Another Spawn of the Devil - APA

Have you ever written a paper requiring APA format?

I'm in the process of writing four of them right now.

Who comes up with this stuff?

I think I'm spending as much time making sure I follow all the arbitrary rules as I am on trying to write quality content.

I think I might call it an early night tonight...

Our Apartment

I've tried to describe the layout of our apartment to a few people, and I've found it kind of difficult to explain well...so maybe the floor plan above will help.

Notice how there are two vanity sinks outside of the bathroom...I love it! Room 1 is the living room. We have our couch pushed up against the wall that borders rooms 1 & 2, all the way in the corner toward the window. Our TV stand is on the opposite wall, directly across from the couch. We've claimed room 3 as the bedroom and room 2 as the office.

Our apartment faces the street - when we look out the window (any window...they all look out in the same direction) we see the Pizza Hut right across the street and the Boise Train Depot on a hill in the distance. And the lit up Charlie Frog Schools daycare.

The apartment complex basically consists of four posts (with three floors of apartments within each "post"...I've taken to referring to each floor as a "pod") with a courtyard type thing in the middle. In the courtyard you'll find a plastic slide-kids-playground thingy, a couple of picnic tables, a grill, and our mailboxes. In addition to our individual mailboxes, there's a bigger mailbox for receiving packages...but that doesn't get used because someone (I'm thinking one of the kids) has filled it with sticks. It's basically been that way since we moved in.

So that's our apartment situation.

On a side note, I met a certified handwriting analyst last week.

busy busy busy

hey everyone,

it's been a busy last couple of days. Shelley started her Saturday class and I've picked up some extra hours. So, we haven't really had much time to post, but I promise I'll be posting in the next couple days.

-kaz

just a quick note

I was thinking about words today. Specifically the names for things. Like loofa. I don't even know if that's how you spell it. Where does that word come from? Was there a Mr. or Mrs. Loofa that invented or discovered it? I remember how hilarious I thought it was when I found out that the leotard is named after it's inventor. Whatever happened to the Leotard family? Are there any Leotards left in France? Is the leotard on the family crest? They all probably changed their names. I would have. Leotard sounds like something someone would call you behind your back. "Man that guy just can't seem to get it together. What a leotard."

Anyway, I was going to write more but I'm really tired so I'll have to save it for tomorrow. Alex brought up a point that Shelley's profile has many more hits than mine. I intend to explore this fully. My theory so far is that she is padding the numbers. Also, why is her name on top of the contributors list?????? It's not alphabetical. I don't get it. Mysterious forces are at work here folks.


oh, just a quick note here. Thanks for all the comments everyone. I've been trying to think of clever ways to respond so it doesn't seem so one-sided. I've thought of making a message board so we could respond directly to some of your questions. Anyway, thanks. We really appreciate the feedback.

Jeez, so much to comment on.

Oh yeah, has everyone heard that Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter died? Yes? I thought so. Well let me be the last to tell you. I was listening to some program which said that the toxin in the sting of a giant stingray isn't really that bad for humans, it's the fact that the stinging barb can be up to 18 inches long!!!!! wow.

ok, before I go here's some stuff I will be commenting on. I'm telling you now so I don't forget:

the word 'hoodie' and how it annoys me so
my recent frustrating attempt to buy jeans
plus more stories about some of my coworkers


Ugh, man I'm tired and now just rambling. To bed!

g'night
-kaz

A Few Observations

ABOVE: This shot looks down Capital Blvd. Our apartment is just to the left (not in the picture), the university is to the right, and downtown is straight ahead.

ODD: BSU (Boise State University) has this huge "Taco Bell Arena" on campus for special events...but oddly, there isn't an actual Taco Bell anywhere on campus.

SAFETY: Skateboarders - There are a lot of skateboarders (both male & female) around campus...which, in and of itself is fine...but some of them are clearly new to it and have serious balance issues to work on, so those folks are a major safety hazard on the sidewalks!

EVENT: There was a "World Potato Conference" at a nearby hotel last month.

BICYCLES: People are really into biking here...and into having custom-made bikes. So there's always lots of funky looking bikes all over the place. They're also really into having big wire baskets off the back end.

FIRES: I listed the names of a few fires in Idaho in a previous post. Here are two more with interesting names: Chubby Spain Fire and the Frenchie Fire.

DR. Z: The professor (I think he's a professor) across the hall from my office on campus sounds just like Dr. Z from the commercials...identical accent...identical voice.

PRONUNCIATION: Locals pronounce the city name as boy-see not boy-zee.

FLOPPY DRIVES: The textbook for my Performance Consulting class came with a floppy disk, which contains a variety of forms and templates that I'll need for class projects. Here's the thing - floppy drives basically don't exist anymore! My AWESOME new laptop doesn't have a floppy drive. Kaz's computer doesn't have a floppy drive. My computer on campus doesn't have a floppy drive. The computers in the student labs on campus don't have floppy drives. What is one to do???

That's all for now!

one for me and one for my homeys.......homies?.....no, homeys

hey everybody,

Well, it's been a fun week, if not exhausting, week. Here's a couple things that happened.

Randy hired a new guy who was coming out of a 7th month stretch of not working, getting divorced, having a nervous breakdown, blah blah blah. Too bad right? Well sure, at first, but then after working with him for the third day I started to not feel so sorry for the guy. He decides to grab some smokes during our afternoon break. I need some gatorade so we both head to the gas station. Did I mention that he needed to borrow money to get his cigarettes? Anyway, so I go and grab my gatorade and some cornnuts and get in line. I notice that he's decided to get some soda as well not just smokes. ' Hmmm', I think, I don't remember him asking to borrow money for soda as well, but whatever. So anyway he gets in line and within seconds says, 'hey do mind if I grab a six pack of beer too?' So, although I think it's a little weird to get beer at 4 in the afternoon I was really too tired to care. All I wanted to do was get this job done and head home. I had one hell of a headache. I say, 'sure whatever man.' He grabs the beer and we head back. As we drive the 5 minutes back to the jobsite I am surprised to look over and see has cracked open one of the beers and is happily sipping away. So I start to think that maybe the fact that his recent problems weren't just bad luck. He downs three of them in the next hour and a half. The next day he overslept 2 hours and then didn't get much work done because he had to go to a meeting with his probation officer. A rescheduled meeting that he missed the day before. Hey, guess what he was arrested for? C'mon, guess. That's right, it was a DUI! Anyway, I wasn't too surprised when Randy got rid of him the next day.

The other little excitement happened on Friday. I got in a little fender bender. Nothing serious. I was following one of the lead guys to a jobsite and the car in front of him slammed on its brakes for some reason. I was in the middle of accelerating and didn't see that he had stopped until it was too late. I hit the back of his trailer and left a perfect imprint of my liscense plate in the back door. Thankfully that seemed to be the extent of the damage. We'll see though. He's going to take it and get it checked out this weekend. Blah, I hate that feeling. I felt sheepish the whole rest of the day. He was really cool about the whole thing. He's a really easy going guy, but still you feel like such a moron after something like that happens.

However despite running into someone, and my interesting work partner for the beginning of the week, the week itself actually went really well. I'm really starting to get a hang of the job, and things are looking good.

that's all for now.

-kaz