought.

My previous blogs have all failed because I lost interest, no so much the case with this one, just so busy. I have been looking for a summer job, hopefully something that would keep me in shape and such. Well I found something that would do that, concrete work, but the owner said they are hiring now and if I waited till summer to start they would probably have to hire someone else. Luckily they aren't too busy right now, so I am able to work afternoons when I don't have school. Anyone that has worked with concrete knows it is a pretty tiring endeavor, it is also pretty abrasive to your hands, So I have been getting home at night, and pretty much failing asleep at my desk working on homework, I also managed to turn my alarm off 3 days in a row without even waking up, luckily my brother has been around to knock me out my chair.

Kind of a continuation of my previous post about laws. I saw a documentary about smugglers, I think it was a BBC thing. Basically following customs along as the intercept drug/tobacco/merchandise smugglers.  What I found interesting is that most of the reasons I have heard about why drugs are illegal is because of harm it causes to people/families/society. In this show I don't remember any mention this, every time they found something they explained it as a monetary value. Marijuana, heroin, etc they gave a street price, and tobacco they all explained how the smugglers were "bad people" because the taxes they wouldn't have paid were taking away from schools and road work. So it kind of made me wonder, Do governments really care about the possible "decay of society" because of drug use, or is it all just about lost revenue from taxes? Also I have done any research into how much money is spent on customs enforcement but I wonder if it ends up costing more than the lost taxes from smugglers.

Laws

I have been thinking a lot about laws and why we follow them. At least form my point of view there aren't many laws I would want to break, and the ones I would mostly involving gun control, I know the penalties and don't want to risk it. However things like murder, I would imagine most of use view murder as wrong but it still happens. Do murders simple not care if they are caught, or they don't think they will be, or maybe they are willing to risk it? I think a lot of what I believe to be right and wrong came from my parents also growing up I went to a small school and was shy so I think I avoided a lot of peer pressure. I know it might be kind of personal and possibly incriminating, but what do you guys think, do you break laws you don't agree with and is possibly getting caught really a deterrence?