George Carlin’s Views on Aging

George Carlin on aging!
(Absolutely Brilliant)

George Carlin’s Views on Aging

Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we’re kids? If you’re less than 10 years old, you’re so excited about aging that you think in fractions.

‘How old are you?’ ‘I’m four and a half!’ You’re never thirty-six and a half. You’re four and a half, going on five! That’s the key.

You get into your teens, now they can’t hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead.

‘How old are you?’ ‘I’m gonna be 16!’ You could be 13, but hey, you’re gonna be 16! And then the greatest day of your life! You become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony. YOU BECOME 21. YESSSS!!!

But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk! He TURNED; we had to throw him out. There’s no fun now, you’re Just a sour-dumpling. What’s wrong? What’s changed?

You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you’re PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it’s all slipping away.. Before you know it, you REACH 50, and your dreams are gone…

But! wait!! ! You MAKE it to 60. You didn’t think you would!

So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50, and make it to 60.

You’ve built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that, it’s a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday!

You get into your 80′s, and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30; you REACH bedtime. And it doesn’t end there. Into the 90s, you start going backwards; ‘I Was JUST 92.’

Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. ‘I’m 100 and a half!’
May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!!

HOW TO STAY YOUNG

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay them.

2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.

3.Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever, even ham radio. Never let the brain idle. ‘An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.’ And the devil’s family name is Alzheimer’s.

4. Enjoy the simple things.

5.. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.

6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person, who is with us our entire life, is ourselves Be ALIVE while you are alive.

7. Surround yourself with what you love , whether it’s family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.

8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.

9. Don’t take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country, but NOT to where the guilt is..

10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.
AND, ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
And, if you don’t send this to at least 8 people – who cares? But do share this with someone. We all need to live life to its fullest each day!!

Life’s journey is not to
arrive at the grave safely
in a well preserved body,
but rather to skid in sideways,
totally used up and worn out, shouting
‘…man, what a ride!

ID

What is design? This is a question I ask myself almost every day, as part of my major but also as part of my life. As an Industrial Design major I look at products of all different kinds and learn things which to be honest I never really wanted to know. Whether it be manufacturing processes, material selection, ergonomics, or one of hundreds of other topics…it just sometimes feels all too overwhelming. Where went the days of just wanting to sketch cool looking things.

At the same time, however, I find things that much more interesting. After listening to a lecture by Karim Rashid I’ve slowly realized just how much around me in my every day activities could be designed better or differently. I’m searching for a way to make this summer more productive, whether it be an internship or just side projects. I always feel like I could be doing more in the world of design and I’m really searching for those things.

Photography becomes a whole other story. I feel like I’m hitting a wall right now and I’m just trying to rethink things so I can get the creative juice flowing and start to like the things I’m doing that much more.

Who knows  what this summer has in store, but despite a hurting economy I have my hopes. Lets see where it all goes.

Been a while

well its been over half a year since my last entry. I barely use this blog, but I really should start using it more, especially for random thoughts and what not. Well as a small recap, I got a 3.4 gpa this past semester, “hired” by TarMag based out of the UK and am now less then a month away from my 1 year anniversary with Kelsey. Through promotion and photoshoots my business has become more well known around campus and I am getting a lot more work then I ever did in the past two years. I am aiming to intern in California again this summer and I have to say that I am finally starting to feel more like a designer. This is the first year where I am sketching every single day and actually have random ideas come to mind. Along with all of this I am going to try to start doing some web design. Need to start learning script, but I know I can do it if I put my mind to it. So if you got a free minute and actually read my blog check out a few of my sites and places where my work has been published.

www.flickr.com/photos/ggphotography

doublegx3.deviantart.com

tarmag.co.uk (October issue has my work)

myspace.com/imaginestylephotography

it was time…

it was time…to finally write again!

So I realized that I never use this blog…but I think that is about to change. I’ve realized that lately I just really need to free my head in order to calm down and that is not possible most of the time aside form blogging. So here we go, a recap of the last few months…

January brought around the new year and a new course load down at school, Southern Illinois University. All things considered it was quite what I was expecting. Long hours and late nights dealing with all aspects of Industrial Design. Frustration and procrastination as I sat around not wanting to do my self-portraits for figure drawing. More procrastination and nearly no studying as art history tests and papers came and went. Oh and of course one could not forget the biology class whose lectures were pointless to go to and Friday labs which were so hard to get up for that I could have probably failed the class if not for an amazing grad student. So to end with an A, 2 B’s and 2 C’s I really can’t complain.

January also brought a new person into my life…or I guess I should say an old friend back into my life. As my family spent a week at our condo in Phoenix I decided that it was time to meet up with our old family friend. Our families have known each other since before I or her were born, but the last time we saw each other was at 6 years old and we’ve only been talking for a good year or two now. My dad surprisingly bought me a ticket to fly out to Long Beach, CA to spend a day with her. Just to prove our parents wrong in the idea that we would one day get married we wanted to hate each other…well not hate but just not really be each others type. Well that didn’t work out too well. On February 14th, yes valentine’s day, Kelsey flew out to see me at school and we’ve been together since. Talk about a distant relationship while in college. Things have been difficult, especially now (will explain later), but she is by far the most amazing girl I’ve ever known and its looking like our parents could have been right from the very beginning…talk about weird.

Spring break this year consisted of spending the whole thing with Kelsey in California, which was amazing. At times frustrating as she was still in school at the time which resulted in days of me sitting around having to find my own stuff to do, but that also resulted in meeting some awesome break dancers from CSULB.

To sum up a month or two…my fraternity got second place in our schools annual variety show as we paired up with the ladies of Alpha Gamma Delta. We won best choreography and music! Now its just going to be my turn to take the position of running it this coming year, wish me luck. We had our Red Carnation Ball (RCB) in St. Louis, which was amazing especially since Kelsey flew out for it once again.

The end of the year was an assortment of late nights and long days full of an insane amount of school work once again, but let us not forget also the search for summer work. What started with a few emails changed into mass emailing, calling and conversations with my professor. I knew that this summer I either wanted to have an internship in Chicago or possibly make my way out to California, but Chicago was looking like the more likely choice. Surprisingly I received a message from my professor indicating that he might have a possibility for me to work for a Southern alumni out in the LA area. Well of course I jumped on that immediately which brings me to now.

As I write this blog I am currently sitting in what would normally be my girlfriend’s room at her parents house. I did indeed get that internship in California and will be out here for the whole summer. In fact I have gone from having the internship with Line 6, inc. to possibly having a second with Steve Saleen, of Saleen motors, who broke off to start a new in devour. I will be working almost every day of the week hopefully and spending the weekends helping Kelsey’s parents with stuff around the house, putting their VW Ghia back together with Kelsey’s dad or going to car shows. Yet here is where everything gets interesting…Kelsey isn’t here. Kelsey is off in Europe for six weeks on a Cal State Long Beach architecture/industrial design trip. I was so excited for her to be going and I wanted her to have a great time…but that was before I found out I’d be out here for the whole summer as well. I still want her to have a great time, but to be living in her parent’s house, sleeping and sitting on the bed where she normally would be is just killing me. She is in Prague, which is a 9 hour time difference…so as I write this at 1:25am it is in fact 10:25am for her. I almost never get to talk to her and it is driving me absolutely insane, resulting in the need to really just blog. I absolutely love this girl and I trust her more then I have ever trusted anyone before, but right now I’m just going insane. Most nights she doesn’t get back until around 3am at the earliest and it just makes me wonder what the hell are they all doing out that late. To make things even harder when she has the chance to leave me just a small hello or I love you or anything for that matter she isn’t taking it, which just kills me. I really hope these next 5 weeks go by fast and easy because if they’re anything like this past week this will be my weirdest summer ever as I am in one of my favorite places in the world and am absolutely going crazy with frustration. I’m exhausted when I get home from work leaving me with no energy to really do the things I like. I know really no one around here who I could go hangout with and don’t get me wrong I absolutely love her parents, but hell I’m turning 20 a week from today and will probably have not a single friend to spend my birthday with. If this is what getting older is like hell I hope everything can slow down soon because the past two years of college have just flown by as a single blur.

Oh and to top things off I’ve decided I need to take control of my life again. I’m going to get back into shape hopefully running every morning and eating right. Financially I’m going to hopefully figure a few things out, investing in a car with my brother and really getting my photography stuff going. I keep saying it, but now I really plan on doing it. If I can make enough this summer I really want to get into a few things that I’ve been wanting to for a while such as starting to DJ. On top of all this I’ve decided to take dancing as seriously as time will allow and take classes and really put breaking and popping into parts of my workout routine.

To say the least I’m hoping that with hitting 20 I will finally hit a point in my life where I can be in control of most of the things I would like to be.

Fall Break

So it is absolutely amazing how life can go sometimes. About 3 months ago I broke up with my girlfriend but things were still active between us. We fought constantly trying to make things better between us, whether that be as us in a relationship or as friends. The reason why I didn’t want things anymore was because I really just didn’t feel like I had the time for a relationship that she wanted. Between class work, my photography and then the fraternity things were just getting really busy. Well it all ended pretty much on a Thursday night when I went to my fraternity’s house to party. Called up this very cute girl to come party and have fun not thinking anything of it. Well as the night progressed we kept getting closer and closer. Long story short is that this past Sunday just before leaving for Puerto Rico on Monday I went to her house and met her family, well at least a small portion of it. Since then we have hit it off really well and I feel amazing. Of course though the day after the party the X asked what had happened so I explained as much as possible. Until two nights ago I thought she hated me and never wanted to talk to me again. Next thing I know, however, is she calls me wanting to makes things better. In the end I am talking to her about the new girl and how involved we already are, and get this…she is totally supportive of it. I guess this just goes to prove that the X is as amazing of a girl as I thought she was when I first met her. I hope that we can be friends for a long time to come.

On another note though after that Sunday night with the new girl I left for Puerto Rico, where I am currently typing this blog. It is absolutely beautiful here! I have spent so much time just relaxing and thinking about stuff when it comes to life and school. I continue to get to know the new girl better every day and right now all I can think about is how nice it will be to get back to school and have her in my arms. I find it really interesting how in life things can be extremely bad one minute but then work out amazingly the next. I wasn’t looking for a relationship or really anyone new in my life, but somehow I feel like I found the perfect girl. Weird to say considering I barely know her, but the fact is that when I spend time with her it is absolutely amazing in every way I could imagine. She is so carefree that I never worry about anything, which is how it should truly be. I feel like sometimes I need to blog more and hopefully I will. I guess lately I have had a lot of good things happening so we’ll see how that keeps up when I get back to school this next week.

first

Well I have thought for some time about starting a blog. I never got around to it on my website, but I decided I wanted to on here. I am right now just in a drain of energy and life. I can’t wait to get my camera and lenses back so I can start taking pictures again and I just hope I can go home soon and see the family. I miss when life was more simplistic.